Chapter 16
It takes almost two hours of showering before Harry manages to scrub the layers off long dried blood off his body, his entire torso howling in agony with every movement like the knife is digging into him all over again. His legs nearly give out on him within ten minutes, forcing him to sit under the water as his stiff and inexplicably sore arms scrub away. His pale skin is left with patchwork spans of raw, irritated red that feel as though scorching hot metal is being held to them.
He avoids looking at any of the fresh scars that glare up at him, dark against even the most irritated of his skin. It’s a particularly unwanted reminder of some core facts about his existence he doesn’t know if he’s entirely ready to cope with yet. But the thoughts have entered his head, seeming quite intent on remaining there.
He leans his head against the wall of the shower as his exhausted hands begin to pick flecks of blood out of his hair. All that time. All those years. Basically his entire life, he had spent so much time and energy just trying to be something his father would find good enough, something worth his love or affection. He’d thought for so long that if he were only less weak, less delicate, less useless, less stupid, less spineless, he’d be enough for his father. And it was all for nothing.
His fingertips are beginning to turn red from the caked blood in his hair, dark russet wedging itself under his nails.
At best, at the very best, his entire existence has been composed of and defined by being useful. Norman was never going to care because Harry wasn’t a person to him, wasn’t his son, Harry was just this… thing, this object Norman had made for his profit, for his benefit. Just like anything else OSCORP has produced. A product. An elaborate scam. And at worst, Harry was a punishment, a crystallization of Norman’s worst mistakes shoved in his face. A horrible, cursed thing that no sane person would be around if they knew what he was, an inherent hazard.
Harry would almost understand why his father had treated him so coldly all his life if it weren’t for the fact that it was Norman who did this to him. His fucking fault.
How ironic. His entire life has revolved around two people, the two most important men in his life. His father and Peter. And he’d thought… for so long, it has been a subconscious thought that he was just useful for Peter. The only companionship he could find in school. Then he’d been able to provide a free apartment, free housing. When he didn’t provide that to Peter anymore, Peter… stopped talking to him. No matter how hard Harry tried to keep in contact, to keep the most important person in his life close, he was just ignored. So of course when he’d had the chance to see Peter again, he’d had something to offer him. He could meet Otto, but only through Harry. Only if he spent time with the person who was supposed to be his best friend. Only if he didn’t feel so lonely.
And then he’d learned Peter had lied to his face for years. Manipulated him. Chosen to toss Harry to the side like a broken toy and protect the father who’d never cared about Harry rather than just be honest with him. That had hurt more than anything about Norman himself. And after they’d fought, after everything, after Peter had disfigured him and left him to die, he’d only come to Harry when he needed something. Didn’t apologize to him. Didn’t care if he was okay or not. Didn’t try to actually explain. He was there because he needed something.
But it was Peter. Good, noble, caring Peter. The hero. And after what Harry had done… he should just be doing whatever he can to redeem himself. And he loves Peter, doesn’t he? It had just felt right to, after everything he’d done, just give whatever was necessary to make Peter happy, expect nothing in return. He loved Peter, even if Peter didn’t seem to expend a scrap of care towards him back.
Convenient to die for him. Peter would inherit everything he set aside and get to be happy with the people he really cared about and get to bury the dead weight and if Harry was lucky, he’d get to die with the people he cared about and maybe they’d tell him things that made it feel like he was loved to comfort him as he died and ease their useless, unnecessary guilt. Because the only way someone like Harry got to be loved was as a tragedy. And Harry knew full well he couldn’t live without Peter. In turn, Peter had shown how easily he could live without Harry. It was the best option.
How funny that Peter had seemingly just sensed that Harry just existed to be a tool before even Harry knew?
He forces that thought process away, staring down at his body. As thin as it was when he first crawled out of the ground and skin destroyed by twice as many scars. He’d just died again. The thought feels distant, like he’s just thinking of what he ate last night. His body aches just as intensely, perhaps even more thoroughly painful with how recent and barely stitched together the life ending wounds are. Just leaning forward to turn the water off has him sucking air through his teeth, stomach twisting itself into knots at the feeling of the cuts in his stomach twisting and reopening ever so slightly.
He can’t even reach for a towel. He’s forced to drag his stiff, waterlogged body out by hand, arms aching at the limp weight they pull, collapsing onto the rock hard, comfortless surface of cold tiles. Pain wracks his body, the hand that clutches at his cut open stomach coming away slightly sticky and warm. Reopened. He’d be fine if he could just rest—he knows that—but he can’t even shower, can’t even get to bed on his own.
His mind, the cruel being it, seems tempted at the chance to mock him. He’d had help the last time he’d died. Other hands to help care for him, who’d been there if he needed it even when he got too stubborn to accept that help. It was undeserved. It’s weak to yearn for it again.
He needs it now.
But here he is anyways, he tells himself. No point in whining. He’s either taking care of it himself or staying miserable.
His throat tightens. He sounds like his dad.
Condensation covered scales wrap in loops around one of his arms. Six eyes are staring at him curiously, not totally understanding what’s happening but seeming to understand he’s upset. In pain. Then the snake moves away, the tip of its tail staying looped around his wrist, several seconds of silence passing before something thuds against the ground beside him and the snake's three heads peer down from the counter at him like an extremely earnest cat. He tilts his head. It knocked the first aid kit down.
“Thanks.” He paws at the thick, sturdier thread he shoved into it to shut deeper wounds. Painful, definitely not sterile like normal surgical thread, but gets the job done. Not like an infection can really mess him up much more anyways. He forces himself to sit up, bracing his back against the bottom of the sink, and prepares a thread and needle not meant for human flesh.
If he even qualifies as human anymore.
He can’t force himself to care that the skin around the reopened cut is soaked with blood. He doesn’t have the energy. There’s no energy in him, like it was torn from his body by a sponge, leaving him a dried, exhausted pile of bones in a desert. Just… get it shut. It doesn’t hurt much either, pressing the metal into the chasm in his skin, though it’s not like any part of him can hurt much more. It’s quite literally just a pinprick, a drop of water falling into an ocean. His shaky hands result in unsteady, sloppy stitching but it’s shut. Doesn’t matter. It’s shut. It’s shut.
The snake drops onto his shoulders, coiling around his upper arm and squeezing, heads laid onto his shoulder. It’s like an attempt at a hug. He’s unable to deny that it helps, that little gesture from the creature being the thing that has him ripping open an alcohol wipe just to clean his fingers of blood before patting its little heads. It bumps his shoulder with its middle head.
He steels himself. On your feet. To bed. It’s not far. He hoists himself up to his feet against the sink, groaning as his torn muscles are forced to move. The moment he lets go of the sink, he half steps half falls in the direction of the doorframe, bracing himself on it, before making a rapid, unbalanced break for the bed, collapsing on it, barely able to pull himself vertical below the coverts before his vision begins to swim.
Is his entire life just going to be like this? Dismemberment, mutilation, disfigurement? Being haunted by things like that? The aftermath of the elaborate scam that resulted in his birth? Stitching himself back together after suffering the punishments of beings he doesn’t understand, punished for the sins of his father? Living through it alone until something finally kills him?
The weight of crushing loneliness bares down on him as he rolls onto his side. Everything that he’d thought, that he’s been told was noticable about him, that was a piece of his personality, every defining part of himself just feels gone. He was… he’s supposed to be something other than this. Before dying, he was all… extroverted. Charming. Confident, or something that could resemble it. He’d known how to talk to people, how to connect with people. He’d been something. But trying to reach for whoever it was he was before he died is exhausting. It’s distant to him now; acting like that feels like playing a character. It takes effort. No matter how badly Harry reaches for that version of himself, it broke under the weight of that soil. That part is gone. But it’s the part, the face that every person in his life met and connected with. That broken piece of himself is the person that MJ and Peter learned to care for. Being with MJ and Gwen felt less exhausting, but MJ’s cues went over his head. Even when he had something to connect to Gwen over, he struggled to get through a couple sentences.
The part of him that people loved is gone now. Their Harry did die. What does that mean for him now? Is he doomed to this loneliness? Is he doomed to strain his remaining connections until they break when they realize the person they loved was the one who died?
Is it better that way with the life he’s doomed to live? The things he had to do to himself just to survive would kill anyone else. The ritual was intended to kill a second person. Every encounter he’s had with it so far has demanded a toll in blood or life. Is it right to involve others in that willingly? Peter would say no. And Peter would do just that if he were in this position.
This bed is too large. Needs at least one more person beside him.
There’s a mirror near the bed, one built into one open door of the old wardrobe. Forcing him to look at himself. The asshole. He’s still as good as a heap of bones with skin stretched thin over it, skin that’s perpetually tinted slightly grayish green. His eyes sunken in to his head and perpetually unnaturally wide, stiff and devoid of feeling no matter how he tries to emote. Inhuman and dead. His entire body littered with scars, and not the pretty sort. His entire face consumed by burns and uneven jagged streaks of scar tissue. His body covered in swollen keloid scarring. Uneven, lumpy skin where his skin fell off in sheets underground. He shifts, hiding his face from his own eyes with one arm and the shifting of a pillow. His brain can’t warp this into his father, probably because it can’t even process what it’s seeing as a human. Would get laughed at if he tried to convince someone he was pretty once.
Peter must be so happy, getting to have his pretty little boyfriend. Probably tried to destroy all Harry’s equipment just so he’d have to look at him less frequently. He barely waited a couple months before he replaced him anyways. When did he become so resentful? He knows better than to think he has any right to be. Should be grateful. Should be grateful he has anyone.
The resentment refuses to leave its home firmly nestled in his ribcage, a swollen mass threatening to snap whatever bones stand in the way of its escape.
Last night, or the last night he was awake depending on how long it took to come back this time, is the rest of his life. Things like that and cutting his own damn arm off over similar occult happenings, this horrible cycle of violence against himself by himself, that’s the rest of his life. Until something powerful enough to end him comes along. He hopes that’s sooner than later.
Nothing that can protect him. Nothing outside of gods he knows nothing about other than the ever present idea he can’t trust anything out of their mouths. The Guide may be helpful, but he works with his own goals. How quickly would he throw Harry to the wolves to progress them?
The horrible thick mass of resentment in his chest is howling, enraged. Everyone else gets what they want. Everyone else gets to pursue the careers they want, everyone gets to go to college for whatever they want to do with their lives, everyone gets to date and eventually marry and have kids if they want. They all get to live.
It’s not fair.
His ability to live ended at his death. His choices were just to fade out there or to look at life and all that comes with it and never be able to touch. To look at everything he wants like an outsider. He’s a ghost, the only difference being that he’s the one haunted by it all.
The swell of resentment and pain in his chest bursts through his ribs, doubling him over as his vision blurs, cheeks rapidly growing wet as a rough sob escapes his clenched jaw.
Maybe, maybe he could live with his entire life being ripped away if he wasn’t so alone. Maybe it would be tolerable if there was someone to help him stitch himself back together. Maybe if this bed had another person to keep it from feeling so big.
He wants. He wants… he wants… He just wants.
His torn, still heart aches something awful, begging for something he can’t identify. He just weeps, air ripping through his dry throat.
His blankets are cold, devoid of comfort. He's not warm enough to help them warm his frigid body. He needs someone to care. Needs someone to see him as more than a tool. God, undeserving as he is, he just wants comfort.
His pathetic, traitorous hands have dialed the number before he can scold himself.
“Hello?” His stomach momentarily sinks in disappointment at the sound of a woman’s voice before he remembers that girl who takes the calls at Peter’s apartments. “Who are you calling for?”
“Is Peter home right now?” His voice is still hoarse. It sounds raw, far too evident of the fact he’s failing to keep control of the tears.
A pause. The reply is soft. “I don’t think so, but I’ll check. What's your name? So I can tell him to who’s calling.”
“Harry.”
A few moments of silence before enthusiastic and rapid footsteps grow gradually louder. “Harry! Oh my god, I missed-“
“Can we talk?” Harry interrupts. “My place. Please?”
“Yes! Yeah! Yeah! I’ll be over as fast as I can, I’ll even—“ Peter seems to drop the phone suddenly in his rush to leave, not even letting Harry hear the second half of his sentence. Faint footsteps thud down the first of many flights of stairs before the phone is eventually placed back on the receiver.
His heart feels a little lighter.
Peter needs to know about Harry’s father. That’s it. That’s all. That’s why he called.
Fortunate that Peter chooses to swing his way there—the idea that Peter wanted to get to him as quick as he could being another thing pulling the weight off his chest—seeing as Harry’s ability to walk is dubious at best. It’s only a manner of minutes before a hand raps against his window.
Harry can only manage to raise a weak hand to beckon him inside. Lucky he apparently unlocked that window at some point…
“Hey! Hey!” Peter is panting. Harry can’t help but notice that he’d been wearing street clothes while swinging. In… broad daylight. Was he really that eager? Peter looks up from him as he drops through the window, eyes slowly growing wider, eyes roving over whatever of Harry’s skin is exposed with shocked eyes, making his body stiffen in discomfort. Then he steps closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What happened? You’re hurt…” Peter reaches over slowly, giving him ample time to move away before he takes one of Harry’s hands in one of his.
His touch is gentle and careful, the warmth of his skin soothing the soreness, body tilted entirely towards him.
Harry can’t muster a response, but he feels something squeeze his leg. The snake has disappeared off his shoulders. It’s squeezing his leg repeatedly. Rapidly. Trying to get his attention. He shakes his leg slightly, trying to get the creature to release, but the movement just becomes increasingly rapid and frantic. Must not be used to people. Or perhaps most humans are just unkind enough to it to be worth fear in its eyes.
Calm down, buddy. He won’t hurt you. He loves spooky critters. Themed himself after one.
He sits up in bed, trying to straighten his leg and pull it free to get the reptile to calm down. But it seems intent to not lose skin to scale contact with him.
Then Peter gasps slightly, forcing him to look up. His eyes are focused intently on the barely scarred over lines on his stomach. “Why would… Why would you do that?” He reaches out, touching the cuts for only a brief moment before retracting his hand, as if burned, eyes wide.
“Don’t want to talk about it.” Peter seems disappointed by the response. “Not personal. Still processing.” It should probably still be personal, after what happened the last time he saw Peter, but it’s not. The anger is still there, but his heart, soft as it is, still just wants his best friend, the one who should know everything, the only one he trusted for most of his teenage years, to know everything again. Like this is just a sleepover and Peter’s going to talk about MJ for hours and Harry’s going to pick a girl and learn how to pretend.
“Oh.” He leans closer to the scars. “Did you deal with that alone.”
He doesn’t respond. Instead, immediate defensiveness rises. “You would have too!”
“I know, but—“ Peter inhales through his teeth, leaning backwards slightly. “We shouldn’t be. We shouldn’t have too. I would have helped. You’d do the same.” Pleading, wet, blue eyes look into his.
He looks away, knowing he’d fold if he held Peter’s gaze. “It’s been hard to trust you after you completely undermined my agency. While I was hurt and unable to resist you.” The resentment feels a little less dense in his body after the brief flow out of his mouth.
Peter’s expression contorts in guilt, body curling into itself. “I know. It was wrong to do that, I just got overwhelmed after watching that, and it felt like watching you—“ he cuts himself off. “That’s not the point. I shouldn’t have done that to you. Not just getting rid of your things. The manhandling and the controllingness too. It was wrong of me.” He noticed. He… looked back at what he did and knew what he did wrong without needing to be told. “I should have came and talked to you, but I didn’t know if you’d be ready, and I was scared you wouldn’t accept it when I came and… apologizing is already hard for me. So… I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
It sounds genuine. Harry’s heart is singing, his anger retreating into a cave in his heart somewhere, overwhelmed by the sheer joy and appreciation for the gesture, the potential promise of change. Maybe he wasn’t dumb to keep trusting him. Maybe it’s not dumb to forgive him. He can’t say he forgives him, he doesn’t know if that’s completely true yet, but he finds himself pressing his shoulder to Peter’s in an attempt and conveying his appreciation. “That means a lot to me.” His voice is shaking. Damn it. “More than I think you know. I don’t know if…” the right words escape him. He shakes his head, folding into Peter’s firm chest. “I want to trust you.”
Peter holds him, gently embracing his emaciated form without restraint, no hesitance, no disgust to areas of his body that have fared worse. He embraces him entirely.
The snake is squeezing his leg frantically.
“My dad’s alive.” He whispers. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“Oh…” Peter freezes momentarily. When he leans back to look Harry in the face, his arms remain wrapped around him, perhaps knowing the support is keeping him upright. “Did he…?” His voice is a bit darker as he stares back down at the sigil carved into his flesh.
“No. That was me.” Didn’t Peter guess that? From what he said before when he saw it?
He still can’t handle holding eye contact with his sad blue eyes for more than a few seconds, unknown emotions stirring when he does. “Was… just kind of delivering something for someone when I saw him.”
“Was he in the city?”
The constant, unchanging gentleness and sweetness in his one is beginning to unnerve him. But this is everything he wants! Peter’s doing everything he wants. “No. Had to go more than an hour out to get there. Weird, isolated place. He… was talking about me in a lot of ways that shook me.”
“That means that it’s probably just the serum.” Peter sets Harry back against the pillows. It’s… cold when he pulls away.
“Yeah…” It’s too cold. Frigid. The root-freezing kind of cold. When he speaks, he can see his breath.
Peter stands. “And the shadow guy he was talking to, did he say much? Do you think he could be a problem?”
He freezes, a cold settling in his body that’s not just the unnaturally wintery room. “I didn’t tell you about that.” And he didn’t tell him he’d stabbed himself. And Peter is doing everything Harry wishes he would do.
The way Peter’s expression grows cold and his voice grows malicious and mocking is just as frightening as the realization. “I was hoping you’d catch that one. Really, I was a little disappointed you didn’t catch he shouldn’t know you cut yourself. But I suppose I can’t be shocked you’re a bit slow, boy.”
He draws his body into as little space as he can. It was too perfect. A moment of weakness he couldn’t afford in this state. Can’t even fight back. He’d been right to think that trusting him again would be stupid, even if this isn’t him. “Get out of him.”
“Really? Don’t want this conversation to happen with a more familiar face? If you’re sure~”
He wishes he could look away. A hollow crack fills the air as Peter’s neck jerks back at an angle, as if broken, hanging limply as his torso twists to follow it, further cracking filling the room as his ribcage seems to cave in, his arms twist at awkward angles, wrists and elbows bent too far back to be natural, snapping and shattering until his body implodes, collapsing into itself as a thick black mist rises from it, forms from it, taking a tall and slender humanoid shape.
“The Guide said you couldn’t touch me anymore.” It feels stupid to say, but it’s too late to regret now.
“Well, he didn’t lie, as much as I hate to admit it. I can’t hurt you, can’t pry into that fascinating little lump of brain matter in that head of yours, can't rip your body to pieces like your mommy and wait for you to regrow to do it again to teach you respect for things beyond you with that stupid animal around. A shame. Wonder if you’d scream like her?” Nyarlathotep begins pacing, throwing his head back dramatically. “Puts me in a real difficult position, boy.” He turns, the pinpricks of eyes staring through Harry. “But not an impossible one.”
He grits his teeth, swallowing down anything trying to escape his throat. The comment about his mother rings in his ears no matter how much he tries to push it away. “Why are you here, then?”
He strides closer to Harry, looming over him. “Because I can’t hurt you.” For a split second between blinks, it’s Peter looking at him again in place of the shadow. “But I could certainly hurt spider-boy. See how long this city’s favorite pointless protector lasts before his body gives out. Fast healing is only more fun for me! He gets to suffer longer. And the actress! Would be a shame if the prop knife got switched out for something sharper, would be a shame if a slight bout of madness made her get a bit carried away with her dying monologue. Anything for the art, after all.” He laughs. “Or you could reconsider my offer! I’ll keep all my icky siblings at bay too! Even dispose of your father if that’s all you need, he’s proving rather useless anyways.”
The images he paints are vivid in his mind, making him retreat further against his agonized body’s protests, for once feeling like the cornered animal people so often like to see him as. “I’ll find a way. I’ll do the thing that the Guide gave me—“
“You think they’d let you kill for them?” Nyarlathotep seems amused with him.
“I don’t care if they’ll let me. I’ll use myself again. I don’t care.” He spits.
“Well, to jog your memory,” The god leans as close as he can without touching Harry. “That ritual requires some favoritism that your little friends don’t have. So have fun with that! Sounds awful fun to kill them while you try your damnedest to save them, crush their bodies in front of you.”
He tries to find something, anything in his mind. Anything he can do to prevent their suffering over his existence.
Nyarlathotep straightens suddenly, striding confidently in the direction of the window. “I’ll be nice and let you think. But I hope you come to your senses before I need to start peeling anyones skin off for motivation. For everyone’s sake.” For another moment, he wears Peter’s face again, staring at him with pleading eyes. “You’ll rest, right, buddy? For me?” His expression twists into a sadistic smile as he laughs, the sound echoing around the room as the god disappears into a billow of smoke caught in an unfelt breeze.