Chapter 25
Harry can feel the warmth radiating from Peter’s body as they find a stone outcropping to wait out the rain beneath, the shadow of the rock protecting them as they huddle together. A similar warmth blooms in his own chest, as if the heart he stole from Peter’s once dead body recognizes who it really belongs to. The heat of the organ has long faded, but it feels almost like the fire has been reignited this close to Peter.
“Aren’t you cold from the water?” Peter asks, head tilting as his finger gently reaches and traces trails into the surface of his soaked skin.
The zombie hums. “That’s sort of the baseline now.”
“Oh.” Peter’s shoulders slump. His jaw bobs open and shut for several seconds, his teeth clicking together with each movement like some sort of wind up doll that’s voice box isn’t working. “I was gonna help with that, right.”
That tone sucks all the warmth right out of Harry’s chest all over again. “You didn’t have to. I’m in no position to be going around demanding things from anyone.”
Peters brow furrows like the skin of a hairless cat before he delivers a similarly feline blow to Harry’s shoulder with his forehead. Wet eyelashes kiss his skin for a brief moment. “What do you mean, demanding?” He murmurs once it’s his cheek that’s pressed against Harry’s arm. “You didn’t even ask me. I offered. You don’t ask for much of anything.”
He keeps himself silent, afraid of betraying too much.
“Hell, you insisted you were fine to live alone basically a week after you dug yourself up.” The words flow from Peter’s lips as easily as the rainwater pouring from the heavens is absorbed into the indistinct, mindless torrent below, distinct droplets absorbed into an uncaring whole. In favor of the discomfort pooling in his stomach at the topic, he stares out across the brown water of the river. If he fell, it would be near impossible to free himself from a tide that fierce. It seems unlikely that drowning would be the one thing to do him in if everything else he’s experienced hasn’t been enough. He’d probably just end up in the grasp of the tide as it swept him out into the bay and eventually, into the ocean, slowly distorting his body into one of those horrible, bloated, waterlogged corpses like he’d seen on tv until he eventually got lucky enough to end up on some foreign shore. He wonders if it would be peaceful.
Peter lifts his head and runs the backs of his knuckles along his arm, gently pulling him out of his wandering thoughts. “…Come back?” He asks softly.
“What?”
He lowers his hand. “You were somewhere else.” He says meekly, his eyes in that moment looking better suited to a puppy apologizing for tracking mud onto a thousand dollar rug than whatever man-spider he’s become.
He finds himself sliding closer to Peter, his skin craving that warmth. “Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention like I should have. What were you saying?”
“…I should have been there more. You needed help. You were half starved and mentally broken.” The last two words are said with a little more hesitation, like he isn’t quite sure they should be included.
It doesn’t change the simple but brutal truth of reality.
He closes his eyes and exhales a slow breath, his lungs aching from lack of use, almost sore in their stillness. “I asked to be left alone.” He reminds Peter gently, lifting a hand to trace the space beneath his eight eyes for a reason he can’t bring himself to examine more deeply. “It wasn’t pretty. I didn’t want anyone else to see me like that.” The words begin to escape him without his control. “I felt like a corpse before I even knew I was still dead. We both know I still look like one.” He laughs hollowly. “And god, being underground for so long just broke me mentally. I didn’t know how to be a person anymore. It was all so distant feeling. I didn’t know who I was and I don’t know if I’ve ever known. It felt like the holes I might have left when I’d died just weren’t there anymore, or if they were they were smaller, and I just didn’t have a place in the world anymore. It still feels like that.” His chest feels hollow. “So much of me just feels empty…”
Peter seems to freeze, his wide eyes growing wet. “I didn’t know you’d been feeling like that.” His hands seize Harry’s, pulling him close. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have helped you.”
“I didn’t want your help. How could I even ask for something like that?” His shoulders sag. “After everything I’ve done, I don’t get to ask for much of anything.” The words feel thick and heavy as they fall from his lips, like he spits out liquid lead with every movement of his weak vocal cords. “Besides, Peter, what it is that’s broken in my head isn’t something you can fix by fighting it with webs or spider-strength or whatever. I don’t even know if I’m the same person you love anymore.”
The words hang heavy in the air before Peter reaches up and traces shaky fingers down the contours and shapes of his face. “Yes, you are.” His voice trembles slightly, a hint of fearful doubt behind his insistence. “I know you’re still my Harry.” He seems near tears, but Harry can’t find it in himself to reach out and grab all his broken pieces, to tear his fingers on shards, just to shove them into his chest where Peter can’t see them and balk at the gorey state his identity has been left in.
“How?” He breathes the words out with the harshness of his burning lungs. “How are you sure?”
Peter’s fingers suddenly press into his cheekbones with a pressure that borders just enough on painful to be grounding. “You still make my heart beat faster. I still want to kiss you, and I still want to do much more than that. I still think you’re the same, but even if you’re not—which you are—clearly I still love you.”
“Then why didn’t you take me before now? You could have had me.” He feels frozen, a taxidermy butterfly with Peter’s gaze as the pins through his body. “I would have given myself to you without a single goddam thought otherwise, but you went off and replaced me with someone… someone easier. Someone who was still pretty enough to stand looking at. Someone who wasn’t so mentally broken.”
“ Still pretty?” Peter looks at him, perplexed. “What are you getting at, Harry?”
“You replaced me.” He repeats. “How am I meant to believe these things you’re saying about loving me?”
Peter's hands shake, eyes wide. “Where’s this coming from?” He says with the same anxiety of the average squirrel. “I thought we’d talked about this.”
His shoulders sag. “I don’t know. I don’t know myself anymore.” He sighs as his back falls into the wall. Peter’s hands press to the jagged surface of his bony sides, pulling him into Peter’s body.
“You’re cold, beautiful boy.” The pet name makes an odd noise arise in his throat, a noise that seems to only encourage Peter to pick him up, bracing Harry’s face in his neck as he cradles his body. “Let me get you home.”
Harry’s not totally aware of how or when they end up back at the manor, but he is aware of the careful movements with which he’s sat on top of his silk sheets and Peter’s gentle hands fiddling with the clasps of his top, slowly trailing down the leather constricting his chest as they work on freeing him from it. The top slides off his shoulders, discarded by Peter into a pile of soaked clothing on the ground. Through the corners of his eyes, he sees Peter’s hands drift to a specific area of his torso and frowns, humming. “Don’t mess with the tape if I don’t have something to put on.” He warns.
Peter shakes his head rapidly. “I mean, not that I’d protest if you let me, but that’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what are you--” He looks down at his chest and feels his stomach lurch at the sight of what it is that Peter is actually touching. Beneath his third rib on his right side, a strand of green emerges from a small gap. Peter’s finger has coiled up the small length of a leafy vine that's crawled out from the hole, a small blue flower proudly blooming from the end. “Get that out of me.” He says without hesitation, recoiling from the mere sight and the unwanted reminder.
“Are you sure?” It’s so foreign to be able to feel the touches to the tiny plant like it’s his own skin, and even more strange to feel the almost affectionate way Peter touches the flower. “It came from you. It feels wrong to hurt it…”
“Just pull it out!” He insists, feeling an instinctive and intense urge to claw his body open with his own hands to purify himself.
“Okay, Har…” There’s abundant hesitant in his voice as he begins to pull on the tiny vine, but the amount of pain that the act causes is almost nonsensical in comparison to the tiny plant. A scream tears its way out of his throat. Peter’s hand loosens.
“Keep going, just get it out. Grab my knife if you need to.”
Peter’s hands shake as he keeps pulling, shying away from the further pained noises that it pulls from Harry. “I can’t do this. It seems like a part of you.” He swallows nervously, his Adam’s Apple bobbing in a way his eyes can’t help but follow
“What do you mean by that?” He squirms uncomfortably, eyes trained on the tiny plant that’s causing him so much strife, tiny blue petals against his sickly skin.
“I dunno. But it’s not hurting you to leave it there and it hurts you to remove the poor thing. Maybe it’s connected to something vital. Maybe we should just leave it alone?” He strokes the vine, making Harry shiver at the odd sensation.
Harry doesn’t respond for a moment. “It’s hard to remember the fact I’m not alive.”
“Maybe this means that you are, just… in your own way.”
That unexpectedly eases the tension in his body, his shoulders going slack. “Why are you so determined to keep the thing?”
“It’s part of you. How can it not be beautiful?”
He rolls his eyes despite the smile on his face, flicking Peter’s forehead with two fingers. “You’re a sap.” All the same, he lets Peter help him shimmy out of his pants, trying not to feel uncomfortable with all the sullen skin he has on display while Peter rifles around in Harry’s oversized closet to retrieve them both dry clothing. Peter, ever unnecessarily shy about his body, returns clothed and drops pants left loose from lost weight and a soft shirt beside him. The pants go on first, wrapping loosely around his lower body before he raises his hands to start fiddling with loose ends on the tape over his chest. “Mind looking away?”
Peter’s cheeks turn pink. “Sorry.”
He exhales, his lips quirking upward as he pulls the layered tape away and discards it into the nearby trash before lifting the shirt over his head. “Didn't expect you to still think I was this worth looking at.”
Peter pounces on him, a blanket wrapped around arms that he firmly secures around Harry’s torso. Harry can’t help but squirm and laugh at the movement, Peter intent on rolling them both into a little bug vigilante burrito. “Who wouldn’t think you’re worth looking at?” Peter says once he’s successfully captured them both in a cozy prison. “I meant it earlier. You’re still pretty.”
Harry scoffs. “Or you’re just into dead people.”
A frown crosses Peter’s countenance, his eyes once again large, pleading puppy-dog eyes. “Don’t joke like that. If you’d died, I’d… I don’t know what I’d do.”
Harry raises his eyebrows, opening his mouth before he ends up silenced by a pillow to the face.
Peter’s entire face burns as he squeaks in surprise, squirming in the constraints of their blanket like a two person slug. “Harry!”
“Sorry, sorry.” He smirks. “Are you sure—“
Peter playfully smacks him. “If you died again, I wouldn’t do something like that. I’d probably just cry for days.
“That’s not very sexy.” His smart mouth earns him another playful smack to the lips.
Peter grins with deadly fangs before flipping them, his heavier body easily pinning Harry’s down. “Does this help out with the sexiness deficiency?”
He feels his face heat up, breaths feeling thicker at the sight of Peter holding him down with nothing but is body weight, his wet hair dangling in his face as he looks down with a smile that crinkles his eyes. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
There’s something oddly pleasant about the silence as they both feel their breathes synchronize, but silence must always be broken eventually.
“Bunny.” Peter says with odd confidence as he presses a tender kiss to Harry’s forehead.
“What?”
Peter’s fingers tap against the fabric concealing his back. “Harry. Hare. Rabbit. Bunny.” He grins, adorable despite the mouth filled with fangs. “You’re my bunny rabbit.”
His heart begins to leap like one of the aforementioned hares at the new pet name. “Does this mean I can call you bug?”
“Spiders are arachnids.” A smile spreads across his face regardless of his
“I said bug, not insect.” He smirks. “And I’m not a bunny, yet here we are, bug.”
Peter’s head tilts as he hums noncommittally. “Well, I’d say you look like a bunny.” He takes two of his fingers and runs them down his cheekbones. “You have the cheeks.” Then, a rapid kiss to his nose. “And you’ve got the nose.”
“Maybe I think you look like a bug.” Harry loops his arms around Peter, refusing to let him escape their shared blanket.
“That’s significantly meaner than being told you look like a bunny!”
Harry’s eyes glitter. “And yet you’re already in love with the nickname, bug. I can basically see the hearts in your eyes.”
“Really? Cause I can see them too, bunny rabbit.” They both dissolve into laughter, the sound of it melting some ice Harry didn’t know he even had around his bruised heart.
A sudden sly grin crosses Peter’s face. “You know…” His fingers tap Harry’s forearm. “Since you’re all weird and cursed and stuff.”
“Delicate as always, Peter.”
Peter shoves him with a giggle and a look from glittering eyes. “But like… do you think you’re magic?”
“I actually have done magic before.” He can’t help but laugh when Peter’s face lights up in excitement. “It’s actually how I ended up with the snake.” He gestures to where his little buddy is taking a post rainy day nap under a heat lamp. “I’ve been thinking about naming it Basil.”
“I knew it!” His eyes sparkle. “Oh, that’s so cute. I’ve been wondering where you got him. He’s so adorable.” He frowns for a moment. “I also don’t think he likes me.” He breezes past that before Harry can so much as think. “Did you name the snake Basil after the Great Mouse Detective?”
“It’s a great movie!”
Peter flops down onto Harry’s chest, knocking the air from his lungs. “That's so cool. Do you think I could summon a familiar? That would be so awesome. A little magic buddy forever like your little guy!”
Harry is momentarily frozen by the memory that the process to obtain the snake involved him doing great harm to himself, something he’s realizing he’s not eager to admit to Peter. “I’m not sure. It was pretty complicated. Let me look into it.”
Peter gives him a wide grin. “You’re magic.”
Harry can’t help but laugh. “Guess I am.”
“That’s so cool. You’re so cool.”
“…Guess I am.” He meets his eyes, heart fluttering when Peter doesn’t look away.
Of course MJ feels guilty about coming in here without Harry’s permission. Who wouldn’t? It’s a breach of trust and she knows it. But what choice does she have? The only other source that she can think of for matters like this is Quentin, and excuse her if she’d rather not track him down on her own.
And while she could ask Harry, she finds herself shivering at the thought, her mind overwhelmed by memories of things she always insists to herself she’s let go of. She doesn’t truly still resent him for it, she’d swear on her life she trusts him, but this…
Maybe this is just something she needs to be alone for.
She flips through the pages of a leather bound journal on magic, reading as quickly as she can out of a heart pounding fear of being caught in this breach of trust, her throat constricting at the memory of a hand around it.
Magic can only be utilized by mortals when drawing from a variety of sources. The baseline, or default, option is to pull from your own life source. Performing magic based off these means will quickly kill the user.
If an individual gains some form of bond between themself and an outer god, the user will gain the ability to draw from the god’s life. This will avoid the user’s life force being drained, but excessive use of magic drawn from a god will cause the user’s body to corrupt from channeling an energy the human body cannot handle. Children born into pacts will have been born with an inherent magical property to their blood from the god they were promised to that is known to delay the corrupting effects of this magic.
In some Hasturite circles, a ritual exists in which the caster will absorb the souls of an audience to their ritual play, The King In Yellow, into the bodies of both the caster and another individual. These souls can be used for magical purposes without consequences of death or corruption.
She sets the book down, eyes drifting down to her hand. A constant, unnatural warmth emanates from the limb, pulsing like a heartbeat through her body. In an odd sort of daze that makes her feel like her feet and legs are miles away from the rest of her, she can’t help but wonder…
She grabs the nearest book and flips through until she finds something that looks enough like a spell to catch her attention.
A spell for attraction of a guardian
The writing is sloppy and clearly put to paper by hand, but it’s the only one she can find in the book that’s not at least slightly terrifying. Despite that, there’s still hesitation in attempting the ritual.
Prepare for the ritual by gathering dove feathers, mint leaves, and dried rose petals. These ingredients can be found in any standard component pouch.
She steps away from the book, crouching to begin digging around in the drawers and cabinets of the desk within the hidden room. Sure enough, vials of flower petals and herbs draw her attention, as well as a bundle of feathers tied together by twine. Perfect.
Grind into a chalk like texture using a mortar and pestle.
She initially doubts that an entire feather will be able to grind into any sort of powder, but it flakes apart like dried blood. Magic, she supposes. Go figure.
Draw a circle onto the surface of your casting area with the resulting powder and set the mortar and pestle in the center. Once it's in place, the caster must spill their blood into the remaining powder and continue to grind until the summoning circle burns itself out.
She pulls a small knife from one of the drawers, wincing and steeling herself before she penetrates the smallest area of skin he can manage. As she begins to grind, a distant but blood curdling scream fills the air, jolting her backwards from her work. An agonizing burning spreads up her arm from the hand, making her groan as she stumbles.
When she looks up, the powder the circle was drawn of has turned into a burnt, smoky black substance.