Chapter 31
This day feels cursed.
An uneasiness penetrating deep into the marrow of his bones overwhelms his body from the moment he wakes up, the dread inducing fog around his senses enough that he briefly believes he has a fever. But his body seems to have been made near impervious to common disease, instead being rattled by decay in its many forms and a variety of more mental plagues that seem to haunt him. His have begun to ache recently, decay as a saudade of the physical. But it’s not that which rattles him today.
He rolls, trying to find Peter’s body in the spot he’s slept in for the past week. The space is empty, blankets rumpled against the shape Peter’s body has begun to form in his mattress, an area that still carries his warmth. He rolls into the divet, trying to contort himself into the shape Peter always leaves, a space his body won’t fit properly. His limbs are too much longer, his torso shaped ever so slightly differently. The difference only agitates his mind even more.
He feels the mattress dip under some new weight, a hand meeting the side of his face, fingertips delicately tracing the dips and lines of his scars, slowly flowing up into his jagged hairline. “Hey.” Peter’s voice reaches him through the blank void of his eyelids. “Are you awake yet?”
Forcing his eyes open only makes it feel like a metaphysical noose is tightening around his throat, forcing the breath from his lungs and making his skin teem with panic despite the lack of visible source. Despite his recent… behavior, it seems unlikely Peter is the source of his itching discomfort. What’s wrong with him? “I am now.” He looks up to Peter, noting the clothing less casual than what he prefers and the way makeup has been smeared over shut extra eyes to hide them. “Whose wedding are you going to? I don’t think MJ or Gwen have told me anything about an engagement.” He mumbles into the sheets.
“If today goes well, ours in a couple years.”
He pushes himself upward in bed, the bones of his spine cracking. “That’s cheesy as hell.” He speaks despite the smile growing on his face, each word, as stupid as they sound, plucking the weights of stones from his stomach. He can only hope this single minded devotion Peter has for him will last, that he won’t lose him to his attention being caught on someone else. Some part of him wonders if this is how Gwen feels with MJ. “I thought we were going out next week. On Friday.”
“Well yeah, but there’s some Arts festival going on in central park today. And I’m off, so I figured it would be better than a date we haven’t even planned.” Half those words flow from Peter as though they were intended to remain impulsive thoughts. Peter’s recent behavior might just need to be something Harry grows used to, by the looks of it. Peter doesn’t seem to have even noticed it, as though any awareness has been sealed away.
He swings onto sleep-heavy legs and stands, searching for his phone. “Didn’t think I might have any plans, hmm?”
Peter’s mouth moves without any hesitation, a filter ripped out of his brain. “No, you don’t really do anything with your life. Not since Venom.”
“Ouch.” When he looks up, his eyes settle on Peter’s face and narrow. The other man’s expression is twitching, his eyes briefly widening in apologetic mortification, his eyebrows snapping between shock and relaxation, his lips shuddering downwards before it stabilizes. One hand twitches toward Harry, but it shoots back to his side. That was… creepy.
His discomfort isn’t aided when he looks down at his phone screen.
10/28/07. October 28th, 2007.
His stomach drops out of his body, his skin prickling with a sudden chill he knows his own mind has concocted. That would explain the feeling, wouldn’t it? It’s been a year since he died.
“What’s with the look?” Peter chirps, his body finally somewhat stabilized.
He can’t hold back the truth. His own intense unease with dishonesty aside, he thinks he needs another living being to know what might claw at him today. It won’t matter for long anyways as long as Otto upholds their deal, something he should tell Peter about when he has the chance. Omitting certain details. It’s not the same as what Peter hid from him, his choice is one that’ll only affect himself. And he doesn’t think that Peter will understand his reasoning.
“I died a year ago.” He spits out, the strain in the face of his attempt to remain calm making the words come out as though he’s swallowing his own vomit as he speaks. Not an idea entirely untrue. He’d been so tormented a year ago, and yet he finds the tormented man who’d cried over a shattered photo of himself and the only two people who cared about him—and managed to get himself killed over it—-enviable. Then again, would that past him envy himself now, his relationships relatively peaceful even if it cost him a living body and most of his sanity?
The memories that flash behind Peter’s eyes might be somehow more intense than his own. Two sides of the same gruesome coin are spread between them; the haunting experience of dying and the perhaps equally haunting experience of watching Harry die and being powerless. There’s just as much guilt on Peter’s half of this as his own, isn’t there? He can almost see it clawing at him, his lips pressing together as his jaw swings upwards to avoid the tremble, eyes shining in the cracks of light between his blinds, a sight that resembles the last things he saw before months of darkness a bit too much. But his grasp on those feelings tightens as suddenly and violently as a bear trap closes, pulling them back to the deepest recesses of his mind where they simply won’t need to be looked at.
He knows him far too well to be able to deny that the motion to shut that pain away was all Peter. Despite their conversation, he’s still resisting it. Harry can’t truly resent the man for that. If he’s spent this long looking away from whatever water it is Harry’s drowning in, it’s likely painful to move muscles that have forgotten to turn around. If Harry is drowning, then Peter is so afraid of the water that he allows himself to die of thirst. They remain as they always seem to be, equal and opposite.
Peter suddenly lets out a laugh that almost sounds like an angry hunting hound’s bark, Harry’s muscles seizing in a flinch. When Peter speaks, his words are much quieter. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” He says, as though Harry can reach into his mind and pluck the knowledge of whatever it is he’s thinking of. The words hang in the air, drifting to the ground as slow as a breath-inflated balloon before he continues. “We died fifteen days apart. October isn’t a great month for us.”
Harry can’t figure out if it’s a joke or not, nor can he tell if it’s meant for himself or Peter when his bug moves forward off the bed and embraces him, the strength of his embrace a reminder of who exactly Peter is. “You should come over on Halloween, then. Make sure neither of us get stuck in a horror movie.” The noise Peter makes in response makes his lips quirk upward despite it all.
Peter’s smile when he recedes is sheepish, his shoulders ducked, a shred of teenage awkwardness no amount of spider powers can shake out of him. “Your ‘plans’ were just to rot in bed, huh?” It’s no insult or accusation.
His legs weigh on him with lead stiffness as he starts for the wardrobe, reaching blindly in the dark room. “Yeah, but I do enough of that already, don’t I?” For months, the idea that he had once cared about the arbitrary rules of the shapes of and the patterns on differently cut fabrics had felt laughable. A silly, trivial thing to feel anything about with the cold breath of mortality suddenly a constant sensation on his neck. But with the twin forces of his unavoidable desire to please Peter and the fresh, relaxing embrace of the knowledge it all didn’t need to weigh on him much longer pushing him upwards, his fingers manage to snag one small thread of his long lost self. He’s not reaching for whatever fresh clothes he can reach; for the first time in months he’s discarding clothing based on the idea something wouldn’t match. He can’t begin to understand why he cares, and yet he still does. Those fragments aren’t beyond saving.
“Oh, wow.” He hears Peter’s voice as he pulls a jacket onto his body, providing some barrier to the October winds he will no doubt absorb with ease. “I didn’t know you’d become cool without me.” His dark eyes sparkle with admiration as he looks Harry over, teeth poking over his bottom lip.
His breastbone rises in pride, tugging his spine upwards along with it. “Well, I want to keep your eyes on me, don’t I?”
Peter bounds toward him, his feet light on the ground as one arm loops around Harry’s shoulder, fingers pressing into the soft muscle that parts beneath his skin in a sensation not quite painful. “Who else would I be looking at?” He teases.
He forces the corners of his smile to remain up against his cheeks, ignoring the itching chill beneath his skin. “Should we get going?” He asks. “I’m curious about what you have planned.”
His redirection lands as sure as an arrow into the bullseye of an unseen target. There’s a flash of the old Peter in the smile he gets, shy and awkward, a remnant of the boy he went to high school with. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if smaller differences originate from Quentin, or if they were born from the past years and Spider-Man. The years he had missed Peter's life of his own mindless revenge finally fall on him, and rightfully so. There are so many pieces of both of them that the other has never seen.
But in any other case, that would be the point of a first date, wouldn’t it?
—
Half barren trees send burnt orange leaves cascading around them like cherry blossoms of autumn, a laugh escaping his lips when one smacks Peter across the face. A section of central park has been consumed by some arts festival, the noise reaching their ears before they can even see it. Rows of tents and stalls dot the sidewalks around them, sporting art and handmade goods for sale, the stalls dotted by the occasional group advertising classes or other events. Musicians play between rows and often more fiercely when nearby to one another, as if they’re dueling with their sound, wild animals in a territory dispute.
The blunt nose of Basil peaks from his jacket collar, one pair of curious eyes inspecting the area. The snake’s inspection seems to linger on Peter before it dips back down, coiling beneath the areas covered by his jacket.
“Are you hungry, Pete?” He asks, head tilting to follow the breeze that billows pleasant scents in their direction.
There’s a noticeable shift in his jawbone, eyes darting to Harry’s right bicep. “God, I’m starving.” He provides an eager nod.
The corners of Harry’s lips tug upwards into a toothy grin, one he hasn’t had in a long time—decayed gums and all. He takes Peter’s firm wrist in his fingers and follows the scent like a moth to a flame, Peter keeping pace alongside him. It might be a poor and rather risky idea to hold him like this in public, but those cautious thoughts flow out of his mind with another gust of wind. The crowds are thick and he’s not sure his fingers would release if he tried.
He might as well. He doesn’t know how many more times he’ll have the chance to do it.
—
The air grows warm for late October, the sun shining freely and the breezes eventually settling down into something more moderate. The sun shines with pride through the twisting branches of trees, illuminating his pale cheeks in tones of orange that almost make it look as though there’s blood within his skin. The distinct, balmy heat rains down with enough intensity that for a moment his body feels as though it should: warm, humming with life, heart pumping something vivid instead of whatever dull substance has been decaying him. Odd to think that to feel human again only required him to find something outside of himself.
He thinks Basil is jealous, often poking one of its heads out to steal some moments in the rays while Harry finds his gaze enraptured on something else—often Peter. His attention will inevitably be attracted by the scratch of scales shifting, as subtle as it might be, and he’ll catch the little black head peering up at the sun with complete fascination.
“Hey, you.” He murmurs, the smooth scales rubbing against his fingertip as it bunts it’s snout into his hand in a plea to be allowed into the sun. “Be careful. I don’t want a reptile handler assuming I stole one of his snakes.”
Basil gently bites his finger, eyes wide with the playful display.
Peter’s hand brushes his back, trailing down the tense muscle of his shoulder blade in a movement that makes his body relax on instinct. “You brought the snake?” He extends a finger towards the extended head, which Basil bites with quite a bit more force than the playful bite. His eyes jolt to their widest state, hand repelled by the nip.
Harry gently nudges Basil backwards. “Yeah. We’re buddies.” The snake seems very pleased with that sentence.
“I think it still doesn’t like me.” Peter comments, head quirking like a Labrador whose owner has faked throwing a ball.
Peering down at the snake, Harry raises an eyebrow. “You play nice.” He gives the light reprimand to the response of an intense look from the reptile, who proceeds to lightly bite his forearm. Oh, that’s what this is about. His head tilts upwards, gaze landing on Peter, whose attention is still fixed on him. This isn’t the place to acknowledge that particular carnivorous elephant in the room, not with so many people around and Peter’s erratic behavior.
He sees that force direct Peter’s attention away, any flicker of awareness at anything that might have shown on Harry’s face dying like a candle in an ocean. Instead his neck twists, examining their surroundings. “Is that Gwen?”
Harry follows Peter’s eyes. Across the nook of tents they stand within, a printed vinyl banner hangs across the front of a table utilizing the tablecloth that seems to lay beneath the more colorful ones most vendors have brought. Stacks of business cards lay beside papers secured to clipboards with their contents obscured by the bodies in front of the booth. Behind it, Gwen’s blonde hair stands in stark contrast to the shaded bushes they’ve made their backdrop, bobbing as she speaks with enthusiasm that seems to course through her veins. A glance at the wind battered signage reveals the source of her enthusiasm: she’s here for something involving her ballet company.
He lays the flat surface of his palm against Peter’s back. “Wanna go say hello?” He asks.
Peter’s lips curve downwards, his body shifting some amount of his weight to be borne by Harry’s ribcage. “I don’t know, it’s sort of awkward to see her without MJ after how I treated her when we went out. It was only once, but—“ His body stiffens, eyes rolling back so suddenly Harry grasps blindly with desperate fingers for his back, fearing he might have fallen suddenly unconscious. His eyes snap open, making him jump, and he frowns up at Harry. “Sorry, what did you say?”
It’s fortunate that the position they stand in, chest to chest, might just register as something tender to Peter. “…We don’t need to talk to Gwen if you’re uncomfortable with it.” His lips form the words slowly, his mind jittery with hope that Peter will recall it with prompting.
He laughs, the demeanor so casual it only makes things more unsettling. “Why wouldn’t I want to talk to Gwen? She’s our friend, let’s go chat! Maybe MJ is around.” Fingers pressed gently to the still pulse-point of Harry’s wrist, he trots over to the table, leading Harry behind him like a stubborn goat guided by the only hand it’ll obey, as if he was the resistant one.
He bites his tongue and forms a presentable smile for Gwen, shifting his attention to an old friend he still hasn’t managed to close the distance between. That seems to be a trend with him. And yet only now does the idea of wasting time begin to haunt him, not becoming something to bog him down but instead a force pulling him towards things that once felt meaningless.
Feeling oddly light, he finds himself greeting Gwen before either of the others have the chance. “Hey, Gwen!” He almost flinches at his own volume.
Her head snaps upward from where she scratches down a list of phone numbers with a pencil. “Harry! And Peter! I’m glad to see you two together.” Her smile is coy.
The back of his neck grows warm, suddenly aware of how close he stands to Peter and the other man’s hand over such a vulnerable point in his arm, as good as holding his hand. Do the people around them make the same assumptions? And would they be more hostile over the connection? “What are you doing here? For your studio, I mean.”
Her eyes light up. “We’re mostly trying to get people signed up for lessons. Especially adult dancers, for the last few years we’ve been struggling to get enough to put on the ballets we like to.” Her head tilts, her hands fluttering in the breeze as she regards Harry. “We’ve been getting a lot of sign ups from former dancers who want to get back into it. And we could use some men. Have you ever thought about picking it back up?”
Peter’s eyes meet his, reflecting the sun in a way that gives them an illusion of a glow. His slightly dropped jaw hastily raises into a distinctly Peter Parker grin, a smile that now has freshly distinct canines poking from his top lip. Having that directed at him makes his face heat up like the lingering ache of a sunburn, a familiar sensation. “You are really good.”
“I’m not that good. It’s been years.” His words are hesitant, and yet he finds himself considering it. There’s only so much time, he might as well try to fill it the best he can. Live life to the fullest and all that. But wait— “Besides, I didn’t really learn the typical… men’s skills.” That’s not too obvious to say in public, is it?
She waves a hand, a slight smile on her face. Her voice drops to a whisper of the same pitch as the breeze, having lived with the same discretion as Harry. “I switched studios because they were willing to teach me. Knowing that sort of stuff will just make you more versatile, especially if you can do pointe. I promise.” Her painted nails inch the clipboard over to him, eyes glittering.
Before he can speak, Peter’s hand inches downwards to squeeze his hand. “If you do it, I’ll do it with you.” He speaks in a light sing song.
He chuckles, knocking his shoulder into Peter’s, his face feeling light, almost soft with a smile. “I was already going to say yes.” He teases. “But if you volunteered yourself, you better follow through. But when we start going, remember you decided you wanted to know an ankle pain like no other, not me.”
They leave that booth with two names scrawled in fading pen ink on Gwen’s form.
—
By the time the sun begins to set, begins to withdraw itself behind the horizon and retract it’s false-life giving warmth from Harry, he and Peter sit on a park bench, empanadas in hand. Seasoned meat lights his tongue more than they ever did—being deprived of most any food has made allowing himself any all the more a divine experience.
Bags sit on either side of their feet, carefully arranged to allow their thighs to press together as they eat. Peter lifts his head from his meal to give a look to Harry, teeth still moving against the bite locked in his mouth as he stares. “The meat is good.” He comments.
Harry grunts in affirmation as he continues to devour the empanada. It feels like a flood gate has opened in a way: he was never aware of any hunger until he sunk his teeth into the dinner Peter had procured for them. From his first swallow, it had suddenly felt as though his body was completely hollowed out, like the flesh of his stomach had formed claws that sunk themselves into his lungs and throat, anything close enough to provide the slightest amount of food. It’s hard to tell if it's a blessing or a curse to be aware of a body normally so distant to him? Every instinct tells him that numbness is better than pain. But had he not tried to pull Peter away from the emotional equivalent of this very sensation?
Once he is left with the crumbs of char marks, he looks up at Peter. “I hadn’t realized I was so hungry.”
Peter chuckles at him. “Of course you are. You haven’t eaten all day! No wonder you’re still so thin.” He pokes the surface of his ever distinct ribs beneath his shirt.
He shakes his head rapidly, looking for the nearest culinary stall to throw his money at. “No, not like that. Peter, I’ve told you that I’m… very dead. I don’t need to breathe, I feel it goes without saying that I don’t need to eat.” It’s a blessing that the crowds are thinner, either crowded in lines around food trucks and booths or sitting upon blankets in the grass as their chosen messenger of orders endures the wait. “Normally, I don’t. Feels like a waste. But I never really feel hungry over it, not until now.”
Peter’s demeanor shifts, his frown becoming strained and tension drawing his teeth together. Harry feels his thigh shift, not quite moving away but inching enough he feels his heart drop before reason returns to him. “Why would it be a waste?”
“It’s not necessary, isn’t it?”
Harry watches that force claw at Peter’s discomfort again, but those blows don’t sink. The flesh of his brain is too tough to be penetrated, just this once. Perhaps his words while they camped in those tunnels sunk deeper than he’d given Peter credit for. Perhaps there is a will to make progress within him. “I mean, maybe it’s not necessary, but it’s fun to share food like this, isn’t it? I’m having fun.”
The words make his skin buzz with an unfamiliar discomfort. “Of course I’m having fun. But it’s still me, who doesn’t need it, taking from someone who could use it more when I already have everything.”
Peter’s head tilts towards his, their temples meeting in one of many movements that day that display a complete disregard for how anyone else might react. Harry still can’t decide if it’s flatteringly sweet, simply foreign, or utterly terrifying. “Well, you do have a lot of money. But some of that money went to the guy we bought them from, who can use that to survive.” A teasing smile crosses his face. “Better than sitting in some rich guy’s bank account. That’s just basic economics. It’s probably worse to not.” The contact of their heads is lost for Peter to regard him with an intensity that makes his skin prickle, a spark of wisdom he’d never seen in his nerdy best friend present in him. Oh, how his Peter has matured. “But it’s not about harm to anyone else, right?” His next words are about as subtle as a swing of a sledgehammer into granite. “You’re just hurting yourself for no reason.”
His jaw twitches with the urge to insist it’s not for no reason, his skin prickling with ever increasing discomfort. The last thing his ego wants is to admit it, but Harry might owe this much to Peter. “I might be. A little.” It feels like he’s spitting out hunks of lead. “I didn’t realize I was hungry. I wasn’t lying.” He insists.
“Don’t let Aunt May hear that.”
He groans at the very thought. “Oh god, I would end up with a Thanksgiving dinner cooked for one.”
Peter bumps their knees back together with a faint thud, his skin glowing with tones of orange and red in the sunset. “She wouldn’t let you up until you cleaned every plate at the table.”
“She better not hear a word of that.” Paper trash ends up crumbled and shoved beneath his thigh until they stand. “I don’t think her heart could take finding out I’m a zombie.” He smirks.
Peter laughs with him, the sound fading into a silence more pleasant than he expects. He feels alive, happy, and the pure relief of last night’s conversation courses through his veins like a drug. And yet, considering the date they stand here on, a thought lingers at the back of his mind.
“Want to get out of here? I think there’s something I need to do tonight.”
The process is simple. A walk to the subway, and a brief ride intercut with a swap of their train, and the concrete beneath their feet carries a distant familiarity he can feel makes Peter stiffen.
“Why would you want to go here of all places?”
He opens his mouth to explain, but he can’t. Any words he tries to form die on his tongue. Any words that might describe his whirling reasoning for wanting to come to this place are words that simply haven’t been crafted yet.
The construction has finished, concrete walls stretching high, but not high enough it can compete with the large, skyline forming structures around it. Of all things it could be, it was a parking garage. It sounds like he died from a mugging to say he was stabbed to death in a parking garage. “It’s finished.” He comments, as much to the wind as to Peter. “They just kept going like nothing happened. No sign that you, me, Venom or Sandman were ever there. That I died. It just kept on going.” Peter stands by his side in a silence that allows him time to sculpt heavy words with his tongue. “Does it always matter so little?” He exhales an odd huff of a laugh, twisting to look at Peter in a plea that he must understand how he feels.
Emotions go to war in Harry’s chest, emotions that dart about too quickly for him to seize and get a look at. The fact that dying didn’t even leave a mark on the space where he bothered to go about the whole thing makes him want to scream, makes him want to buy the place just to rip off the floor he was stabbed on just to feel real, rip a goddamn whole in the walls of this place so his premature death and his life ruining second chance aren’t something to be looked away from. Like his entire existence had any consequences. He wants to claw his chest open, make the hole he’s imagining in concrete walls manifest in his far weaker flesh, rip his heart out and throw it to the ground in front of all these oblivious passersby, ants in a hivemind that won’t find enough value in his demise to communicate its location. He wants to scream at them, to have an audience to his pain and to carve permanent scars into their brain with the knowledge of how deep and many the ones in his own are.
And yet it’s a relief. This place has experienced a great trauma that did have the eyes of the people, a tragedy that stained its floors crimson. And yet it has moved on. It’s recovered enough for dozens of cars to find no issue with its existence. Pain did not end it. Pain didn’t mean it was left only as a manifestation of pain. It moved on.
Peter breaches the unofficial vigil. “The Bugle is close to here.. This should be right in the path between my apartment and here if I went direct, but I always end up going around. Looking at it makes me nauseous.” His shoe sends a rain of gravel into the road. “Do you actually want to go inside?” It’s clear that he’d very much prefer a negative response.
Harry can’t give him what he wants. “Yes. I need to—I just need to look at it. At where.” His words are stilted, each syllable so separate they feel like a chef’s knife has been cleaving through his words. “You don’t have to come.”
Peter’s hand seizes his with a determined strength. “I’m not going to leave you alone.”
They find their way to the top floor through an elevator that’s already stained by dozens of dirty steps, utterly indistinguishable from any other in the city. With each floor they rise, bile rises in his throat.
He expects it to be harder to find the exact spot. “Christ they didn’t even—“ It’s so absurd he can’t help but burst into laughter, withered fingers grasping Peter’s firm shoulder to keep himself upward. “They didn’t even take those poles out. Just hacked them off. God.”
Peter doesn’t seem to think it’s as funny, remaining as stiff as metal beneath his touch as he stares with wide, horrified eyes at the place where Harry died, converted to parking spaces of all things. “I spent so much time thinking about what I could have done to save you. What could have gone different.”
“Nothing.” Harry whispers, his tongue tasting bitter in his mouth. “There’s nothing you could have done. I chose that. I think I wanted it.” His arms thrum with an intense urge to drive his fists into something. “I knew what I was doing.”
“Oh, don’t say that.” Peters voice cracks, fingertips reaching to trace Harry’s body in confirmation he’s real, physical. “You can’t…” A sob shatters his throat. “Harr…”
Harry scoffs. “What else was I going to do? Assume that you’d just forgive me and we’d go back to being the best of friends after everything I did? Assume MJ would forgive me out of anything other than a lack of self respect?”
“I would forgive you for anything.” Peter whispers with a subtle yet firm insistence.
He rubs his shoe against the flat surface of a sawed off pole, a grimace distorting his expression. “I didn’t know that. You told me while I was dying, and it still haunted me while I was buried.” He snaps, regret curling in his gut like a tapeworm when Peter flinches. “What did you think should have happened?”
“It should have been me.” Peter’s voice is wrought with a distant sort of vagueness, his eyes glazed and watery as he stares into memories Harry has ripped apart far too many times himself.
He paces into the position he’d been standing when the blades of his own glider pierced his body like he was made of clay. The holes that remain in his chest begin to ache, his skin prickling with the stickiness of phantom blood. “Bullshit. You were the one who’d be able to keep helping people if one of us had to die. The one who had what it took to deal with the rest of the fight. I wouldn’t have known about the sound weakness.”
As if pulled on puppet strings, Peter paces into his own position, his blank stare one that sees a version of Harry that hasn’t existed for many months. “If I had been able to pull free, you wouldn’t have been forced to do that. To give up your life for me.”
He can’t help but snort, folding his arms. “And if I hadn’t been dumb enough to get knocked off my own glider, neither of us would have been put in that position. Try again.” He watches Peter’s bottom lip temple as his eyes grow the slightest bit more present.
“I just don’t understand why you would when, with my healing factor, I had a better chance of surviving an attack like that.” Tears begin to carve their paths down Peter’s cheeks. By the blurring in Harry’s own eyes, he’s not too far from doing the same.
He cradles Peter’s face in his hands, feeling soft skin beneath fingertips that would stroke his cheeks whether he commanded it or not. “You can’t think of why? Aren’t you supposed to be a genius, Peter?” Harry’s voice cracks like a log beneath an ax, his hands beginning to quiver in time to Peter’s trembling jaw. “I did that because I love you.” He can’t restrain himself, tugging him closer in the same moment he dives downwards, pressing their lips together with an intensity he never received from even his most adventurous hookups. His fingers tangle in Peter’s hair as the other man’s shock wears off, hands resting on his waist, and the pain is worth it for just a moment of respite.