Chapter 33
Birds in flight can follow each other’s movements perfectly, instinct and the drafts of air against feathers allowing them to fly in perfect sync. Perfect discipline, perfect coordination.
Humans are plenty social by nature, pack animals, but they can’t achieve that. The closest facsimile to truly synchronized movements are ones learned independently and only timed, following beats instead of any sense of the people around.
That lie was the foundation of many ballet arrangements. And it was also the reason Harry preferred working as a soloist. It never worked if he was part of the crowd.
Or maybe he just loved to be the center of attention.
Harry was trained to. He was a performer, a competitive dancer, and before he was a man, Norman still wouldn’t settle for anything less than him being a soloist. He needed to prove himself to his father before he could conceptualize Norman’s harmful nature or the idea of needing to prove himself to anyone to begin with.
He can recall the first time he’d danced with his father watching, the feeling of complete unawareness of any eyes being on him that snapped the moment he saw his father. Norman never came, never, so he had no reason to think he would come to that little recital. It had changed everything for him to be there, his expression calculating.
Harry’s father only had use for that which was perfect, and the slim chance that he might care for something that meant so much to Harry, that he might find some value in it, had shifted everything.
But oh, shelves of competitive trophies and medals and all sorts of awards weren’t as valuable to Norman as the handful of meaningless academic awards his school would hand out each year. The heaps of dance school letters that arrived unprovoked were ignored, even as Harry flunked out of his final private school. When he heard the twelfth lecture on his academic performances, on how humiliating it was to put his child into public school, he wanted so desperately to point out the other options. Harry never had.
In retrospect, he doesn’t know why Norman bothered to show up to begin with. What did he have to worry about, if his child was never his child to him?
As he twists through leaps and turns, delicate movements his body hasn’t forgotten—it would be forgetting a piece of his soul—his mind drifts away to a life where he’d been able to take one of the offers in those letters. If he’d been shipped off to a dance school abroad, allowed to pursue what he was good at. At that age, he probably spent more time in the studio than that would require. He might have been happy. Maybe that was even the world where his mom survived, where Norman was ripped apart instead.
But it would likely mean living his life never coming out, never being honest with himself. Living his life never meeting Peter.
And even if that’s a world with a far happier Harry, he doubts Peter could have survived high school without him. In this one, even with the pain, he wouldn’t have survived this far without Peter.
Class ends normally despite the shadow lingering over his shoulders. Habit is a shelter-Let Basil wind around his waist and stare up at him with all six eyes wide, like a cat begging for pets. Grab his things. Head for the door.
In the back of his head, he knows he should be worried. Panicked. Doing something. Time has ticked away with not much in terms of progress on what to do to show for it.
But the fate that stands as such a threat just feels so distant. What does it actually matter? He endured months of the same hell it seems the stuff Kraven took would inflict on him, and it was hell, it was a waking hell, but it wouldn’t even really be forever. Otto knows what he wants, he’s working on a way to give him just that. Whether he was paralyzed or not through it all, the end result would be the same—and it would be what he wants. It would be finally getting what he wants.
And if Otto really needs Harry to be around to deal with his father, he was the one who made the stuff. He’s sure he could figure out something. Wouldn’t it be the safest option, to simply let Kraven think he got what he wanted so he doesn’t do more harm pursuing it?
It just doesn’t feel like the consequences he would endure actually matter. Just a meaningless choice to get him to the same predetermined end.
The sun is out today, proudly the center of attention in a cloudless, blue sky. The air around him is warm in disregard of the season, feeling more like spring than late fall, like trees should be sprouting the tightly wound bundles of newly born leaves rather than the sharp oranges of leaves dead and dried. Despite the bustle of the city, everything feels quiet.
“Harry!” A flash of blonde hair bobs towards him, his body flinching away on instinct when a hand grabs his shoulder. He spins on his heels, alarmed, only to find Gwen retracting her hand, a little startled herself. “Finally! I’ve been looking for you, you know.”
“You have?” His surprise leaves his mind blank save for a flicker of worry, a flicker of the ever present paranoia. It wouldn’t be the first time he was deceived by something wearing a familiar face.
She nods rapidly, raising a sheet of paper in her hands so wildly he can hardly make out what was printed upon it--it was clearly something to do with the studio, however. He recognized the logo, printed in black and white amongst monotonous letters and blanks. “She wanted me to talk you into it.”
“Into what?”
Gwen blinks as she realizes her mistake, straightening the battered sheet of paper and trusting it forward. “Into auditioning. We really don’t have many men, Harry.”
He takes the paper, ignoring the outstretched pen for the time being. “And she’s not bothered bythe fact I barely know the men’s stuff.”
“I say this with experience, they’re not hard to learn.”
“Or about the gender thing.”
Gwen looks thoroughly unimpressed. “She hired me. I don’t think that matters.”
“Or the…” He motions to the rather impossible to hide burns over every inch of the left side of his body.
She shrugs. “None of us are picky.”
“Flattering.”
A pause stretched out between them, broken by the approach and departure of blaring ambulance horns. Gwen’s expression goes shadowy. “If you don’t, they’ll have to ask Peter. And he’s terrible.” She says seriously. “Neither of us want that.”
His hands extend before he can even think it through. “Give me the damn pen.” Ink is strewn across the page before his head rises again. “Wait, what are we even doing?”
“The Firebird.”
Harry’s head shoots upward. “Wh-you need two male dancers for that!”
The paper vanishes from beneath his hands, folded up and shoved into Gwen’s pockets. “Too late!” The smug grin vanishes from her face as her eyes lift upwards, brow furrowing at something behind him. “What’s-”
Harry turns around just in time for a hand to close around his throat and the full mass of someone twice his side to throw him against a wall. Unnaturally sharp nails dig into his neck as he takes in what has him pinned, almost not recognizing the newly inhuman face.
Kraven’s visage is twisted and unnatural before him, eyes too wide apart and looking as though the man had ripped them from an animal’s skull and shoved them into his own sockets. His mandible looked too sharp beneath his skin, jaw filled with teeth about the same size as bear claws. His eyes rove up and down Harry’s body like he’s gauging how much meat he could rip off him.
Kraven’s head jerks to the side as wood shatters over him, Gwen holding the stump of one of the tables in front of a nearby store. After a moment of frozen shock, the massive man whips around to draw claws across Gwen’s face, knocking her to the ground.
With nothing else to do, Harry’s fist cracks across Kraven’s jaw, drawing his attention back. Harry’s fingers then sink into his own forearm, ripping pale, fragile skin to shreds. Acidic blood blooms forth, oozing down his forearm til it drips onto the hand around his throat.
It’s enough to wrench himself away with only a few scraps of his own skin missing.
He can feel Gwen’s eyes on him, on the insects whose legs he can feel in the walls of his esophagus and the maggot who boldly climbs into the outside world. In resentment that it would make it externally known he’s rotting inside, he crushes it for its troubles. Should know what’s good for it anyways.
Harry finds it a relief that, once Kraven isn’t looking at her, Gwen has the self preservation to run away. He takes his opportunity and cue to dart off—there’s no hope if he doesn’t get his hands on his equipment.
—
Harry realizes, once he’s already skulking about in the location of choice, how much he’s relying on the fact that someone who essentially brands himself as a hunter would want the pursuit aspect of things and not be willing to play less traditionally about things. That he’s depending on the man following him and the fact he won’t draw innocent people into things in an attempt to flush his prey out.
With what Kraven has seen fit to do in the past, it seems logical, but the thought refuses to leave his mind
The cabin he scouted to keep whatever unfolds away from populated areas smells of flooding, walls curling outwards like water still sits in pools within, constantly threatening to splinter and come down on him. Mold creeps up the walls, dark enough to make him think it might be the sort of thing he shouldn’t be breathing in--if it weren’t for the fact he doesn’t need to breathe to begin with. Especially this late at night, the mold is difficult to make out anyways beneath vines, the thick, almost woody stems seeming to hold up far more of the building than the walls are. Huge leaves clog entire hallways with the density with which they break off from the thick core stems, navigation feeling like hacking his way through a jungle at times.
The only place untouched is one room tucked into one of the back hallways. While the rot crawls over and around the frame of the door, the white painted door itself is almost entirely untouched, like whatever lies beyond doesn’t belong to the woods the same as the rest of it does. The whole building seems abandoned rapidly, now half decayed furniture tangled into the vines and decades old cans of beans and stew still sitting on pantry shelves. And yet they took the time to lock this door.
Not that it matters. Being untouched by woods doesn’t stop the doorknob from falling off the first time he tries to force it.
He expects what he would find something more than someone’s childhood bedroom, bed perfectly made, quilt void of wrinkles and creases despite the thick layer of dust over it, nearly hiding all trace of the pinks and greens from view. The toys with enough esteemed fondness attached to them to be placed delicately upon shelves are juvenile, contrasting with the heavy and out of date textbooks piled on the desk.
Around the room, photos have all been laid deliberately face down. When he takes them into his hands like he thinks the sturdy frame could tear and smears the dirt away with gloved fingertips, they all feature the face of a young woman who stirs some familiarity in the back of his mind. She is always shown with the distinct blur and sort of burnt tone to the photos emblematic of older photos, always shown far away from any civilization: on hikes, posing with the bodies of deer and referencing mushrooms against foraging books, the closest she gets is leaned against the wall of this cabin in a state far more whole than how he found it.
The oldest he finds her is what he estimates as being around 18, no older than him at maximum. It’s that photo where she’s matured enough for him to connect her to the few photos of his own mother that have remained in the manor and the portrait he pieced together from them himself.
He doesn’t think, doesn’t give himself the privilege of thought, just pulls the backing out of the photo, folds it, and tucks it into the inside of his vest, just to the left.
But it’s beautiful from the roof. All of it. Years of life in the city had made him forget that things could be truly silent before being buried had reminded him harshly, made silence a torture. He hadn’t allowed himself to sit in still air much since he undug himself. Here he can understand it: Silence is never just silence, there’s layers to any quiet that can be explored with enough awareness. The sounds his own body makes with movement and cicadas that surround this place are only the top notes, beneath them lies the ever present rustling of everything with the slightest movements of wind, the faint calls of owls tucked away in trees. Everything is alive around him.
Even this dark, he didn’t think there were this many shades of green. Each tree, even ones of the same species, don’t carry leaves the same tone as each other. Moss is darker, richer than most anything else. Different plants amongst the undergrowth are never the same as each other, layering themselves over and over each other into the most depth in something monochromatic he’s ever seen. He finds his fingers twitching as his thoughts drift to his paints, how wonderful it would be to be able to find something with such depth to paint only feet away from where he was living rather than needing to stage something visually interesting. Everything is so alive.
It’s so much fresher out here, it leaves his head so much clearer. He’d never really thought of leaving the city much, not when the only times he ever had long term had been more than against his will. But now…
But now he can’t. No point in thinking of a life he wasn’t ever meant to have.
Silence breaks with a goat sprinting wildly over the overgrown path to the house. Seems to Harry a bit sloppy, then.
He slips into one of the cracks in the roof and drops down to fragile flooring, sinking into a shadowy place and pushing his mask back onto his face. He keeps his back to a wall, not wanting someone that much stronger than him to be able to pin him and figuring his odds are better with out maneuvering him. Nothing to do but wait and see if his paranoia serves him, maybe unsheathe and prepare the sword with his blood.
Careless, thoughtless. The flimsy wall behind him falls to splinters when a hand emerges from the opposite side, ripping his entire body through the building and sending part of the roof into a collapse. He twists, taking a decent swing at Kraven’s neck, not even thinking he would find the massive ooze of blood that followed so unsettling
Toughen up! He scolds himself, ignoring the full body shudder from the sight. If it weren’t for the unnaturally thick muscle the man possessed, would it have just gone clear through, either leaving him with a jugular too ruined to fix or a spinal cord in the same state. Left in a state that would never be recovered from.
One of Kraven’s hands jolts up to his oozing neck, his expression twisting into sick pleasure at him putting up a struggle. Harry draws up his legs and throws all the power he can into his legs and into Kraven’s chest, only ending with them both collapsing into the rubble Kraven had been standing on. Shattered ends of wood jab into his back, scrape up his arms, only moreso when he rolls away from the now loosened hand.
Grimacing, he takes several wild, blind swings that don’t sink deep enough towards Kraven, just serving to soak the ground with blood. “What next?”
Kraven raises an eyebrow, surging forward to grab the sword mid swing, ignoring the new cuts on his palms in favor of grabbing the blade and twisting. Harry’s wrists turn to keep up, but they weren’t built to bend enough, and the man soon snaps the metal in two. “What next?” He echoes in place of a response.
“What’s next after me?” He pants out, dipping behind one corner of the house, wanting more than anything the ability to vanish into shadow. The lines of the walls are his guide, he follows that path around the house, now unarmed and no doubt just as vulnerable as Kraven wants.
“Hunt.” Harry doesn’t look to see if he follows, he just runs past what’s half a wall and half the woods reclaiming a home, a door that once his own mother might have passed through, the bare patch of wall that indicates a bedroom, trying to find the other man with his back turned to him.
When he finds the hunter, he doesn’t find that. Hawk eyes stare back at him and he can only stumble backward, but not fast enough. He’s bowled over, claws tear through his cheek, one massive arm forcing his head to the ground. He watches, left paralyzed, as Kraven takes a rag soaked through with something Harry doesn’t need to guess the origin of and drags it against the shining blade.
In response, he unfurls the blades on his forearms and draws them across his chest and face in rapid succession, one catching on his eye and ripping through it. Kraven goes still, face blank as a streak of red crawls down one cheekbone. He almost looks impressed.
The knife sinks into him at his intestines, ripping through them as it twists upward, cleaving through his stomach like it’s butter.
Kraven does nothing but let him stumble away, unmoving, even as he takes off into the woods. The wound feels cold, the muscles in his stomach begin to seize, the freeze spreading familiarly in the pattern of roots, of vines, into his chest and legs. As he frantically holds the wound closed with his hands, lungs become dead weight in his chest, unwilling to take in air even if he tries to force it, and the muscles in his thighs begin to seize, to lose warmth, to feel like heavy chunks of ice beneath his skin, his shins and feet following suit; he’s no longer able to run, much less force a walk, just feel his body give out all over again and collapse into the densest of the undergrowth that surrounds him. The brush itself isn’t soft in the slightest, the vines are hard as branches and the edges of the leaves sharp and ungivingly, stubbornly aggressive when they collide with his skin. The ugly color of his blood stains the vivid green, like decay extends from him
With the last sensation they’re capable of, he twists his wrist, his hand, and reaches his fingers out.
They find a patch of moss around the roots of a tree, soft, the green fronds softer and more inviting, the cushier game of leeching its nutrients somehow leaving it friendlier. He finds himself hoping it grows up and over his arm, that the roughage he lays in refuses to be trampled on if nobody ever finds him. He’d be going to better use than just rotting away in his coffin, sealed into something that life struggles to make its way through.
He’d hoped he’d be left with a little softness, but it’s not just the muscles in his hand he loses, but the nerve endings. The angrier plants are gone to his skin too.
He tilts his head back before the last of him goes, forces his eyes open. The tree branches above his head are beginning to look like cracks in wood, in soil. Has he just lost it? He prays over everything that this all wasn’t him snapping underground, unable to take more and just making things up, creating stories to cope, stories where he might have mattered a little more in the grand scheme of things or, like a desperate child, the most important. Where Peter didn’t forget him so quickly and any part of his life might mean something. Just for his dignity if nothing else.
There’s gentle breaking of leaves and he thinks that Kraven has found his body. Not a predator that flushes prey, but one that injures it and waits for it to die on its own. A bit less impressive, a bit less dignified. But the head that enters his still, permanently open eyes isn’t the slightest bit human. It’s just a goat.
Basil emerges from his clothing and he half expects it to just leave. No point anymore, job’s over, time to clock out, maybe give Harry the mercy of however Nyarlathotep was planning on tearing each cell of his body apart. Instead, it coils into a ball and stares at the goat, the last image his eyes take in before the nerves in them give out, the moon huge and full in the background.
When Octavius had described it, he hadn’t expected it to be worse than burial. He could feel then, there was something, there was scuttling in his skin and the coffin beneath him. This leaves him in cold, silent, nothing.
He crosses from purgatory to bitter, cruel, hell.