Title: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me -- Part 2 (of 3)
Rating:
will be M for language, adult situations and some sexual content, though we are not there yet
Pairing:
Harry Osborn/Peter Parker
Disclaimer:
These characters and their film incarnations are the sole property of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Marvel Entertainment, and Sony Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended, no disrespect is meant, and no profit will ever be made.
Summary:
Movie-verse; AU. Spoilers for SM3. In the tragic aftermath, two broken lives and two lonely beds have somehow become one.
Archive?: Only with permission.

Author's Note: My sincere apologies for the long wait in-between chapters, but I'm being cautious with this one, so it's slow-going. *sigh* Your feedback keeps me writing, and is very much appreciated. And extra-special thanks to Tara (aka "juliajewels") without whose beta-work and encouragement I would never have been able to get this far.


Part 2

* * * * *

I come back home to find him right where I left him: sound asleep on the living room rug, head pillowed on one of the chair cushions he had pulled down with him. There are no dark circles under his eyes now, no frown tugging at the corners of his parted lips. The sound of his deep and even breathing fills my ears, and I smile a little when I see the way his hands are curled close to his chest, just like a child's. Safe and sound.

And yet, some part of me needs reassurance that what I see is real -- that he's real -- so I carefully navigate my way through the piles of papers and books littering the floor just so I can lean down and brush the back of my hand against his cheek. His skin feels cold to the touch, even with the gentle friction from a five o'clock shadow, and instead of grounding me in the here and now it drags me back to where I don't want to be, thinking about everything and nothing. He's always so cold now, both inside and out, and it has nothing to do with the weather. And no matter how many times I bring up the subject he always shoots me down. He doesn't want to talk about therapy, and I don't want to talk about "work". Guess we're even.

We go on like this, day after day, both of us staring down the devils of this world while keeping our own at bay...but for how long? There's this pressure inside your head that keeps building, and building, and no matter how strong you think you are you can't hold it all back forever. And when the explosion comes, what happens next? You can't forget what you've seen, and the others can't forgive what you've done. You're stuck in a kind of limbo, scarred and broken in ways few can understand.

Now the lucky ones, they get pulled away from the cliff's edge just in time. As for the rest of us...well, sometimes the fall alone isn't enough to kill you. I should know.

I'm not the one who needs help, he says, over and over again, sometimes sweeping his arms wide as if he could keep the entire world safe inside them. They do.

He just doesn't understand.

I lay my jacket across his chest and let him sleep.

* * * * *

One hot shower later and I still look like hell. Maybe it's this pathetic excuse for a beard I've been trying to grow for almost a month now. It's still so scraggly and sparse that it doesn't fool anyone -- least of all Aunt May, who wasted no time in telling me how facial hair was just a sign of laziness. So much for looking distinguished. I fill the sink and grab the shaving cream.

I take my time stripping my disguise away, willing my mind to empty itself a bit with each careful sweep of the straight edge along my face. There's this pitted crack in the glass of the medicine cabinet that catches my eye. It looks just like a spider's web, and I can't remember how it got there. Have to remind myself to get it fixed.

As I swish the razor around in the water again I get this anxious feeling, like someone's watching, and just before the blade touches my throat an arm snakes around my torso, its icy hand clutching at me, tugging me back against a hard muscular body. The jolt from that sudden contact makes me jump, and I just miss gouging the underside of my jaw as the razor flies from my grip. In an instant, another hand miraculously appears to catch it before it falls. Startled, I look up, and there he is, wide awake and staring over my shoulder at me with an expression as blank as a sheet of paper.

"Did I wake you?" I ask. The question sounded calm enough. But the fact that he walked clear across several rooms in a stone-quiet house without my hearing a thing, or even feeling the vibrations from his footsteps, is not lost on me.

His head tilts to one side, and part of his reflection gets distorted by the fractured glass. A floating eye, a bent ear, like a cubist painting half-complete. "You missed a spot," he says, using that flat monotonous tone that I hate.

I swallow hard. "Guess so."

"Here," and as he's turning me around to face him he holds up the razor, its silvery blade glinting in the fluorescent light. "You'll make a mess of yourself. Let me."

I let him.

His steady hand and even strokes make me wonder if he was awake the whole time. So easy for me to picture him lying there in the dark, surrounded by the remnants of his old life, thinking more and more with each passing hour that this might be the day, the day when I won't come back. It twists my guts into knots.

He makes short work of the remaining foam, taking great pains not to miss a single spot. Once finished, he takes firm hold of my chin, turning my head this way and that to inspect his handiwork.

"There," he says, satisfied. "Almost human again." A finger reaches up to stroke my upper lip, catching the beads of fresh sweat forming there before drawing them into his mouth. Only after he's had his fill does the inevitable question come out.

"Where did you go?"

"Out for a walk," I say. The rest doesn't matter. I know perfectly well what he wants, what he's been waiting up for, and it isn't small talk over coffee and a newspaper. I play along anyway. "Couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd get some air. Clear my head."

"Hm. Must have been some walk if you needed to take the subway back."

He knows. But how?

His free hand starts digging into my arm, and he leans closer. "I can smell it, you know." A long inhale, then a sharp exhale, his breath ghosting across my cheek. "Damp air, stale urine...it's all over you."

My jacket. Of course. Sometimes I forget just how keen his senses really are.

"Nobody saw me--"

He cuts me off. "Of course they saw you. Don't lie to me." There's some emotion coloring his words now, a bit of anger flaring up in the face of his worst fears made manifest. All we had left to call our own was our duty, and each other -- and in his view, the two were not mutually exclusive.

"Someone could have followed you. You swore you'd be more careful."

"I did. And I am. But careful doesn't mean me being a prisoner."

The shock of my accusation gets under his skin, making his eyes go narrow and dark. "Is that what you think this is? A prison?"

"Maybe." Truth or not, I don't care. Sometimes I feel so frustrated by it all that I want to grab him by the neck and rail at him, make him see the world around us the way I do. These people don't look at anything anymore. They've become so damn jaded that it can be something that's right in front of their face, desperately shouting for attention, for help, and they'll just keep on walking by. That's why children still get abducted, women still get raped...God, people still fight and bleed out right in the middle of the street in broad daylight! And for what? No one cares, not really. It's all falling apart, right under their very noses, and they know it. And the cowards don't even have the guts to look at it.

But him and I, we have to look...don't we? We're not allowed to turn a blind eye to the truth. We owe her that much.

"I'm alright. I came home. I always will." I know how foolish a promise this is, but it's all that I can say.

"And when you don't?" He shot back. "What then?"

What then? Not what if?

I can't answer that.

He shakes his head, then sighs at my silence. It's a deep, hollow sound that borders on disappointment, something I hoped I'd never hear from anyone again.

"I know what you're trying to do." He stares at the razor for a long time before folding it back up, carefully placing it on the sink's edge. "I won't let you."

I take his hand in mine, gripping it as hard as I can. "I'm not leaving."

He nods. "That's right." There's a bright flash of danger in the gaze that meets mine, and that's all the leverage he needs to get me out of my towel and into the bedroom. "You're not."

* * * * *

(to be concluded)