The waiter brought the food over to the table and Peter nodded with a big smile saying thanks. Harry was the exact opposite in his reply; he had covered his head with the gray hood and hardly acknowledged the delivery as he turned his face toward the wall.

As soon as the waiter was out of earshot, Harry whispered with a hissing, "Peter, can we leave?" He leaned over the table, his face becoming hidden by the shadow of the hood.

Peter had just taken a huge bite of his breakfast sandwich and looked at Harry with disbelief and, with an unchewed mouthful, asked "What?" He furrowed his eyebrows. Just a few seconds ago, Harry was fine, sipping his coffee calmly.

"Can we just leave, please!" Harry pleaded with desperation heavy in his voice.

Peter looked around, looking for what set Harry off like this. He started scanning the room, looking as though he would recognize someone. He didn't have to look for long before he took notice of a man walking towards the table. He had bleach blond hair that had dark roots peaking out styled into a fohawk and the beginning of a scruffy beard. His skin was tanned to a golden olive tone and was accompanied by these brilliant blue eyes. He had black wooden plugs in his ears that were just smaller than dimes. This guy was wearing black skinny jeans with a dark t-shirt and classic hi-top converse.

"Harold!" He called, his voice having what seemed to be a forged cheery tone. After he was within casual speaking distance, he muttered "I didn't think I was going to see you so soon." Everything about him reeked of danger and bad intentions and Peter's trust in the stranger was quickly depleting.

Peter glanced at Harry. He had stiffened up and was now clutching his fork in his right hand, looking up at the man from underneath the hood.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," Peter said quietly, understanding that Harry wanted him gone.

"Was I talking to you?" The man glared at Peter and placed his hand on the table. He leaned down, cutting off Peter's vision of Harry as he twisted his shoulders over the table a bit and became a wall. "So you went to this kid's place last night?" He got closer to Harry and started whispering as he peeled the hood off of his head, "It wasn't enough that I fucked you last night, you wanted him to fuck you too, huh?"

Okay, asshole. You just crossed a line you shouldn't have. Peter internally fumed as he stood up and maneuvered himself in between Harry and him.

"Oh my, look at this." The guy seemed to be sizing Peter up, testing his limits while making himself seem more intimidating. He was half a head taller than Peter and had heavier muscles. "Don't be a hero, kid. Harold wanted it," the faux blond sneered.

"I don't think you should make statements you don't fully understand," Peter replied calmly with a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

This set him off as he raised his right hand and started to swing at Peter, who utilized his enhanced reflexes to grab a hold of the incoming fist with his right hand and pulled him down while his left hand grabbed his cup of ice water and flung it into the man's face and chest in one fluid motion.

Peter was just stared at with awe at his reactions by possibly everyone in the room, his eyes looking from the threat to the other people. "Sorry, nothing to see here," he called to everyone. "I suggest you go in the bathroom and dry off and leave." Peter said quietly.

The man huffed and turned away and took a few steps toward the door before he looked back at Harry and then walked out the door.

Peter didn't return to his seat. He turned to Harry and said, "I suggest we go as well, before we are kicked out by the staff for 'stirring up trouble,' or something."

Harry didn't reply or move. He just stayed still, looking absolutely petrified with a death grip on that fork. Peter looked closer at his face and he could tell his eyes were gleaming with a few unshed tears and his jaw was clenched in a way that couldn't be okay for his teeth.

"Harry?" No response.

Shit. Peter thought as he slid into the booth with Harry, ducking a bit to shield him from any other viewers that hadn't returned to their own meals. He had one of his arms on the back of the booth behind Harry and the other reaching for the fork. "Harry?" He asked again, taking the metal out of the other boy's hand as he did.

Harry blinked his cyan eyes a few times before looking at Peter. "Shit, Pete. I'm sorry..." He gasped, hardly being able to breath.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked, moving his hand from the booth onto Harry's shoulder.

"I don't know..." He answered as he leaned into Peter's shoulder, clearly focusing on breathing as he took deliberate gasps followed by controlled exhales. "That was him..." Harry said, his words muffled by Peter's shoulder.

"Yeah? He seemed like a bit of a tool," Peter replied, trying to get a bit of laughter from Harry. He didn't. "Do you want to finish eating here, or should I get a box?"

"I… I want to finish my coffee," Harry answered, sounding unsure but he seemed to be relaxing a bit more with Peter cutting his vision off from the rest of the room.

"Sure," Peter was thinking that perhaps he should stay next to Harry for a few moments before going to get a couple of boxes and paying. As Harry reached for his mug, Peter leaned back in the booth and let his arm rest on the backing behind Harry. "So what classes did you take last year? I know they were easy, but what were they?" He asked, testing if Harry wanted to talk, or if he would like to listen to Peter talk about something, trying to help Harry distract himself from what just happened.

"Mostly the usual; an English and writing class, a Calculus." He took a thoughtful sip of his coffee before adding, "I also took advanced anatomy and chemistry."

"Yeah? I took an anatomy class too," Peter smiles, turning to Harry.

"Was it easy?" Harry asked, almost sounding like him.

Peter smiled, seeing Harry seem to have lightened up at the similarity they had shared in their time apart. "Yeah, kind of," Peter laughed. "It was certainly interesting, but I was ready to move on before the first semester ended."

"Yeah," Harry agreed after taking a final swing of his coffee.

"I'll be right back." Peter said as he rose to his feet and weaved through the tables to the cash register in the back. He told the cashier that they needed to leave really quickly, and he paid and got a couple of boxes along with a few wrapped forks. He returned to the table, leaving a few dollars on the table, and handed Harry a box and started gathering his breakfast sandwich into his own box.

"Why the hell did I order this?" Harry asked, sounding critical as he gestured toward the biscuits and gravy and sausage links.

"To eat?" Peter answers, getting a half-hearted glare from Harry. "We'll just take it back with us and you can eat it when you're ready to," Peter added, trying to make-up for what he had just said.

"Yeah." Harry said as he finished boxing up his food, falling into step close behind Peter.

The walk back to Peter's was comfortable, Harry still seeming paranoid but okay. When they got into Peter's, Harry plopped himself down onto the bed and Peter sat down at his desk and pulled out a pen and paper, I should write her a note, letting her know how much I appreciate the air mattress… and that I'm going to need it for a while, it seems. The little letter got straight to the point and Peter was quickly getting up to head to slide it under her door before he noticed Harry hadn't moved since they got back in the room.

"Hey, Har? What's going on in there?" Peter asked, keeping the distance between them.

"What am I going to do?" Harry asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm fucking poor now," Harry looked up, his eyes full of self-doubt.

"Right…" Peter ran a hand through his hair, wondering what he should do. He went over to the bed and took a seat next to Harry, setting the letter on the other side. "I think you need to see if your dad was serious before you get very worried."

Harry seemed to break a little bit at the advice, and Peter knew what he said was a mistake. "Pete, I-" His voice cracked, "You didn't see his face. He came to see for himself… I never thought that me being with a man would be a problem to him… Adrian made sure he didn't hurt me… making sure that we left before anything bad could happen." Peter could tell that tears were starting to well up in Harry's eyes.

Adrian…Peter had a name to put with the face he had splashed water into.

"Have you and Adrian gotten drunk before?" Peter asked, surprising himself in the straightforwardness of the question and the disregard of how it may affect Harry.

Harry looked just as shocked by it. "Yeah… a lot of times." Harry stared at his fingers.

"Did it ever get… sexual?" Peter asked, realizing that he seriously needed to tread carefully.

"...Yeah…"

"Harry, I just want to try to understand why he reacted so poorly when you said no. If he genuinely cared about you…" Peter cut himself off. "How long were you and him a thing?"

Harry seemed to realize that Peter was going to push to find out a few more details about his relationship with Adrian. "Over half a year, but we didn't become official until a few months ago. And then school was ending, and I would be coming back to New York, and it just so happened that he would be coming to New York, too..."

"How did you meet him?"

"At a party… I don't remember much about it, except I blew him..." Harry's voice shuddered with regret.

"Times when you and him were drunk together while dating… Did you and him continue that interaction?"

"...Yes…" Harry hissed. "Whenever he'd want to do anything beyond oral, I would do something to distract him from it. I was scared…" Harry closed his eyes before admitting "he was my first real boyfriend… I…" Peter saw a droplet fall from Harry's cheek, onto his sleeve.

"I get it… My first real boyfriend, - we were both exploring our preferences - he wanted to try everything. Right away, he wanted to go straight to exchanging blow jobs after we made out for the first time." Peter stifled a laugh. "I had no idea what I was doing and I told him that we should wait, and he got really mad. We were freshmen! Like, come on, Brett! I mean, it took us three months just to make out…" Peter shook his head, remembering what it had been like.

"Did you?" Harry asks hesitantly.

"What, blow him? No. And I wouldn't let that brace-face get anywhere down there," Peter let out a chuckle and Harry joined him.

"Dude, were you still a brace-face?" Harry bit back some of his laughter.

There he is.

"Naw, I got those off in eighth grade, man!"

"Damn, just in time to blow Brett," he mocked and swatted at Peter's shoulder, being unable to control himself. "When did you have your first kiss?"

"In eighth grade. I had actually just gotten my braces off in time for the eighth grade graduation dance, and I was about to ask this girl that I had the biggest crush of my middle school years on to dance with me." Peter smiled, thinking about what a strange kid he was. "And so I went up to her, and right as I was about to ask, she said to me, Peter Parker, I know exactly what you're about to ask me." Peter imitated, raising his pitch to something that sounded hilarious enough before he added the sassy-eighth-grader-know-it-all twang, "And I will do more than just dance with you. And she just kissed me. I think it scared me away from girls for a while," Peter snorted.

"Dude, you're fucking weird," Harry laughed. "I had my first kiss in sixth grade. Her name was Maria. She was super ghetto and I have no idea why she was in my class. But, me being the cool, edgy sixth grader I was, decided to pursue her. For a sixth grader, she was hot. But everyone was scared of her."

"...And I'm the one who's fucked up," Peter rolls his eyes and chuckles.

"Well, was Brett your first boy kiss? I know you said he was your first boyfriend, but..." Harry looked at Peter with eyes full of mischief.

"No," Peter said lowly. "It was this super attractive guy I had met over the summer at the pool. He was going to be a sophomore and we bonded when I tutored him in math. Cliched, I know." Peter laughed." He was in summer school and needed some help. Or he just wanted to get closer to me. I don't know."

"Well, damn. My first boy was in eighth grade. I just remember it being the first day of school, and I went to the bathroom, and this guy stared at me in there. I have no idea what possessed me into thinking that this was a good idea, but I just kissed him. And, he got really upset, to be honest. But I walked out after doing it and didn't see his reaction. God, I was such an ass!" The two giggled like they were gossiping like they had nothing better to do. "And that wasn't even the best part! He was in one my classes later the day! He transferred out, though I never got in trouble for what I did, so I assume he made up some bullshit excuse."

"Wow," Peter says. "You were an ass."

"Yeah…" Harry smiled fondly. "What's been up with you since then? I mean, have you been dating anyone?"

"No. Well, I guess there were a couple of girls I pursued, but nothing really came of either. I dated another guy for a few months after the two. What about you. Aside from him." Peter dodged the name

"There was a few people, but nothing like him… I dated this gorgeous brunette that was three years older than I was when I was a freshman. And she taught me how it was done. Partying, I mean. And I liked to party, Pete. I liked doing drugs and being around people and being touched and dancing with them, and doing anything but go to school. And I did a lot of things with a lot of people; mostly it was girls. But then I met Adrian and everything clicked and I didn't feel like I needed to keep searching for someone, or whatever the fuck I was doing… I'm surprised I didn't lose my gay virginity sooner." He let out a sigh.

"Har…" Peter started, seeing Harry droop a bit.

"It's okay, Pete. I'm just… I'm confused."

"About...?" Peter had a hunch but he wanted as much clarity on the situation as possible.

"Adrian…" Harry let out his name in an exhale. "On one side of it, I'm terrified of him… pissed about what happened… but at the same time, I miss him. A part of me wants to still love him... And I think that scares me more than he does."

"Shit," Peter whispers. "Harry, don't be thinking about going back to him…"

"I just keep thinking about where I'd be right now if I had given in and agreed without much resistance…" Harry leans into Peter's shoulder,

"Harry, this would've happened eventually," Peter replies sternly, causing Harry to shudder a bit. "I'm sorry, I-" Peter pauses, taking in a breath and softening his tone, wrapping an arm around Harry. "Don't think that this was your fault…"

Harry didn't reply to Peter's statement, and so they stay like that for a few minutes, just being calm together. Harry leans up a bit, looking to the other side of Peter and asks, "What were you writing?"

"Oh, just a letter to someone down the hall. She lent me the air mattress; I just wanted to thank her and let her know that I wasn't sure how long I'll be needing it."

"Oh," Harry looked like he wanted to say something more but decided against it.

"What?" Peter asked, not letting it slide.

"It's just… I'm such a burden…" Harry's voice cracked a bit.

"Don't say that. Harry, I'm glad you came to me rather than going- who knows where!" Peter knew that Harry didn't have many friends, and he had the tendency to surround himself with people that didn't really care about him. It just seemed to be what his father had taught him. "Besides, I'm your best friend." Peter nudged Harry and smiled softly and got a light smile in reply. "So if money is the biggest issue right now, then we'll find you a job. You can stay with me, and we can figure things out together."

"That would be nice," Harry said as he met Peter's eyes with a glint of hope in his.

ooo

So, comments?

I know it took me awhile to get this out, but I took some time getting it just how I wanted it, and I think I like how it turned out; hopefully it was better than last chapter.

Please leave a review and let me know how I'm doing! Thanks for reading!