OOO

Screwing his eyes tightly shut, Harry covered his head with the pillow. Yet the voice still managed to find him.

You shameful, disgusting creature, Norman's voice hissed. Stupid little faggot. You think he loves you? He killed me, Harry. Killed me. And when he finds out about you - he will hate you even more.

"Pete doesn't hate me," Harry whispered through clenched teeth. "He would never hate me! He cares about me..."

But not like I did. Never like I did. And never in the way you want him to. When he finds out, he'll never want to be near you again.

"That's a lie! I'm not listening to you."

Then why don't you test my theory? Tell him. Tell him everything. And then see what he does.

Throwing him self out of bed, Harry tore down the hallway. Once he stumbled down to where he kept the alcohol, he realized how stupid a move it was. There he was confronted with the mirror and the portrait, his father's voice inside his head growing even stronger.

She will turn away from you too. Will think you used her. Won't even be your friend - though I suppose you wouldn't want her as a lover, now that you've decided you're... like that. His voice dripped with disdain.

"Shut up!" He hissed, his hands shaking violently as he tried to pour a glass of whiskey. The tumbler fell out of his hands and shattered on the floor. Spitting out an expletive, Harry swigged straight from the cut glass bottle. As the liquor burned down his throat, he wiped the back of his mouth and immediately felt ashamed and slammed the bottle down, nearly breaking that as well. Exhausted and trembling, Harry fell onto the sofa and buried his head in his hands. Moments later he heard the sound of footsteps.

"Harry?" Peter's voice was laden with concern. "Harry, I heard something breaking. Is everything alright?" He looked at the mess on the floor. "Harry, have you been drinking again?" He gave him a severe look which quickly softened when Harry looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. "I hate it when you drink," he explained sitting down next to him and putting his arm around him. "You're not my Harry anymore when you drink."

The other's muscles seized up immediately at the contact. 'I'm not your Harry at all, though. Not how I'd want to be.'

And you'll never be, came Norman's voice in harsh reply.

He pushed his thoughts and the voice away. "I'm fine Pete. I had a bad dream is all."

"Bad dream? About what?"

He couldn't tell Peter he was hearing his father. Peter would think he was crazy and probably refuse to trust him.

Lying again? You don't have to lie to me. I already know.

A muscle in his jaw twitched briefly before he looked at Peter. Doing his best to keep his turmoil from showing, he told him the first thing that came to mind. "It was the night of my death again. It ended when I got stabbed through the chest. But it felt so real..."

"You're safe now though Harry," Peter told him, trying to read Harry's face. He wanted to set him at ease but Harry seemed so agitated he wasn't sure what to do. "Tell you what, why don't I clean this up and you just rest. Can I get you anything? Warm milk? Something to help you sleep?"

Harry's thoughts drifted to Bernard who once made similar offers. But they wouldn't help, now or then. There was more wrong with him, deeply wrong, than anything he drank or medicated himself with would solve.

"No. It's OK." He forced a smile. "I'll take care of it. You need your sleep. You worked and saved people and went to school all day and all I did was get some papers signed. Get your rest and I'll take care of myself."

"Are you sure?" Peter sounded doubtful.

"I'm sure," Harry replied, giving him what he hoped was a reassuring nod. "You go on." He went over and began to pick up the shards of glass.

Peter gave him a quizzical glace but, after turning and giving him one last look, retreated back to his room. Harry dumped the glass into a waste basket and went to the kitchen to grab towels and soak up whatever he could of the alcohol that hadn't soaked into the carpet. Kneeling, he began to daub up the liquid.

See how quickly he abandoned you?

"Shut up!" He nearly shouted but kept his voice down so as not to alert Peter. He sat up and twisted so that he wouldn't see the mirror; and as he did so, he bumped into his desk, causing a stack of papers to slide to the floor. Sighing in frustration, he gathered them up and started to straighten them. As he did, a smaller scrap of paper slid out from between the sheaves and fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, he realized it was the number he'd been given the other day.

...feel free to call it if you just need somebody to talk to...

Perhaps it was time to take the lawyer up on that offer and see how truly he really meant that. The alcohol ever so slightly taking the edge off of his judgement and his desperation to hide from Peter made the idea seem even more attractive. Grabbing his cell phone off of his desk, Harry punched in the numbers.

Harry, how could you? A stranger, Harry? You would betray me and our relationship to a complete stranger? The voice sounded more furious than hurt.

"No," he snapped. "To a confident." He only hoped that assessment was correct.

The phone rang three times before it was picked up.

OOO

Matthew Murdock had been up late, coming up with a closing argument for a recent case and considering whether or not he ought to let Foggy do the cross-examination for another. When the phone rang, he barely registered what the sound was for a few seconds. Once he did, he wondered who would be calling at such a time of night.

"Hello?" He asked. "Harry! How are you? Not well? I see. No, no, it's fine. I told you that you could. Would you like to come here? Or should I come over there? It's not a problem. I'll give you directions."

Working quickly, he cleaned up the papers strewn about his desk before going downstairs to wait for his guest. The knock came ten or fifteen minutes later and he opened the door for the boy who stumbled in, smelling faintly of alcohol and clearly upset. His heartbeat and breath were both erratic and when Matthew put his hand on Harry's back the fabric had the feeling of nightclothes, as though he'd rushed over after a fitful sleep.

"Come." He directed him into the living room and sat him down on a couch. "What's wrong?"

"I needed to talk to somebody," he said breathlessly. "Somebody who would believe me, that I could tell things to and who..." He fidgeted with his hands and swallowed. "Who would maybe know what I should do."

"To do about what?" Matt kept his tone calm and even, inviting Harry to say more but at his own pace.

"It's my father!" Harry shouted. "I... I keep hearing him! And he tells me all these things that I know aren't true, but they sound true when he says them! And he wants me to kill Peter, and avenge him and do all these things that he says a faithful son would do. And I don't want to disappoint him, I never did, but I can't, I just can't, it's too much and he's never going to stop..."

With that, he broke down and sobbed, partially out of fear but also partially out of the release that came from someone finally knowing, someone whom he hoped would be able to fix the problem, as naive as that sounded. His whole body shuddered with the emotion pouring out of him and he only distantly felt the sensation of Matthew's arm around his shoulder as his rant continued.

"I want to live my own life but he won't let me, he'll never let me! Every time I turn around, every time I see my reflection, he's there, whispering to me, never leaving me alone, never, never, never... And I hate it but he's my father and I loved him and I wanted him to be proud of me but he just keeps demanding! And now that I'm in lo-" He suddenly pulled short, stopping himself and looking away.

"Take a deep breath," Matthew murmured, rubbing circles on his back. He did not try to placate him by saying that everything was alright, because it clearly wasn't, but he did try to calm him. "Deep breaths, that's it. Do you need some tissues?" He jumped up and quickly grabbed a box out of the bathroom down the hall and set them on the boy's lap. "Take your time. Breathe."

When his eyes were finally dry and cried out, Harry slumped against Matthew and the older man shifted to hold him better.

"He won't stop until Peter's dead," Harry told him in a strained voice. "And I... I just can't. He's too much to me. I'll die. I did die for him! I can't kill him but unless I do my father won't go away but I can't, I can't..."

"You love him, don't you?" His voice was kind and sympathetic, far from the scorn Norman had to offer.

Harry was too emotionally exhausted to even feel surprise. Instead, he simply nodded, too tired to even wonder how Murdock knew. "Pete doesn't know though. Please don't tell him..."

"I won't," he promised. For Matthew, it was a start; but there were still too many holes that needed filling in before he could help the boy. He rubbed Harry's shoulder and felt the boy's muscles relaxing; that was progress at least. "What happened between your father and Peter?"

Taking a deep breath, Harry was briefly reluctant. The opportunity for catharsis was too attractive, however, and he found the entire sordid story suddenly spilling out. "Dad... Dad went crazy. He was the Goblin. Used some formula the company came up with, but it did stuff to him, and he and Peter got into a fight and he ended up dead; tried to stab Pete with his glider except Peter jumped and it hit him instead." He exhaled heavily. "But when Peter brought the body back, he took off the costume so I wouldn't know. And all I saw at the time was Spider-Man dumping my father's corpse onto the couch." A few tears managed to stream down his face and Matthew reached for a tissue and wiped them away silently. "That was how it looked! What was I supposed to think?

"I got upset at Pete because he took all those pictures. And I thought he knew something but he wouldn't tell me - me, who was supposedly his best friend! Then everything with Otto went screwy and the company went south. I kept drinking and drinking... Peter hates it when I do," he added for no apparent reason. It simply seemed important that Matthew know. "I slapped him once when I was drunk, you see, but that wasn't as bad as..." He swallowed. "I had Octavius kidnap him. Spider-Man. Was going to stab him but I wanted to see his face and it was Pete under there, Pete... I hesitated. Let him go to stop Ock. And I found my dad's old stuff.

"Then I came after Pete. Wouldn't listen to him, he kept trying to explain but I was using that green stuff and I wouldn't listen to him!" Harry's voice briefly escalated as he vented his fury at himself. Then he paused and calmed down. "The first time we fought, I hit my head real bad and Pete saved me. I forgot because of it, all the bad memories, and things were OK for a while; but then I remembered again, used MJ to get to him, Except this time... this time Pete was different. Something was wrong with him too. He came at me, we came at each other, said dad hated me, I threw a bomb at him, he snapped it back..." His grip on Matthew's shirt viciously tightened and, his tears once more gone, he shook with dry sobs. "But when he came that night, I went to him! Because he was my friend, more than my friend... my best friend, I... I'd do anything for Peter, anything. I loved him, even then, and was too stupid and angry and blind to see it.

"And when I came back all I wanted was to see him. Because Peter makes everything right. And for a while I thought I was free, that my father was gone. But he might not even be dead and now his voice, his image... He's in my mind and all around and I can't fight him anymore, I just want him to be quiet..."

His discursive story finally finished, Harry's body went slack and Matthew drew it to himself, helping the boy stretch out on the couch and settling Harry's head in his lap. He stroked the boy's hair and felt him slowly begin to drift into sleep. Damn, Matthew thought though he didn't say it aloud. There was a lot beneath the surface, a complex - forgiving himself the pun - web of issues and a lengthy, unhappy story of two friends misunderstanding and hurting each other in ways that only the truly close could. And hearing his father? He frowned. A few possibilities came to mind, but he was no psychologist.

He would do the best he could of course. Part of Harry's initial lament gave him hope; apparently, whatever the apparition was, it was trying to get to Harry through rhetoric. That was leverage, for if there was one battle Matthew could fight better than a physical brawl, it was a battle of words.

That fight was for the morrow, however. Harry was clearly to tired to even stay awake, let alone continue or explain further about his father's appearances. Easily lifting the boy's body from the couch, Matthew carried him up the stairs and into an empty guest room. Hopefully, if he woke early enough, he could explain any questions the boy might have about the evening and get him back to his actual home without perturbing any servants or employees who might be concerned over Harry's disappearance. Carefully he set Harry down and pulled the sheets and comforter over him. He hoped the boy wouldn't wake but there wasn't much question of him rising. Harry was so run down by that point that his sleep was deep and nearly undisturbable.

Making a note to check up on him every hour or so, Matthew turned and let him sleep, though he left the door open so he might hear any disturbances more clearly. He went back to his work, concern for Harry still weighing heavily on his mind.

Poor kid.

OOO

As the first rays of sunlight struck the masonry on the Osborn Penthouse, an observant person might have noticed a thin stream of sand trickling upwards towards where the windows were and slipping in through them. On the floor, a pile was beginning to form, but as both Peter and Bernard were still asleep nobody was there to notice it.

OOO

A/N: So a bit of a surprise, given the assumptions many reviewers made about who would be helping Harry through the rough spots. Hopefully it's not an unpleasant or too out-of-left-field surprise. There will be more Harry/Peter interaction the next time, I promise. And I'll get to the exhumation too. Eventually. I hope. Soon. Promise. And more slashy-ness too.