Title: Wonderland
Rating: PG, for general dark themes, mild language, kisses.
Notes: A dream, insanity, snakes and mirrors.
Warnings: Peter/Harry slash. This means homosexuality.

All he can see is darkness and haze, and so Peter knows that this must be a dream. The sound of an ocean in the distance, and rain he knows is there but he can't feel. Heavy grey weighs down on him, muffling his senses, pressing in. Maybe, he thinks quietly (even his thoughts are dulled), it means he's being asphyxiated while he sleeps. He would wake up, but this is so quiet and peaceful, and he hasn't dreamt for weeks and weeks.

They say crazy people don't dream.

But Peter knows he's not crazy. He's made sure. He really can do these incredible things, Harry really is his best friend and Norman Osborn really is dead. So is Uncle Ben.

It's just, if Peter is really so sane, why doesn't he love MJ the way he knows he should?

And as though his thought calls her (and, considering this is his dream, it probably did), here she is now, coming towards him out of the grey. Droplets cling to her hair and her dress is soaked - it's the costume from her play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Peter believes he's done well enough at that.

MJ is looking right through him, anxiety and impatience stretched across her pretty face. Starting towards her, Peter wants to call out, but he has no idea of what he would say. As she comes closer, Peter can see that her lips are turning black and she has the outline of a spider tattooed on her arm.

"MJ?" he finally says. "Mary Jane?"

She turns towards him, barely focusing. "Who are you? I'm looking for Spider-man. Spider-man. Spider…"

Pale fingers raise themselves to her blackened lips, and she blinks, tuning Peter out again, rushing away.

"MJ! Where –"

She is already gone.

And he knows the answer to his question. It rings around him, whispering and attacking, concealed in fog.

Spider-man, Spider-man, Spider-man.

He wakes up with his fingers clenching and unclenching fistfuls of sheets, holding his pillow over his head so the sound of his alarm-clock is muffled in his ears.

-

And the dream repeats itself for a week.

-

This time, it doesn't stop with an alarm-clock. It keeps going, and the words keep jabbing at him, even crawling inside his own head despite the palms he fervently presses against his ears.

His vision is getting darker, he is choosing not to see, all he knows are those awful words, that awful name, and he thinks he really might just suffocate this time when there are strong hands on his shoulders.

"Peter, Peter Parker, Peter," a familiar voice says, and Peter looks up and unblocks his ears and he can see again because it is not just grey infinity, it's Harry, comforting Harry, his best friend in the whole world who saves him with his name.

"Yeah. That's me."

"Hey, Peter, check this out. You gotta see this, man. You need to see this."

Harry's voice is suddenly urgent; he grasps Peter's wrist and drags him away, striding purposefully but Peter can't imagine why. There's nothing to see in this awful fog. There's no way to tell where you're going.

Still, somehow they find themselves in the Osborn study, and just outside is the balcony and the entire city, Peter could swear because he knows it's there. There's a mirror before them, and he has visions of walking up to it and stepping right in, like Alice, through the looking-glass.

Instead, Peter peers in, because it's hazy and smudged, old and dirty, which is strange because he knows it really isn't.

"Look. Don't you see him?"

Peter squints a bit and tilts his head – and there it is, some phantasm in a mirror, himself and yet not himself. A sect of him, dressed in red and blue, eyeless, mouthless. Voiceless.

Spider-man Spider-man Spider-man.

The whispers are back, and escalating in volume as Peter stares at the image – his reflection? But, how could it be? – and his hand finds Harry's and seizes it, willing the voices to stop, stop it, shut up already. Peter, he thinks. Peter Parker. It is the only way he can hold them at bay.

But then the image changes. Just a twitch of his head and a blink of eyes, and then it is Doc Ock. Metal pincers snap at him and the Doc grins strangely – and the mirror flicks again, like a television, to Norman Osborn. Peter can hardly process this before it changes yet again. Old Uncle Ben. Harry. Peter himself, then MJ, the Green Goblin, flick flick flicker. He can't keep track until the hideous green maw appears and Harry moves suddenly next to him, as though lunging. The mirror shatters suddenly, but instead of the Goblin or even Norman Osborn there are fragments of blue and red scattered on the floor, around the knife, a gigantic jigsaw puzzle.

Peter feels a strange sort of relief.

Now instead of a mirror there is a black opening, cave, and nothing comes out – why should something come out?

(Snakes, something tells him. But why not spiders?)

And Peter sees Harry, who looks at him like he is either about to kill him or love him (snakes snakes snakes) and so he reaches up behind Harry's head to twine his fingers through sable curls. It is soft and as Peter brings ruddy lips down to meet his, kiss, he realizes that yes this is what happens next and the thought or the kiss makes him whole. And through that hole he steps alone, through darkness and blackest gloom, to find a simple mask, sort of African, leering green at him.

- -

The first thing Harry notices when he steps into the room is that the balcony doors are open.

When he goes to investigate, the hardness and cracking of glass beneath his feet startles him and he looks up to see that awful consuming hole in the wall.

No, please, no no no. Not my father, not that demon, not the goblin, oh God not insanity, he thinks at first.

Then he remembers the open balcony doors, and decides that someone must have broken in. But who could have gotten up there in the first place?

He walks through the jagged frame of remaining glass, pocketing the letter-opener knife which is actually sharp enough to cut skin, easily. As something clicks inside his head, he thinks again, No. Please, no. No, God, not –

"Peter." It nearly shocks him because he was expecting a red and blue costume, or nobody at all if he had been lucky. Not tutoring, quiet, friendly Peter. The man and the superman are still distant in his mind, despite the recently acquired connection. He is angered all the more for this.

"Harry... Harry, I -"

Yes, that's Peter Parker, sure enough, standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by those shelves of glowing green capsules. That mask is in his hands, the wreckage of the glider lies on the table behind him; he looks trapped, like a cornered animal. Harry can't stand the innocent, shocked expression on his face.

"What the hell do you... how dare – No, just shut up, Peter, shut up. Just –" Harry closes the distance with his long steps, but at the same time it feels like there's so much left between them. Grasping Peter's upper arms, his shoulders, shaking him like a rag doll.

"You – there is no excuse – you knew –"

"I'm s –"

"Don't even say it, damn you! You're not." Harry can hear his voice break, shattering like glass, as fragile as he's felt these days. "You're not..." Sobs shudder through his chest and burst out of him, wracking his wasted frame. The noises he makes aren't even human. He sounds like an animal. His hands are no longer gripping Peter desperately, instead Harry is hanging on to him, wrapping his arms around Peter's slim back, fiercely holding him. He isn't sure if it's that he needs to control Peter, or that he needs him never to leave. Maybe in the end it comes out to the same thing.

"I hate..." Oh God, he can't even finish his sentences and he's falling apart quick somebody catch him. "I h-"

"Don't, don't even say it, you bastard. You bastard. I – you know I – I love –"

Harry extracts himself, looks at Peter and he doesn't know what the hell he's going to do. Fortunately (unfortunately?), Peter takes charge, and Harry feels his head being pulled down and his lips pressed against Peter's, and before he can say anything, can even register the thousands of things that have happened in these mere minutes, he is alone in the dark and glowing room.

The mask is in his hands and he can't look at it. He would leave the room except this seems impossible as well.

All he can see is darkness and haze, and so Harry knows that (oh, god) this must be reality.