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blue eyes, legs trembling, harley stands, and his hair touches the roof.
he looks back down at peter like he’s grown to be a hundred feet, like he’s all legs all of a sudden. although, maybe he’s always been all legs. maybe he’s always been a hundred feet away from peter’s desperate clutch and he’s just never noticed it.
“sit back down.” peter says, but it sounds more like a plea.
harley continues to stand. he doesn’t rock, or stumble, or shuffle. he stares out of the dirty window at a view peter can’t see, his eyes focused and reserved, closed off in a gaze somewhere peter’ll never meet him. he looks like a dictator in this light, all tense armed and cloudy eyed. he’s so still that peter flinches, his own muscles aching to move as harley stands like a statue.
“harley.” peter says again, fumbling with his fidgeting hands. “sit.”
harley looks down at him, like a god towering over peter’s own mortal, fragile body, and tilts his head to the side.
“harley.” peter tries again, and it’s more frantic, his chest contracting as tears pool in his eyes. he’s been stuck in this treehouse too many times to know where this is going.
the taller boy puts a finger against his lips and gestures peter to stand. he feels the force of the gesture through his entire body, vibrating down his chest, into the core of his stomach, and straight down to the tips of his toes. it’s unpleasant and twists his gut into knots, tying it over and over again until he wants to throw up all over his his naked, pale legs. the shorts they had chosen didn’t provide much protection against the mid autumn wind.
harley makes an up movement with his head, and peter sucks in a breath. as much as he wants to, he can’t say no. he’s never been able to in his entire life, and everyone around them knows it. he’ll live his entire life wrapped around harley’s pinky like a coil never allowed to expand and there’s nothing he can do about it.
“peter. stand up. look.”
peter knows what harley’s looking at. he sees it in his dreams, in his nightmares, while he sleeps and when he wakes. it follows him like a plague, leeching into the forefront of his memory like it’ll never leave no matter how hard he tries.
“peter.” harley says again, and peter starts crying.
the air is warm and heavy, the stench of death lingering between the floorboards. the knife sticking out of the cork board on the wall across from him glimmers in the early evening sun, its handle still engraved with ben’s initials. the sight of it makes peter’s stomach churn, like the blood is still dripping from its blade.
“peter. look.”
peter’s legs shake as he unravels then and attempts to stand, never breaking eye contact with harley even as he begins to sob harder. the terror wracks through his body in violent trembles, until he’s standing facing the taller boy, shaking like a leaf in the wind.
“look.” he says, and points east.
“harley, no.” peter sobs, pleading from the bottom of his heart. he fists his hands into harley’s shirt, pulling weakly at it to break the dissociation he seems so trapped in. harley doesn’t take notice (he never does), and watches emotionless as peter struggles to breathe through the heavy tears soaking his cheeks.
he doesn’t need to look to see it. he can remember the dense forest, the blood trails, the purple lilies, the body, the petrol, the trees. he can see the animals, the teeth, the flesh tendrils, the broken lamps. he can see the pain.
he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it, not even in death.
there’s a ringing in his ears as he turns. he stumbles back into harley’s open chest, breath choking in his lungs as the trees slowly shake in the wind. the sun is bright on the crisp leaves littering the floor, covering the blood trails peter knows are still there.
harley doesn’t raise his arms to embrace peter like he used to. he keeps his eyes trained on the forest, looking as content as peter imagined he would, and listens to the smaller boy cry like it’s a sight he’s seen a million times before.
to the left of them, the wall starts to leak that familiar black ooze it had held ever since peter had left the cabin. it smells like blood, like vomit, like rotten oranges in the worst way possible. it’s like the scent of trauma, the scent of drowning underneath the only way in which he knows is possible to cope.
it grows and grows, and peter reaches his head up to see harley watching him, quiet and studying as he watches peter dry heave through sobs. he must be so used to it that the violent tears don’t make him sorrowful anymore.
the smell is almost overwhelming him to the point of dizziness now. his vision’s spinning, black dots appearing out of nowhere. it’s walking it’s way across the floor towards them, swirling around harley’s feet in a circle three inches away, like he’s got some kind of barrier protecting him against somerhing peter knows would suffocate him.
peter doesn’t have that barrier - the ooze starts to cling itself to his skin, burying itself under layers of skin and muscle and fat. his veins pound in resistance, straining to escape the way the venom draws it in so peacefully.
he looks up in panic to see harley’s eyebrows creasing in a mask of pity. there’s a twitch in his fingers, like he’s itching to hold peter like he had done before, like he’s so stuck in the dissociative episode that he’s banging and screaming internally to snap himself out of it.
it doesn’t feel peaceful out here, alone. harley is standing still, as still as he always is, watching as peter jumps away from him when the tendrils leap before his eyes and reach towards his neck; he misses his footing, slipping on the wet floor underneath that one broken roof panel, and falls with a broken yell. his head, smacking into the floor as he falls, spins and spins and spins until all he can do is reel forwards and try not to throw up.
“peter.” harley says, and his eyes have finally unfocused from the tree line. he bends down to peter’s shaking form, reaching into his pocket to pull out a rattling tin of pills.
peter’s used to them - the red, the blue, the yellow, the orange. he’s tried them all, memories of harley forcing them down his throat, of harley watching him choke on the medication, memories of harley gently passing him a glass of room temperature water for him to swallow the pills happily and eagerly.
peter whimpers slightly as a tendril of the ooze sneaks its way out through his vein, looming out like it’s taunting him. harley hands him a blue pill to block it out; his gaze tightens and peter jumps. he’s always been too psychotic to take it himself, so he doesn’t protest as harley shoves his lips against peter’s and pushes the pill down his throat with his tongue.
“it’ll be okay.” he says, and peter always believes him.
he tries to focus on the memories of the treehouse, have them ground him while to blue pill makes its way through his systems. he remembers it; it was such a mess, that burnt ooze bleeding from the walls, staining the floorboards with marks that would never heal over. he remembers the animals, the bugs, the unfaltering weather beating down through the windows. he doesn’t think there’s a thing he won’t remember about this place.
“think about the coyotes.” harley says suddenly, and points south.
he understands. peter remembers everything about that cabin (how could he forget?) - the screams of the coyotes, the back of the knife against his wrist, the blood dripping through the cracks of the pier to the lake; he’s never felt more healed & so disastrously broken all at once.
everything had been okay until then - nothing had ever sat right since he’d left the cabin, wrists bleeding, eyes glazed and twitchy. he remembers the way the paramedics had lifted him onto the bed, how they had tied his legs down even though he’d sworn he hadn’t been moving. he remembers watching harley stand at the edge of the pier, one hand raised in a frozen wave; he remembers the pit in his stomach when he realised it hadn’t worked.
he remembers coming home, the feeding tube in his nose, the discharge papers, the handcuffs. he remembers the way his bed had started to feel foreign when he’d wake crying to harley pressing so hard on his chest he would brush death with a feather.
“peter.”
he tries to ignore the voice, eyes drying as he focuses them on the cabin’s stained window. harley’s standing next to it, one hand brushing the panels. he’s facing away from peter, but he knows what he’s thinking, how he’s feeling - he can almost see the bed through the wall here, see the handcuffs, the tiny bucket, the soiled mattress they’d lost their souls on.
“peter.”
he can almost, if he tries hard enough, see harley, crying at the foot of peter’s bed, all chained up and blindfolded. he can see the blood, pooling in the welts on harley’s back as he stumbles on his knees, too pain drunk to think straight. he can feel the fingers ghosting over his leg, over his stomach, both him and harley crying, always crying.
he lifts his heavy body from the floor and makes his way towards the window across the treehouse; harley watches him, silent for the first time in so long that it makes the hairs on the back of peter’s neck stand up.
the fire pit is still there, still burning if peter watches closely enough. he can see the smoke making its way through the trees, can see himself, kneeling on the pier as harley’s body writhes and screams. he can see their captor, even, his face scratched out like it always is, one hand on harley’s throat, the other holding the chain.
the fire had been hot, he knows that much. him and harley had known each other so well, known every bit of each other inside and out that every torture had been halved between them. the thought, that perhaps the paralysing agony that peter had felt then had been taking away from harley’s made it easier to watch his body burn.
“peter.” harley says again, and it’s like a whisper this time.
he’s in front of peter, standing just a little ahead of the window. his feet are bare, still dirty and chained. his hair is matted and half his face is bruised, but he’s still beautiful. he’s still him.
“let me go.”
peter shakes his head, crawling closer towards the window, one hand reaching for harley. he looks heavy, the kind of heavy only they will ever understand. the trauma is exhausting, agonising as they relive every moment of that cabin over and over and over again. the physicality of the torture shows itself in scratch marks, in welts, in bruises - the left side of harley’s shirt catches on fire as he moves, blistering the skin underneath. his face doesn’t change, but peter knows it hurts.
“peter.” harley says, but his lips don’t move.
the heat is real, and peter can hear harley’s familiar screaming, the sobs he’ll never scrub from his mind making it impossible to think about anything else. his eyes are so excruciatingly sorrowful, his pain so physical, so real, that it’s difficult not to crawl into the open air and hold him as close as possible.
“peter!” his voice is back, shouting and violent in peter’s ears, but his lips aren’t moving. or perhaps they are, but peter can’t tell; all he can focus on is the pain behind harley’s eyes, the tears staining his cheeks like scars.
“i fucking hate you!” peter screams, and it shocks both him and harley, but he’s not talking to him. harley wasn't supposed to die on that pier. it wasn’t his destiny.
the anger is like nothing else he’s ever felt before - it paralyses his whole body, twisting his stomach into knots, his hands into fists. he clenches his eyes shut, squeezing them tighter and tighter until all he can feel is the familiar sound of harley’s screaming, and his own wailing sobs.
“peter!” and hands wrap around his waist, yanking him away from the window by his shirt, pulling away the paralysation from his body like a cloak.
it’s not harley. it’s tony, his cologne gentle like hazelnut, sat behind him, holding him as close as he had done since they found him crying and bleeding at the cabin, all alone. he’d held him so tight, like an unspoken promise that he’d never be alone again, and instilled a level of paranoia peter hadn’t known to exist since before then.
the window’s slightly smashed in the top right corner, and peter’s fist is bleeding. harley's moving frantically, crawling back through the window, a look of shock painted over his face; he knows peter would have joined him without thinking twice.
“harley’s not here, baby.” it’s aunt may this time, her voice soft even though she’s crying. she kneels next to him, her own face so old with second hand trauma. “you know that.”
peter shakes his head, fighting against tony’s strong arms. the blue pill hadn’t worked, because he’s still frantic, still crying, his heart’s still beating so fast it might burst from his chest. he can vaguely smell vomit, that familiar stench of times he’d cried and cried over harley so hard he drove himself to throw up, and cringes back into tony’s chest.
“he’s here, he's right here.” he cries, voice as weak as his body feels. he looks up at harley, who's staring at his own hands like they don't belong to him. aunt may stands beside him, unable to register the pain radiating off him like a beacon.
he knows it's not just physical pain. the trauma harley radiates takes the nightmares away from peter, if only for this moment. he’s tried to cope without harley before, tried to ignore him the same way aunt may and tony ignore him, but the same still rings true - when harley isn’t in his line of sight, he’s plagued by waking nightmares so vivid and violent that he’d claw the skin off his own body in three seconds if it’d make them stop.
he wonders if they see the cabin at night; if the sight of a bed makes their whole body shake and tremble. he wonders if they see their dead lovers in their dreams, when they’re awake, everywhere, always. he wonders if the agony harley's body is breaking under is as noticeable in peter's eyes as it is in harley's trembling knees.
“he’s always here.” peter cries, and he notices may’s rapid breathing. she’s barefoot, and peter’s heart aches at the thought of her running here so desperately. “he’s here, i promise.”
“baby, it’s okay,” may calms him, her soothing voice only making him cry harder. “it’s okay. i know.”
“no, you don’t know.” he sobs, frantic as his small body caves into tony’s arms. “you don’t know. it’s still burning. he’s still in pain.”
peter doesn't take his eyes off of harley who, stood just behind may, is crying softly in that broken way he’d adapted when the pain of being tortured became too heavy. when harley's angry screaming, the never ending string of curse words flung like bullets at the torture had turned to soft, broken sobs that peter could barely hear from the next room over, he knew they’d lost.
the pain is heavy, like a suffocating blanket, and peter wrenches his way out of tony's arms, throwing himself to where harley is now kneeling on the floor, head thrown back, mouth open in a wordless scream. he’s drooling almost angrily, so quick and harsh that peter’s pathetic trembling seems minute in comparison.
"harley, please, come on." peter whispers, hands trembling as he lays them to rest just brushing harley's knees. he doesn't touch him, because he knows his fingers will feel like knives on the exposed flesh underneath his t-shirt.
"peter, you need to-"
"no!" peter screams back, snot and sweat sticking loose strands of hair to his face. "you need to help him, he's dying!"
tony doesn't move, looking over wearily at peter's aunt, who's crying loudly into her hands. he feels a surge of anger, overthrowing him from the tips of his toes to his ears. it’s something about the way they’re crying, so worried for peter - harley's the one in pain.
"he's dying, can't you see? it's burning him."
it's too loud, harley's sobs, the familiar sound of licking flames, the wail of tony's calm words. he doesn't understand how they can't see the ash gently flicking off of harley's torso, calmly landing like they aren't burning him alive in front of peter all over again.
"peter, you need to calm down." tony says softly, crouching down behind peter with a hand gently hovering over his shoulder. "harley's okay-"
peter turns without thinking, eyes streaming, and backhands tony across the face, a scream of anguish getting caught in his throat. the sheer shock makes tony stumble back a few steps, and he watches peter through dizzying eyes as he leaps to his feet, grabbing the water bottle may had found at the bottom of the treehouse and begins pouring it all over the floor.
"please live, please live, please live." he mumbles, hands shaking so violently the water splashes right over harley's face. it doesn't really make him jump, nor does it seem to quench the flames licking around his shirt, but his face slightly cools, and the little twitch in his leg stops.
as tony grunts and gets to his feet, his arms wrapping around peter’s waist to pull him back to the floor, the smaller boy starts crying again, thrashing as the pain slowly makes its way back to his own body. he can feel the agony seeping from harley’s veins, the physical pain, the mental torture flooding peter's senses. even the scars are back, the indent of rope on his wrists that'll never heal, the hot rod baton etched into his exposed torso.
the agony is exhausting, the tendrils of pain snaking around his veins so tiring and numbing that he has no choice but to slump against tony in silent distress, watching through half lidded eyes as harley gets to his feet, beaten and tired, looking down on peter's trembling body.
"it's alright, pete. it's okay." tony whispers, hands smoothing the brown stray away hairs from peter's blotchy face. he continues to whisper, all loving and soothing as he gently lets peter's body down onto the floor of the treehouse.
peter keeps his eyes on harley, who's still standing, almost dissociating, as tony checks his blood pressure and makes sure the tube under his nose is still correctly in its place. he gently places his folded jacket underneath peter's head, still checking all his vital signs and ensuring his physicality is returning to normal. peter tears his eyes away from harley to watch tony for a minute, letting his breathing return to normal as the older man leans over him gently.
"good aim, kid." he laughs lightly, not expecting a response. the red mark is slightly growing on his right cheek, but peter doesn't have the energy to say sorry. instead, he grunts and chokes a little on the spit collecting in his mouth. he trusts tony enough to know he won't hold it over his head.
"that's it," tony says when peter's breathing increases a little as he hiccups. "breathe. it's okay."
peter nods and tries to match his shallow breaths with the exaggerated ones tony is making. aunt may is still crouching a little way away, letting tony work peter through the comedown of the episode. he's used to this enough that it's almost second nature, his hand still wrapped around peter's tiny wrist as he monitors his pulse.
his legs are still kicking gently, fingertips twitching against the wooden floor, but his breathing is slowly returning to normal. it’s shallow, but it doesn’t hurt in the way he knows harley will never be able to do again. tony smiles, nodding gently as his pulse flattens, and places a soft hand on his cheek.
"that's it. you're alright."
peter breathes in response, looking away from tony as his mind and body stabilizes. the roof is sheltering, the warning of a storm gently brewing outside the walls of the treehouse. harley never liked thunderstorms, but peter would sit in them until he was soaked to the bone, shivering and borderline hypothermic. after the cabin, peter would run straight for his closet when thunderstorms came in, whispering and breathing with harley until they calmed down.
a twitch of worry spikes peter straight in his stomach, an innate worry for harley making his eyes twitch. he’s always been scared of the little things, like the small bugs creeping around the corners of the treehouse. he wonders if it’s easier to cope with those little scary things when you can’t be physically touched by them.
when peter looks back over to his right, tired and weak and full to the brim with overwhelming worry, the fire is gone, and so is harley.