Chapter Text
The sun peeked out above the horizon, just barely showing a sliver of itself. Rays of orange light found their way through the gaps of the curtains covering the window, and Harley blinked his eyes open only to immediately squint them at the streams of light hitting his face.
Harley rolled over from his side and onto his stomach with a soft groan, burying his face in his pillow. He wasn’t sure what had caused him to wake up, earlier than he usually did and on a weekend of all the days of the week, but he was sure that he and it, whatever it was, were going to have some problems.
He shivered, the cool morning air brushing across his bare torso, the sheets of his bed only pulled up to his waist and staying there because he didn’t have enough energy to get up and readjust them. He didn’t have enough energy period—going to sleep well after four in the morning and waking up when the sun was just starting to rise was not a good idea and Harley did not recommend it—but that wasn’t the main issue.
Everything was quiet and muted, but Harley heard soft murmurs coming from the direction of his door, ones that got a little louder and closer as seconds passed, so he turned his head to rest on his pillow. With his head facing the door, he managed to force his eyes open just as the door did the same and revealed a shadow. Everything in him melted, a warm, heady feeling flooding his veins once his eyes adjusted and he saw Peter standing shyly in the doorway.
“Hey,” he rumbled softly, his voice low and gravelly and his eyes slipping closed again. His cheek pressed against the fabric covering his pillow as he allowed himself to relax back into the mattress, his hands propped underneath the pillow itself to cushion it up for his head. Peter. Peter was okay and good and meant all the best things. Harley could never ever have a problem with Peter. “‘S kinda early.”
“Yeah,” Peter responded, moving forward and softly closing the door behind him, his hair a wild mess of brown curls. “Yeah, I know, I just - I couldn’t sleep.”
“At all?”
“No, I, uh.” Sounds of Peter shifting reached Harley’s ears. “I’ve kind of been up all night.”
That wasn’t good.
Harley forced his eyes open, taking in the way Peter was curled in on himself with his arms wrapping around his torso. It had happened a few times before—Peter hadn’t been able to sleep, whether because of a nightmare or just because May was working and he was alone, and he’d made his way to the Keener apartment. But it had never happened like this, or this early in the morning. Or, this late in the morning, really.
Usually, Laura—not Abi; Peter usually stopped by sometime after midnight, and Abi wasn’t a fan of early morning starts—would let Peter in the apartment and he’d crash on the couch. On weekends, or days without school, Harley would stumble out into the living room area later on to find Peter fast asleep, snoring softly and everything, which was adorable. He carried Peter—because Peter was, surprisingly, really light, and carrying him places actually wasn’t too difficult—into his bed for the next few hours, letting him stay in there alone until he woke up and sleepily dragged himself to collapse back on the couch to sleep some more, before Abi came and coerced him into shamelessly teasing Harley for whatever he happened to be doing at that moment.
On weekdays, he let Peter have a few extra minutes before waking him up with a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs, and dressing him in a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, both belonging to Harley. He always looked ragged those days, from the lack of sleep combined with Harley’s clothes that were just a bit, but still noticeably, too big on his frame, and Harley found it adorable. And slightly worrying. But mostly adorable.
But Peter had never come straight into Harley’s room before, and he’d never come by at six in the morning. It was weird, but not something that Harley was questioning all too hard. Mostly because he was tired, but also because he didn’t have much of a problem with Peter sleeping in his bed with him, not really, not at all.
He figured that Laura had let Peter in, like normal, but had finally told him to go to Harley’s bedroom instead of letting him convince her that he was fine on the couch. It was something that Harley could see her doing no problem, so it had to be the most likely option.
After realizing he’d been silent for too long, he hummed, forcing his muscles to cooperate so he could scoot to the edge of the bed and make room for Peter. Peter slept in his bed alone all the time—there couldn't be any harm in them sleeping in it together, right?
The sheets got tangled around Harley’s legs, so he worked on fixing that as he said, “Mkay, c’mon.” Peter hesitated, not moving until Harley opened an eye and gave an impatient grunt. He stepped farther into the room, toeing his shoes off as Harley spread out his sheets as best he could and brought them up to cover his shoulders so they’d be ready for Peter to slide in under and closed his eyes again. “Close th’ curtains.”
Harley kept his eyes closed, inhaling slow and deep before exhaling in the same manner, waiting for Peter to slide into bed next to him. When it finally happened, the mattress shifting as Peter climbed on and maneuvered his way under the covers, Harley opened his eyes and rolled onto his side so he was facing Peter.
It was clear as day that Peter was tired. His eyes were puffy and had dark bags underneath them, and they were half-lidded as Peter stared back at him, mirroring his position, with a grateful, and sleepy, smile. Harley watched as Peter got more comfortable, stiff at first but relaxing when Harley settled in and made it clear he didn’t have a problem with anything that was going on.
The bed wasn’t the biggest, being the twin-sized one that it was, so he and Peter were closer than he’d thought they’d be, even though he knew they were both sticking as close to the edges of the bed as possible. He didn’t exactly have a problem with it, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to ask if Peter did. Just in case.
“You good, Parker?” he asked on a yawn, his eyes closing for a few seconds before he pried them open again, not wanting to miss Peter’s reply.
Peter yawned back at him, snuggling into the pillow and blinking slowly, his eyelashes brushing against the tops of his cheeks in a way that Harley wanted to copy; he wanted to trace the lines of Peter’s face with his fingers. “Yeah, ‘m good. Thanks.”
“‘S okay.” He reached out a hand to lightly pat Peter’s cheek—he didn’t allow himself any time to linger like he wanted to, instead moving his hand straight away—giving him his best smirk that probably looked more like a quirk of his lips. “Sleepy time now.”
Peter hummed in response, and Harley forced his own eyes to remain open as Peter’s drooped more and more, closing a little more each time. When Peter’s eyes were completely closed and his breathing was slow and deep and even—something that took close to five minutes, which meant five minutes of Harley holding his breath and staring—Harley waited a little longer, wanting to be sure that Peter was asleep before he started to fall asleep himself.
Right as Harley was about to close his eyes and fall back asleep for another hour or two, Peter shifted closer, which caused them to be almost pressed together with how small the bed was, and stuck an arm out, resting the curve of his elbow in the dip of Harley’s waist.
Peter’s bare skin was brushing against Harley’s, and he was just so close and suddenly Harley was fighting hard to keep a certain thing from arising and becoming an uncomfortable and awkward issue and this was Peter right in front of him, sleeping, trusting him, and so soft, and Harley’s heart felt ready to burst with… with something. With something.
His breath caught in his chest, his pulse thrumming away in his throat, and he let out a shaky breath that quivered more than he would have cared to admit; if he tried to talk, he was almost certain the words would have been choked with wetness.
He didn’t even know why he was feeling like this. Peter was his best friend, had been his best friend for months, and Harley had handled it all extremely well and in strictly platonic ways. Logically, there was no reason for him to be as worked up as he was.
Still.
Slowly, so slowly it felt like he was barely even moving, he shifted his arm, the one pinned down to the mattress by his body weight, and then shifted his body so he was laying more on his back than on his side. Peter showed no reaction, so Harley, still moving as slowly as he could, carefully reached out a hand and pressed it against the arm Peter had around him, delicately relaxing his fingers until he had a loose grip on Peter’s upper arm. It was all heavily charged with some strange emotion, even though Peter wasn’t awake, and Harley swallowed thickly.
Reveling in the skin contact, and determinedly not shifting more or reaching out even further to lace their fingers together—no matter how much he might have wanted to—he let out another breath, this one even shakier than the last, and closed his eyes.
~*~
Peter sleeping in Harley’s bed wasn’t a frequent thing; he didn’t come over all the time. Whenever May was scheduled to work the night shift at the hospital, from eleven at night to seven the next morning, Harley would be woken up at around midnight by Peter slipping into his room. Since the first time he’d slept in Harley’s bed while Harley was in it, Peter had gotten more confident. All that really meant was he went from being shy about sneaking into Harley’s room at any time before one in the morning to still being shy but stopping by at later times.
He was still sorry about waking Harley up—if Harley was even sleeping—which was... Harley wanted to say it was adorable, but it was more than that. Endearing, maybe.
Regardless, Peter started going to Harley’s room in the early morning hours, like tonight.
“Harley,” came a whisper that was thick with exhaustion, paired with a slight shake of his shoulder, the contact searing Harley’s skin. Harley groaned, maybe even whined, into his pillow, shrugging his shoulder in the hopes of warding off the voice and the person it belonged to. All him moving did, though, was lead to another whisper, this time laced with amusement. “Harley, it’s Peter.”
Well, that was a new development.
Slowly blinking his eyes open, Harley took in the darkness of his room and turned his head to the left, looking at where he knew Peter would be.
Over the past few weeks, Harley’s body had subconsciously started sleeping on the left side of the bed, the side furthest from the door. It was like he wanted Peter to be able to fall right into the bed without having to go all the way around. But Peter still went all the way around, to wake Harley up and ask him if it was okay if he could stay—Harley couldn’t stop himself from hoping they eventually got to a point where Peter didn’t ask, where Peter just knew it was okay and that it would always be okay.
Sure enough, when Harley’s eyes actually bothered to focus enough so he wasn’t blind in the darkness of his room—he slept with his dark blue curtains closed all the time, tied shut so they didn’t accidentally open—he could just make out the line of Peter’s shoulder and the way he had his teeth pinned against his bottom lip, the finer details of his face lost without light to view them in.
Harley let his eyes slip closed again, not having the energy to keep them open even for Peter. It felt so much later—earlier?—than usual, and Harley felt like he could die from exhaustion, having not made it to sleep until around one-thirty in the morning, after he’d thought Peter wasn’t going to be showing up at all. (And it probably said a lot that he was willing to stay up late, sacrificing his own sleep, to wait for Peter, even if it wasn’t a guarantee that he’d show up at all.)
He shifted around a little on the mattress. “Time issit?” he murmured, his words slurring together to the point where even he couldn't make out what he’d said. He really was tired, damn.
Peter remained silent for a few seconds before finally responding, right before Harley was going to force an eye open to try and see what was wrong. “Um.” A pause, followed by, “It’s... a little after three.” Another groan, one directed as his own misfortune, left Harley before he could stop it. It was early Monday morning, which meant that Harley had to be awake for school in under three hours. Considering he had only actually fallen asleep at around two-thirty, Harley was most definitely fucked; he’d be lucky if he made it through the first half of the school day without some sort of sleep-deprived disaster.
Peter removed his hand from its position on Harley’s shoulder and pulled away, and Harley realized he had inadvertently made Peter think he wasn’t welcome tonight, a theory that was only solidified by Peter’s next words.
“Right,” Peter rushed out, and Harley could physically feel him pulling away, “I’m sorry, it wasn’t nice to wake you up, sorry, I’ll go–”
Harley’s hand was wrapped around Peter’s forearm without him even having to think about it. He was finally able to crack an eye open, his vision finally clear enough to catch sight of Peter's expression from this close—shy and relieved, but also worried, and tinged with the slightest edge of guilt—and let out another groan, trying his hardest to make sure this one sounded as unbothered as possible.
He scooted across the mattress away from Peter, lightly tugging on his arm to make sure he followed. “C'mon, honey,” he said softly, his voice groggy and thick with sleep. Peter didn’t move, so Harley tugged once more, and then again and again until Peter finally got the message and toed his shoes off, climbing onto the mattress, movements still slow and reluctant.
He waited until Peter was settled under the covers and went still, laying on his stomach with his cheek against the pillow so he could look at Harley in the dark, before asking, “May’s workin’?” He already knew the answer, and was proved right when he heard more than saw Peter nod. “And Ma let you in?” The sound of another nod came, Peter’s cheek and no doubt frizzy hair rubbing against the pillow.
“Need…” Peter yawned, and it was a big one if the way his jaw cracked said anything. “Need you to... to wake me up. School tomorrow.”
As if Harley didn't already know that. He was prepared, okay, he’d done this more than enough times on his own to be able to handle it when someone else joined him in the sleeping-for-less-than-three-hours part of things.
“I got you, Parker,” Harley told him softly, speaking in a low voice that rolled the words around in his chest before letting them come out his throat and into the air to be heard. “Got an alarm and everythin’. Go to sleep.”
Peter shifted, settling in even further and letting out a soft breath that brushed against Harley’s face. “Mkay, thanks.”
Harley waited for Peter to fall asleep, it taking longer than normal for Peter’s breathing to even out. Despite being exhausted from his damn near-nightly routine of not going to sleep at healthy times—which, really, wasn’t even that big of a deal; he clearly did fine every day, even if his eyes constantly burned and he felt like he could pass out at any moment on the daily—and in desperate need of a full-on crash that he wouldn’t be getting today, Harley stuck it out and didn’t let himself go back to sleep until Peter let out a soft noise of contentment and scooted his body closer to Harley’s like he’d more recently taken to doing the past few times they’d done this.
Ha. The past few times, like this was normal. And it was normal, was the crazy part. Harley loved it. He could almost perfectly guess how things would happen each time Peter slept over—it was like they had a routine. They didn’t follow it exactly every time, it being more of a general guideline than anything else, but things usually happened pretty much the exact same way.
Apparently, this time was not one of those times. This time, when Peter shifted closer he shifted way closer, close enough that Harley could feel the waves of heat emanating off of him, could feel each and every one of Peter’s exhales brushing against his face.
It was nice. And it lulled him right to sleep.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it), Harley slept like a baby, right through his alarm and right along with Peter, which caused a considerable amount of chaos the next morning.
Laura had already gone to work early that morning and wasn’t around to make sure they were up on time to make it to school—the only reason he and Peter got up at all was because Abi, in all of her sisterly wonderfulness, went into Harley’s room looking for something, probably something to take without asking, and found them still asleep. In bed together.
She found the whole thing extremely amusing; Harley did not.
Abi woke them up with a delighted and smug look on her face, one that Harley pointedly ignored until she left his room with a cackle and a muttered, “You’re so gay, oh my gosh,” that Harley prayed Peter didn’t hear, and started getting ready for her own school day.
“Sorry,” Harley said to Peter, holding back a yawn. He tugged a hand through his hair as the other one dug through his dresser for a shirt, trying to shake off the groggy haze that surrounded him as he moved to absently scratch at his stomach, his hair flopping down over his forehead and into his eyes. He needed a haircut—his hair was long enough that it was becoming a general nuisance that he didn’t want to have to deal with. “Didn’t mean to sleep through it.”
They had already missed first period and were going to be really late for second period, with no excuse for the absence or the tardy. Which sucked, and was actually pretty terrible.
Peter just shrugged, and Harley found himself cataloging the line of Peter’s shoulders as they casually rose and fell. “It's okay.” A grin was on his face as he said the words, one that had Harley stopping in his search to just– stare, just for a short while. Peter was beautiful, especially in the mornings with his hair a fluffy mess and his movements slow but still controlled.
Peter wasn’t clumsy, not by any definition of the word, but being able to keep that distinct gracefulness even when he was tired and on the brink of falling asleep standing up was one of the many things that Harley adored about him.
(In a friend kind of way, right?)
“Harley?” Peter questioned, a small frown on his face, his head slightly tilted to one side, his hair a mess on the top of his head. Harley kind of wanted to run his hands through it, maybe give it a tug or two. “You okay?”
Harley shook himself, remembering that people didn’t just stop in the middle of an action to think about how pretty their friend was—which what the hell—and turned to continue searching through his drawers with a nod. “Yeah.” He couldn't get the sight of Peter’s grin out of his head, of Peter’s relaxed expression as he slept, of Peter’s chest slowly rising and falling with every inhale and exhale, out of his head, and it was fucking him up, but other than that he was fine. “Yeah,” he repeated. “Just thinkin’.”
(In a friend kind of way, right?)
Peter gave him a bemused look, but accepted it with an, “Alright.”
Alright.
Harley was all for forgetting his doubts had ever happened, but it seemed like, after that night, all Harley could focus on was Peter. Just Peter. Only Peter.
That thought process made him start to wonder about how long it had been Peter, but that was a question for another day, a day that would hopefully be very, very far from this one.
In the middle of the day while he was eating dinner with Laura and Abi, during the late hours of the night when Peter was sleeping peacefully next to him, in the early morning hours where the sun was bright and blinding and Harley’s mind was working slow enough to let him—all he could do was think about Peter. Peter and his hands and his hair and his face and his laugh and his smile and his infuriating tendency to drink the last of the orange juice every single time he was over at Harley’s apartment and–
Shit.
They weren’t a bad set of thoughts, not really—they were just different ones. New ones. Thoughts that Harley had never thought before. At least, not in the way he was beginning to think them now.
At first, he doubted that he even liked Peter like that, but it all really clicked together when Harley said some stupid comment and Peter laughed, loud and bright and happy and everything Harley had ever wanted to hear in his life, and all Harley could think was, “Oh,” the word like a repeating soundtrack in his brain, playing over and over and over again and not letting up for a second.
So. Harley had a crush.
He could deal with that. That was fine. It wasn’t like he hadn’t ever had crushes before. A crush was cool. Normal, even. It was all so very normal. Everyone had a crush on their best friend at one point or another, right? Nothing to worry about.
Except the more he thought about it, the more he realized that there was something to worry about, because Harley, about a week after the liking-Peter-in-a-more-than-friends-kind-of-way realization, had come to another realization, which contained one very big problem that threatened to change the landscape of everything: he might have been a little in love with Peter.
Just a little bit.
Which was just as terrifying as being a lot in love with Peter, for obvious reasons.
Peter was just... Peter. It wasn't even that he was attractive—which didn't mean he wasn't, because he most definitely was—it was just... that...
He was amazing, okay? That was it. He was amazing and smart and funny and so fucking good, all the time, and his smiles held every happy thing in the world ever, and there was so much more that Harley couldn't begin or even hope to put into words, and… and Harley was so gone over him it should have been straight-up ridiculous but, strangely enough, it wasn't.
And, okay, so maybe Harley was more than a little bit in love with Peter. But it wasn't his fault! It wasn't anything he could help!
God, going from a normal, nothing-to-worry-about-crush to throwing the L-word around like it was nothing. What the fuck was Harley’s brain?
The thing was this: ever since the first day they'd met, the very first day, there was something. Harley had taken one look at Peter from across a classroom full of twenty-five other kids, and it was like everything in him had exploded and imploded at the same time, colliding together into one big mess of... of something. He didn't really know, honestly, couldn't even begin to describe it–he’d thought it was just very intense feelings of Friendship at the time—but there was definitely Something there.
He also knew it was kind of messed up. He and Peter were close friends, and Peter had never shown an inkling of liking Harley in a non-platonic way, and it felt like he was doing something wrong by harboring feelings when Peter didn't return them, didn't even have an idea of them existing. Plus, pining. Harley didn't like pining. Pining after someone you'd never get was pointless—and yet here he was, entirely caught up in Peter pretty much every time they were in the same room, and sleeping next to him like it wasn't physically painful to keep a healthy amount of distance between them, like he didn’t want to move closer and just wrap his arms around Peter and hold him close to his chest and… just… Ugh.
It was hard, doing his best to make sure that Peter didn't catch on, but Harley was sure that he could manage for... forever. He could manage to act like he was perfectly content to be Just Friends with Peter for the rest of their lives—or for the rest of their friendship, at the very least—and everything would be fine. Everything would be just fine.
As long as Peter didn't ever find out—ever—things would be great.
Keeping his feelings a secret, though, turned out to be way harder than he thought, especially considering the fact that literally everyone around him had figured it out.
“You know,” Gwen, a girl in Harley’s history class, said casually out of nowhere, filling out an answer on the worksheet they were supposed to be working on and taking Harley entirely off-guard, about three days after he’d come to the conclusion that he was hopelessly in love with Peter Parker. He literally jumped in place because he was startled so badly, because he and Gwen didn’t exactly... talk a lot. “You’re not exactly hiding anything.”
Harley shot her a look that was more than a little accusatory and full of suspicion, and maybe a little curious, too, keeping his pencil hovering over his own worksheet. It was blank because he’d been thinking about Peter—surprise, surprise.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gwen returned his look with a look of her own, though her blue eyes held more amusement than anything else.“That… you’re not… hiding anything?” She turned back to her worksheet, her pencil scratching against the paper. “I thought it was pretty clear.” She looked back up at Harley to clarify. “I meant what I said was pretty clear, not the fact that you’re not hiding anything. Well, I mean that too, of course, but.” She shrugged.
Okay?
Harley and Gwen had been sharing a table in his history class since the beginning of the school year. It was a partnership forged out of the shared lack of people wanting to be their desk-mate, so it obviously wasn’t perfect, or even all that friendly. They’d started out rough, barely wanting to interact with each other during class (and making most of the projects and bigger, partnered assignments difficult to collaborate on), but they eventually moved into the category of maybe-friends at the end of the first semester, and then firmly into the school-friend category by the start of the third quarter, which was now.
Gwen had never shown a lot of interest in Harley’s personal life before, but he didn’t hold it against her—he hadn’t been all that interested in hers, either. It wasn’t anything personal, really, it was just that people tended to make friendships between a male and female something romantic and Harley was about as gay as they came—which meant very—and didn’t want to have to deal with that misunderstanding about his relationships. Even if Gwen honestly seemed more than a little cool.
He was friends with MJ, and MJ was a girl, but no one gave him shit for that. In all honesty, though, that was probably because MJ had made it pretty clear that anyone who had any inferences about her relationship status and decided to tease her about it or spread it around the school wasn’t safe from her terrifying fury. MJ scared a lot of people, even if they weren’t all too willing to admit it.
And besides, him and Gwen just… weren’t that kind of friends. They talked and hung out in this history class, and politely nodded at each other when they passed in the hallways, but that was about it. They didn’t make plans or hang out outside of school, they didn’t talk about important things going on in their lives, they didn’t even introduce each other to their other friends.
Harley didn’t have a problem with that, of course, not if that was what Gwen was most comfortable with, but… he admittedly also wouldn’t have a problem if Gwen wanted to be friends. Like, friends friends.
Still, Gwen had never made it known that she wanted to be outside-of-school friends—before now, at least—so it struck Harley as weird that she would bring up whatever Harley was not-hiding, completely out of the blue.
Harley sighed, putting his pencil down on his paper and turning sideways in his chair to face his partner, eyes briefly flickering over the rest of the chattering class and the teacher who was in the process of assisting a kid with something on the worksheet. “And what am I ‘not hiding’, exactly?”
“Nevermind.” She shrugged again. “It’s none of my business.”
“Aw,” Harley groaned. “C’mon, Gwen. You can’t just do that.”
“Do what?”
“Bring somethin’ up and then just,” Harley waved a hand around, shifting in his chair to get more comfortable when Gwen turned to look at him, mirroring his position, “say nevermind. It’s not right.”
Gwen grinned. “Well that’s too bad, isn’t it,” she said, showing absolutely no sympathy or apology whatsoever.
Harley stared in shock, taking in Gwen’s grin and the amused glint in her eyes. The emotion melted into something less surprised and more fond, and he shook his head with a small laugh, looking down at the tops of her white Converse. “You’re a little bit evil, huh?”
A snort, paired with a casual bump of the tip of her shoe against Harley’s calf. “Maybe.”
He eyed her, looking for signs of a reason for her to suddenly act friendly and familiar—which wasn’t to say she hadn’t before, because she had, it was just that it normally happened because they were being forced to work together on an assignment, not them striking up conversation out of the blue—with him. Right as he opened his mouth to comment on it, figuring that directly approaching the situation instead of subtly dancing around it would be better, Mr. Lance, the damned AP U.S. History teacher, called his name out.
“Mr. Keener.” Harley’s eyes snapped from Gwen, who’d turned back to her worksheet, to Mr. Lance, irritation tickling the back of his throat. He didn’t like the guy, sue him. “Do you plan on completing this worksheet at all, or are you going to continue your attempts to flirt with your partner?”
Harley fought down a blush of embarrassment as some of the other kids in the room laughed, a couple of them making various comments. He wasn’t flirting—no offense to Gwen, but Harley wasn’t interested in her. Or any other girl. Or anyone that wasn’t a nerdy boy named Peter Parker, really.
Mr. Lance raised an eyebrow, obviously waiting on an answer, so, through gritted teeth, Harley answered. “No, sir. Sorry.”
He turned back to his worksheet without another word, keeping his jaw clenched tight. Lance was an all-around asshole, yes—didn’t mean that gave Harley the right to mouth off and do something stupid. And just because it was Friday didn’t mean that Lance wouldn’t take the opportunity to hold Harley for an hour after school ended. The man didn’t have a life, he could and absolutely would do something like that, probably just to prove some sort of point that he felt Harley didn’t get.
“Sorry,” Gwen muttered lowly, her light blonde hair hanging over her shoulder and hiding most of her face, though Harley could still see some parts of flushed skin peeking through. “I didn’t—”
“It’s fine,” he said, cutting her off and marking down another answer on the worksheet, his pencil gripped tight in his fingers. “Lance ‘s always had it out for me anyway.”
Gwen didn’t reply. Harley couldn’t say he had much of a problem with that.
~*~
“Harley!” a voice called out at the end of the school day, as Harley was walking down the empty hallway towards the exit doors, having just finished putting things into and taking things out of his locker.
He turned around to see Gwen hurrying towards him, dodging around groups of kids and ducking swinging elbows, her hair pulled back into a braid that she must have put it in sometime between history and the end of school. She came to a stop in front of Harley, immediately pulling her braid over her shoulder and beginning to fiddle with the ends of it, twirling the strands around her pointer finger.
Harley shifted, moving his weight from one leg to the other. He and Peter were supposed to be walking to Harley’s apartment to do homework—and maybe even take a break for a nap, who knew—and he didn’t want to keep him waiting. Peter was in two of his classes, but they were both in the morning, and they didn’t have the same lunch, so Harley was suffering through some sort of Peter Withdrawal that seemed to be affecting his basic brain functions. Because he was a clingy bastard like that.
He needed help.
“Hey,” he said, returning his attention back to the world around him and the girl standing in front of him. Gwen was kind of… short. He hadn’t really noticed before, but she had to be four or five, or even six, inches shorter than him.
“Hi.” She took a deep breath, looking like she was steeling herself for something. She held it in for a few seconds, looking down at the ground, and lifting her eyes to meet Harley’s. “So, I, uh… just wanted to say that I’m sorry.” At Harley’s confused glance, she added, “For what happened in class.”
“Oh.” Harley lifted his backpack higher up on his shoulder, doing his best to resist the urge to turn tail and haul ass. “Nothing to worry about.”
He wasn’t lying. He was just omitting certain, relatively important truths, that was all. Gwen didn’t have anything to worry about, but the whole scene in class earlier had, to some degree, bothered him. Everyone automatically assumed he was attracted to girls and he wasn’t, and it just made him a little upset. That was it.
He also didn’t want to tell Gwen any of that. Maybe she was one of those girls who got offended if a guy told them he wasn’t flirting, Harley didn’t know, he wasn’t a mind reader.
He figured the best course of action would be to let Gwen apologize while insisting it wasn’t her fault, and then run away as far as possible and constantly avoid the topic and memory of it.
Good plan.
“I wasn’t flirting with you!” Gwen rushed out, wincing immediately after the words were out, and Harley could only blink. This did not follow the outlines of the plan he’d just made. Like, at all. “And I know that just makes me sound like I was, or like I’m lying or something, but I– I promise that I was definitely not flirting with you, at all, in any way.”
Harley blinked again, entirely thrown off by her vehement tone. “Oh.”
Gwen’s expression turned pained. “Wait, I mean, that’s not an insult, I’m sure there are girls that would flirt with you.” She shook her head, and Harley kept staring. It was kind of fascinating, the way she was going about this conversation. “I’m just saying that I wouldn’t. Flirt with you. Ever.”
And that was where she stopped. Harley could have died from the laughter that wanted to bubble up his chest and out of his throat.
He settled for giving her an amused look, shaking his curls off his forehead and away from his eyes (they fell right back, because Harley needed a haircut, but it couldn’t be helped). “You’re good, dude. I wasn’t flirting with you either.”
She let out a relieved sigh. “Okay. Okay, yeah, cool, I just–” She motioned over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go now, bye.”
“Wait!” Gwen turned back around, back to fiddling with the ends of her hair. “What did you mean by I’m not hiding anythin’?”
Gwen perked up, looking to be more comfortable now that the conversation had moved away from her and on to Harley. “Oh, yeah. Peter, right?” At Harley’s confused look—paired with the pounding of his heart that he was so, so grateful she couldn’t hear—she continued on to say, “Peter Parker,” and then, “You like him.”
And, oh holy fuck.
Casual, Keener, go for casual, remain calm, do not freak out.
The nervous laugh that escaped him probably didn’t sound all that casual, but it wasn’t like Harley had any control over what came out his mouth.
“What makes you say that?”
His voice was a little choked, coming out of his throat that felt like it had suddenly closed up, but the words fit the story he was trying to go for so it was fine. Everything was fine.
What did it matter if this girl knowing at least half of the extent of Harley’s feelings for Peter meant that Peter himself could almost definitely know too, what did it matter, things were great and life was good. He was firmly not acknowledging his shaking hands and pounding heart and the strong urge to turn around and run in the other direction as fast as he could. And maybe even move to Europe while he was at it. Fuck.
“It’s, uh… No offense, but it’s pretty obvious.”
Harley coughed, the sound loud and jarring in the empty hallway, echoing off the lockers. “It is not.”
“Heart eyes,” she said amusedly, a smirk playing at her lips, “that’s all I’m saying.”
“Right. Heart eyes.”
“Harley, there you are,” a voice called from behind him, and Harley ignored Gwen’s highly amused look in favor of turning around to face Peter. “You weren’t outside, everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just... talking.”
He was about to introduce them, but then Peter’s eyes shifted from Harley to Gwen and he made a surprised exclamation of glee. Harley wasn’t surprised by the sound or the friendly grin growing on Peter’s face because Peter was like that—nice and friendly and outgoing, and always smiling at everybody that crossed his path, even if they were complete strangers.
“Hey, Gwendy, what’s going on?”
Okay, Harley was surprised to hear that.
Gwendy? What the fuck was that about?
Logically, he knew. ‘Gwen’ wasn’t Gwen’s full name, sure. But Harley was allowed to be a jealous bastard if he wanted to, okay, that was a thing he could do.
He turned around to face Gwen with a confused expression, his eyebrows drawn together and his forehead scrunched up. She gave him a sheepish smile before turning her attention to Peter, saying, “Hey there, my favorite parking man.”
Oh. Well.
Peter looked between Harley and Gwen, reaching up to softly tug on one of Harley’s curls. Harley brushed him off, pretending to be annoyed when, in reality, his heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest and fall to the floor in a mess of red and warmth and affection.
God, he was kind of sad, wasn’t he?
“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Peter said excitedly. “This is so cool, huh?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Harley was aware that he spoke the words, but didn’t remember making the effort to say them. To be fair, he was kind of preoccupied with the warm and happy grin that was still firmly in place on Peter’s mouth. And with the way Peter’s hair curled over his forehead—the product he usually put in it not holding up in the best way at the end of the day—and with the way Peter raised a hand to brush it back, and with pushing back the want to raise a hand and push Peter’s hair back himself.
“Hey!” Peter said, the excitement in his voice so clear that Harley could almost touch it, reach out and grab it from the air and hold it close to his chest. Harley shook himself off, forcing himself to look away from Peter so he didn’t get caught up again. It was weird, just how much he felt he could stare at Peter, could listen to him talk, for forever and never get bored. Weird and probably creepy, too.
Harley’s eyes landed on Gwen, who was staring back at him with her eyebrows slightly raised, the amusement on her face almost immediately recognizable. She wiggled her eyebrows, and she silently mouthed the words Heart eyes.
Harley gave her a scowl, one that only grew bigger when her grin widened. He could see why her and Peter were friends—they were both little shits.
“We should all, I dunno,” Peter continued, having shown no signs of seeing the interaction between Harley and Gwen, “do something together sometime!”
“That sounds like it’d be fun!” A ping sounded, and Gwen reached into her backpack’s side pocket, struggling with the action because she only had one strap slung over her shoulder, to pull out her phone. After reading the notification on the screen, she looked back up at them with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, guys, I gotta go.”
“No worries,” Peter said happily. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” she replied, stifling a laugh. “I would never leave you to suffer through English by yourself,” she added, grinning at the way Peter barked a laugh in response. They pulled away, Peter moving back to Harley’s side, and Gwen gave Harley a small wave. “Bye, Harley, it was nice talking to you.”
“Same.”
She turned around, swinging her braid over her shoulder to let it rest down the middle of her back, and walked down the hallway, not looking back.
As she disappeared around the corner, Peter turned to Harley. “You know Gwen!”
“We’ve been sharin’ a desk in history for a while now,” he answered. “Haven’t really talked before, though. I didn't know you knew her.”
Peter shrugged, turning around to start walking down the hallway with Harley following at his side. “We have English together, with MJ. And she eats with me and Ned at lunch sometimes.” He shook his head quickly, resituating his backpack on his shoulders and his walk taking on a distinct and gleeful bounce. “Do you want to come to Mr. Stark’s with me? Later tonight, I mean. At like, eleven.”
“You were supposed to go in today?” Harley asked, one of his eyebrows raised and his gaze shooting towards Peter as they walked.
Harley totally hadn’t memorized the days Peter was supposed to go to the Tower to meet up with Tony Stark. Totally.
…Okay, so maybe he had, what about it?
“I wasn’t, but he asked me if I wanted to, because May is working the night shift tonight and they didn’t want me to leave me alone at the apartment, the worriers.” Peter rolled his eyes, but Harley was pretty sure he and Peter both knew Peter loved it. “And I asked Mr. Stark if I could bring a friend and he agreed after Pepper made him. We could make it a sleepover.” He leaned in to the side, like he and Harley were conspiring about something together. “He promised we could watch Star Wars.” He let out a cackle. “I think he forgot it’s Friday and we can actually watch all of them instead of just the one he tolerates the most.”
Harley hummed, thinking it over. He liked Star Wars, and he definitely liked watching it with Peter, but tonight he just… wasn’t feeling it. And Laura consistently worked late hours, her boss keeping her in the office late but paying her a good amount of money for it, so Harley was tasked with watching Abi most nights, and he couldn’t exactly leave her alone in the apartment to fend for herself. Not because he didn’t trust her to survive on her own, but because he absolutely did not trust her to survive on her own. And also: Tony Stark.
He and Mr. Stark had a weird relationship. Harley didn’t know what he meant by ‘relationship’—they hadn’t even met. Well, met again, considering they’d met all those years ago back in Rose Hill. But Harley had no idea if Mr. Stark remembered that, and. And it was sure to be awkward, right? Tony Stark having to interact with a random kid from Tennessee, ha. The very idea of it wasn’t something Harley could see the Tony Stark enjoying—like, not even a little—and he did not want to put himself in that situation. There wasn’t anything connecting them anymore, if there ever was, so sue Harley for not taking Peter up on any of his offers to bring him to the Tower. Nope. No thank you.
He hadn’t told Peter about him knowing Mr. Stark, even if it was from when he was a kid. He wasn’t trying to hide it, or anything like that, it just…never came up. And why should it have come up—it wasn’t any kind of important. So, yeah. Peter didn’t know that Harley knew the guy, and he didn’t know that Harley didn’t ever want to go over to the Tower because of that.
“Nah,” he said eventually, right as he and Peter reached the doors and pushed them open. “I gotta watch Abi. We can do somethin’ tomorrow though,” he added after seeing the way Peter’s face had slightly fallen in disappointment and feeling the resounding guilt and vague feelings of shame that had rushed through him as a result. “If you wanna. Ma’s taking the day off and Abi’s gonna hang out with a friend so it should be fine.”
“Cool!” Peter gave Harley a big grin, one of the biggest Harley had ever seen him wear, and lightly nudged Harley’s shoulder with his own. “Now, I have, like, 8 assignments to do before tomorrow and a test to study for, and then I might die, I don’t know yet, so.” He wiggled his eyebrows like an absolute dork (Harley’s heart swooped, making him out to be an even bigger dork), doing a small dance that was nothing more than a weird movement of his shoulders. “Let’s get this homework party started.”
Harley did not shoot Peter a fond look as they walked down the sidewalk in the direction of Harley’s apartment. He didn’t.
(He did. He totally did, oh God, the chance of him actually giving Peter heart eyes was scarily high, oh no.)
(And what the fuck! Heart eyes, really? Of all the ways to be silently pining, it had to manifest in staring at Peter like he was the greatest thing in the universe. And he was the greatest thing in the entire universe, ever, but that was so not the point, Harley, oh God.)
~*~
Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Things were fine. Great. Amazing, even. Downright fucking dandy.
Harley and Peter had been sleeping together for a while now, almost three times a week for at least a month. But they’d never slept together, not like this. They’d always firmly stayed on their separate sides of Harley’s bed, never gravitating closer like in the movies—no, Harley had not thought about it, back off—and always having that little bit of space in between them.
And that was cool. Harley had no problem with that, he was fine with whatever he could get with Peter, really. Better to have friendship than nothing at all, right?
Anyway, that was just how they did things. They slept in the same bed, but it didn’t mean anything. They didn’t cuddle, or fall asleep together anywhere else that wasn’t in Harley’s bed. It just didn’t happen.
Which was why… this was so weird.
This, being Peter falling asleep on top of Harley’s back. This, being Peter falling asleep on top of Harley’s back in the middle of his living room. Fucking this, being Peter’s damn face shoved in Harley’s neck, right in the spot where it started to melt into his shoulder, with the rest of his body draped over Harley’s, in his fucking living room, as Harley rested on his stomach and attempted to focus on the schoolwork he was supposed to be doing, schoolwork that Peter had given up on—more like finished—close to an hour ago, when he’d climbed onto Harley’s back and dropped down like he belonged there.
Harley wasn’t going to lie—he was into it. He was more than into it, really. Peter was warm and the weight of him was a comforting pressure on Harley’s back, and he just… He just really liked it. It felt like all the warmth inside Peter, all the warmth he freely let out and wash over people like rays of sunlight, was transferring between their bodies and sinking into every last part of Harley, right down to his fingers that were holding his pencil and shaking slightly.
There was something soft about it. Something soft and warm and right about lazily lying on the floor, Peter draped over him with his legs spread out over Harley’s waist and bracketing Harley’s thighs. There was a lump in his throat and a prickling at his eyes from all the soft emotion drifting around in his chest, right behind his sternum, and wasn’t that a crazy thing?
A wonderful thing, too.
Harley didn’t know at what point he fell asleep—all he knew was that he woke up to the sound of the door opening, his cheek pressing into his science textbook, hand up by his head with the pencil just out of the reach of his fingers.
And Peter was still on his back, asleep and snoring away. He’d scooted down some, though, and had shifted around—he was down lower, his legs spread over the backs of Harley’s thighs, and his cheek pressed into the space right between Harley’s shoulder blades, and the hem of Harley’s shirt gripped tightly in one fist, causing it to ride up and expose the slightest bit of Harley’s side to the cool air.
So basically, Harley was being emotionally tortured, no big deal.
Harley’s back ached something fierce—Peter wasn’t extremely heavy, but he still weighed enough that Harley was feeling the aftereffects of it—and his joints creaked and cracked as he shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable. His head hurt, too, probably from resting on the wooden floor for as long as it had been, and his nose felt a bit stuffed, his eyes burning as he tried to blink himself awake.
God, this was never happening again.
(Nevermind the fact that he wanted it to happen again. That wasn’t important.)
He raised his head blearily, continuing his attempts to blink away the sleep from his eyes.
Abi’s face swam into view—she’d probably just gotten home from school, which meant it couldn’t have been too late and was still in the late afternoon—and he groaned internally. Or maybe externally, he didn’t have a way to tell.
He dropped his head back down to the floor, using it to shove his textbook a little farther away from him, the pencil rolling across the floor. “Say nothing,” he muttered grumpily, shooting her his best glare, one that dared her to make a comment.
She raised her hands in a surrendering motion, palms facing outward, her mouth tilting up in a teasing smile. “You do you, fam.” She moved farther into the apartment, closing the door softly behind her. Her head tilted as she crept forward. “You want a pillow or somethin’?”
“Yeah, please.” A throw pillow from the couch behind Harley landed by his face, and Harley gratefully nagged it and brought it closer so he could rest his head upon it. His eyes closed on a happy sigh. “Thanks.” No movement came, so Harley peeked an eye open to see Abi still standing by the couch, an unreadable expression on her face as she looked down at Peter and Harley. “Don’t tell Ma.”
The words were automatic, an instant reaction to him getting caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.
Which was weird considering the fact that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, he just… He wanted to keep this to himself. He didn’t want Laura, or anybody else—it was sheer coincidence that Abi had walked in when she did—to find out just how deep his feelings for Peter ran. He didn’t even want to think about it most days, no way was he letting someone else in on the secret, not until he finally came to terms with all of it. (And that would probably be never, with the way he was doing his best to avoid thinking about it.)
Abi sighed, bringing Harley out of his thoughts. She looked like she’d heard all of what Harley was thinking and didn’t exactly know how to handle it. Her lips pursed, her eyes darting down to Peter’s sleeping form before rising back to Harley’s. “Don’t do anything stupid and I won’t.” She snorted at her own words, eyes going back to Peter with a grin. “You know, if that’s even possible for your lizard brain.”
“Fuck you too, then.”
~*~
“So I heard you talked to Gwen the other day.”
Harley looked up from his textbook and met MJ’s eyes. Like usual, she didn’t show any indication of having said anything, instead continuing to write things on a sheet of paper. It made Harley doubt whether she’d actually said anything or if he’d just imagined it, every single time, and it was very disorienting. MJ had been doing it for as long as they’d been friends, way back since the first week of school when Harley had been cruising his way through the day by talking with various people who struck up a conversation and MJ had decided, out of nowhere, that she wanted to get to know him. In the middle of physics class, no less.
It was off-putting, and a little annoying if he was being honest, but he dealt with it because it was just how MJ worked. Plus, he loved her and all her qualities, no matter how annoying they could get. The benefits of friendship.
He remained silent, and, sure enough, MJ’s eyes flicked upwards to glance at him, confirming that she had, in fact, spoken. Thankfully, because Harley had absolutely no idea what her statement had been about, she continued.
“And that she told you she knows you like Peter.”
Leaning back in his chair, he placed his pencil down on the table by his textbook and crossed his arms. “What’re you talking about?” he asked, taking care to keep his voice low to respect the rules of the library. (The librarian didn’t like him. Like, she didn’t like him at all, not even a little bit. Probably because he’d had a few issues with laughing a little too loudly when he was studying with Peter, but the librarian was fucking biased because he’d accidentally dropped a book one time, which was apparently one time too many.)
MJ’s eyes snapped up to his, holding a glare so strongly it felt like it pierced straight through his chest. The look melted back into her usual stare of nonchalance, a casualness that Harley knew wasn’t really casual. “You know,” she said, putting her own pencil down on the table and lacing her hands together, resting her elbows on the table and leaning forward the slightest bit, “crossing your arms can show that you’re feeling defensive or attacked.” Harley immediately dropped his arms to his lap with a scowl. Dammit. MJ sighed, shaking her head. “Look. To be entirely honest with you, you’re a dumbass.”
Harley’s mouth dropped open, and he just barely stopped himself from slapping a hand to his chest like he was in a Victorian-era novel. “Dude, ouch, what the fuck.”
“Shut up.” The response was immediate, and made Harley’s heart unfurl with fondness as he grinned widely. “You’re a dumbass,” she continued, Harley making a face at her in response, a face that MJ ignored, “but Peter is too, and apparently Ned, Gwen, and I are the only ones who realize it, so.” MJ straightened, her expression turning even more serious than it had been before and her eyes meeting Harley’s like a series of punches to the face. “I’m going to give you a piece of advice: don’t fuck it up.”
Harley blinked. And blinked again. And then, for good measure, blinked a third time. When MJ didn’t say anything more, he said, “That’s some bullshit advice,” his voice a mix of confusion and something that sounded a lot like hysteria. MJ was weird, okay, and confusing, and it still freaked him out sometimes.
MJ shrugged. “Maybe.” She picked up her pencil, returning her attention back to her schoolwork. “You’ll see. Probably not, honestly, but Ned and Gwen are staying hopeful.” She glanced back up at him to say, “I’m taking a more realistic approach,” and then looked back down to continue writing.
“What?” Harley shook his head, so far past confused he was practically touching the sun. “What does that even mean?”
No answer. To be honest, he wasn’t exactly expecting to get one. Classic MJ.
~*~
Later that night, at around nine—too early for it to be even close to around the time that Peter usually showed up, Harley was struck by a thought and pulled out his phone.
how do u even know her, he typed out, thumbs twiddling above the screen as he waited for MJ’s response.
know who, came the long-awaited reply after close to three minutes.
Harley: gwen
MJ: I have English with her and Peter
Oh, yeah. Peter and Gwen had mentioned it, vaguely, that day in the hallway.
ahhhhh, he sent. damn i knew that
MJ: pffft I bet you did
Harley: I DID!
MJ: Right, I bet you did
Harley: >:(
MJ: Why are you mad, I’m agreeing with you
MJ: :)
Harley: you’re being a sarcastic little shit is what you’re doing
MJ: Lol
MJ: Thank you, I try
Harley didn’t respond to that, content to lock his phone and go back to pretending to try going to sleep when all he was actually doing was waiting to see if Peter would be showing up. Because Harley was a soft guy who did things that didn’t make any sense.
After a couple of minutes of him doing that, though, his phone buzzed with another text.
MJ: Gwen’s actually pretty cool tho
MJ: A little shy
MJ: But still cool
He furrowed his eyebrows.
Harley: ok
MJ: Scare her away and I’ll steal all your twizzlers
Ah. So that was what this was about. Okay.
Harley: i literally said ok wtf
MJ: Just making sure
Harley: bitch
MJ: Dumbass
Harley: love u M
MJ: Yeah yeah
MJ: Love you too
Harley: awww
MJ: Shut up
Harley: no <3
Harley: you looooove me
MJ: I regret ever befriending you
Harley: no you dont
MJ: I don’t
MJ: Tell anyone and I’ll deny it
Harley: boo
~*~
The next time Peter showed up, he was noticeably more subdued. Harley was awake and shirtless, sitting upright in bed with his back pressed against the headboard with his phone in his hands, when Peter came into his room—as he’d taken to doing, so as to actually be coherent enough to properly greet Peter with actual words and not the half-assed mumbles he’d been giving before—at two on a Saturday morning, and it was obvious pretty much right off the bat that something was wrong.
Peter silently, and slowly, padded towards Harley’s bed, slipping his shoes off somewhere along the way. He climbed into bed without hesitation, moving under the covers fluidly, the motions done with practiced ease and without a second thought. That was all normal, as Peter had finally stopped asking and was just laying in bed next to Harley. And that ‘normal’ was terrifyingly so—it hadn’t even been half a month of them sleeping together and Harley was already divvying up what was normal behavior and what wasn’t, good Lord. It still managed to send a shiver of delighted pleasure down Harley’s spine.
But what wasn’t normal, or delightful, was the way Peter inhaled sharply and then slowed his movements down even further. That was… weird.
Harley rolled over to face his nightstand, plugging his phone in to charge, as Peter continued to move at that slow pace. When he rolled back over, he stayed on his side to watch Peter, who was laying on his back.
That also wasn’t normal—Peter never slept on his back. Ever, not at all in the time he’d been sleeping with Harley. He’d always laid on his side, facing Harley. Always.
Harley frowned, eyes raking over Peter’s form like he would be able to see what was wrong if he looked hard enough. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Peter said with a nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”
Except his eyes remained wide open, not slipping closed like they usually did after a few minutes in Harley’s bed, crinkled at the sides in pain as opposed to any sort of laughter or amusement. And his voice had been strained, not full of exhaustion and contentment like Harley was used to hearing.
What the fuck was going on? Was Peter like. Dying, or something? Was he sick?
Harley’s frown grew as he continued to stare at Peter, pushing away the mild panic rubbing through him in favor of actually sussing out what had happened, not wanting to jump to his own, probably overdramatic, conclusions.
“Was…” He hesitated, wondering if he had any right to ask, but then forged on. “Was that a lie?”
Peter winced, and then sighed. “Yeah.” He groaned, rolling over to his side, his teeth pressing into his bottom lip so hard that Harley felt it, felt an echo of pain on his own mouth. Harley politely and very deliberately kept his eyes on the top of Peter’s head, studying his curls instead of staring at his mouth like he wanted to. Peter had a nice mouth, alright, and if Harley sometimes thought about kissing Peter on that nice mouth… Well. That was nobody’s business but his own. “I slept wrong last night,” Peter admitted, taking Harley’s attention from all thoughts about Peter and mouths and kissing and doing a little more than kissing, too. “Kind of messed my back up.”
Having no evidence of Peter’s statement not being true—Peter hadn’t slept over last night, hadn’t for the last three days, actually, so it wasn’t like Harley would know—Harley was still filled with the unexplainable feeling that he was being lied to. In the end, though, he reluctantly accepted Peter’s words.
Because, really, Harley was just being dumb—Peter had never lied to him before, not when it came to anything relating to sleep and his difficulty achieving it, or even anything serious. Small lies—ones about not stealing a fry or two or seven from Harley when they went out to eat burgers, and lies along the lines of, “no, Harley, I absolutely did not drink the last of the orange juice in your fridge, what a travesty, who would do such a thing, it looks like we have a mystery on our hands,”—were told, yeah. Most of their bickering came from one of them calling the other out on some random bullshit, and the other person dramatically and not at all successfully denying it.
That was how they worked; it was what they did.
But they didn’t ever lie about serious things, about things that mattered even the smallest amount, so Peter couldn’t be lying now.
Besides, there were plenty of times where Harley had woken up in a weird position and felt off for the entire day, even into the night, with his neck and back taking the brunt of the pain, so Peter going through the same was completely plausible, and probable. It didn’t matter that there was a small voice in the back of Harley’s mind screaming that there was more to the story, that there was something Peter wasn’t saying.
Honestly, fuck that voice—it was just Harley’s inner paranoia talking, the feeling that told him everyone was always lying, all the time, and that he couldn’t trust any of them. It was crazy and dumb, and Harley refused to listen to it, not when Peter was laying across from him with messy hair and tired eyes and a small smile on his face.
“Oh.” Harley studied him, not entirely knowing what to say and, as a result, blurting out the first sentence that came to mind. He blamed his current lack of a filter on the fact that he was still a little off-kilter from how not normal things were at the moment. “I could give you a massage.” Because that was a totally cool thing to say to one of your best Guy Friends, who you had a completely platonic relationship with. Nice, Harley, really. “If you wanted,” he hurried to add, hoping that it’d distract from the way Harley could barely keep still and maintain eye contact.
A massage? Really? Out of all the possible things he could’ve chosen to say, that was the one he went with. Honestly. He should’ve been struck down with lightning at that very moment. At the very least, the Earth could have opened up beneath him and made him fall into its depths so he could forget this conversation ever happened. A massage, holy shit.
A strangled laugh left Peter. “No, it’s okay. Just gotta…” He shifted again, moving to lay down on his stomach, wincing all the while. Once settled, his muscles visibly relaxed as a pained groan came from his mouth, Harley watching on with worry. Peter’s eyes closed in bliss, his face turned towards Harley. “There, all better.”
Harley snorted despite his attempts to keep quiet and let Peter be, his heart a weird, melted mass sitting in the pit of his chest, lighting him up from the inside in the best way possible.
“You’re cute.”
Again: lack of filter. Not his fault. God, at this rate Peter would know about Harley’s feelings for him before the school year was up, maybe even before that. Because Harley was a hopeless, pining idiot, one who also happened to be terrible at hiding his feelings for soft, cute, adorable boys with brown hair and brown Bambi eyes and the brightest smile and the friendliest nature and–
Oh, ew, no, too many feelings. Get it together, Keener.
Peter cracked an eye open with a hum. “You think so?”
“Yep,” Harley said as casually as he could manage, tamping down hard on the urge to panic and run away from the situation. Peter had just said a sentence, a few choice words that didn’t necessarily mean anything—he probably hadn’t even said it to cause a reaction, had probably just been genuinely curious. Harley hadn’t revealed anything he didn’t want to. Great. Crisis averted. Harley rolled over, off his bed, and made his way towards the light switch. “You gonna sleep now?
Another hum, followed by Peter burrowing his face into one of Harley’s pillows. “Night, Harls,” he murmured softly, eyes having already slipped closed, a sleepy smile growing on his face.
Harley had to stop for a second. Had to stop and turn around and stare at Peter, just for a little bit. His chest flooded with warmth as he took in Peter’s messy brown curls and exhausted form, and how he looked so damn comfortable and relaxed, and... he really had it bad.
“Stop staring,” came Peter’s soft and tired voice. His eyes remained shut. “‘S creepy. So so creepy. You’re a creep. But ‘s all good ‘cause you’re cute. And we’re friends. And you’re cute. Still creepy, though.”
And Harley couldn’t have stopped a grin from forming even if he wanted to.