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“Who are you?”
Pavitr was no good with three word sentences, apparently. It took him awhile to realize what exactly was being said to him, and from that point on he had no idea what he wanted to say to that.
“Where am I?”
Now that was easier to say. The bright white walls, the heart monitor, the sealed windows. Pavitr couldn’t bring himself to stare at anything that wasn’t his face, so confused and completely lost. The monitor beeped softly.
“In the hospital,” Pavitr said, “you’re in the hospital.”
Hobie looked around, stared at the IV that was injected to the back of his hand. He was dressed in the hospital gown, his hair had long since been combed out back into his afro after having shaved part of it so they’d stitch his scalp up. The hair had grown back over it, so it wasn’t easy to notice. Hobie had been in the hospital for less than four months, and it would’ve been six if his body hadn’t started moving on its own. Pavitr knew about that, could still remember how it felt when Hobie’s hand twitched in his.
“You ain’t answered my first question,” Hobie said, his body moving for the first time in a long time, “who are you?”
This couldn’t be happening. No, no, no, no.
Hobie waited for his answer.
Pavitr swallowed.
So Hobie lost his memories. Couldn’t remember a damn thing after getting his head smashed against a wall during one particularly bad fight. They saw it happen. Pavitr had to swing him out of there.
Miles swore it was just another variant of Hobie who just happened to take his place, and that they just needed to find out where their Hobie went, but they scanned his body, through and through, just to find that this was still their Hobie. Only now, Hobie doesn’t know who he is, who his friends were, and that he can’t survive on his own.
He was in the hospital in Earth 2099. He poked at the watch that would make a permanent residence on his arm, his home dimension out of the question because he didn’t even have a place to stay. Doctor’s orders say that if he needs to get out the hospital, one of the spiders had to accompany him in order to make sure the after effects don’t hit him too hard. No harsh lighting, no loud sounds, no overwhelming movement. Basically everything Hobie was, he wasn’t allowed to be.
Pavitr winced at the thought.
They kept the lights dim, they helped him get some stuff to try and read. Hobie’s trust with all of them was a vulnerable thing, and everybody knew that they had to keep him safe. Gwen helped him with his balance and his movements, Miles showed him calming music and brought sketchbooks for Hobie to start drawing in, and Pavitr…
Pavitr talked to him. Just to get a grasp as to how much he’d forgotten everything, because did it really mean everything? (The answer was yes.)
“We used to hang out in my dimension and swing around all the time,” Pavitr said, leaning against the bedding. “Wind on the face. Trying not to get hit by birds. I was pretty new to the spider scene but you helped me.”
“How long was I a spider for?”
“You told me it’d been four years.”
“How old am I?”
Pavitr worked his jaw at that. “17. Just like me.”
“We the oldest?”
“Mm,” Pavitr said, “Miles and Gwen are 15 and 16.”
“Were we best friends, Pavitr?” Hobie asked.
Pavitr almost stayed quiet on that one. “Call me Pav,” he said.
Months before, Pavitr managed to snag Hobie’s bag from his home dimension before any part of it could get lost once the place he left it in would be condemned. One of the items was an overwritten notebook that had every chaotic movement that belonged to only Hobie. Any space on the notes he’s put down were scribbled out with doodles or photo cut-outs from magazines, ever-changing ink colors, markers and highlighters, right along unfinished songs and inner monologues that Pavitr would read all over again just to pretend that Hobie wasn’t in a coma.
His jumping letters, his disorganized words, his essence. He felt like his soul was in the notebook and Pavitr kept it there— reading it as it glitched in his hands before he went to sleep. It didn’t belong, but it’s better than losing it all.
But now that Hobie’s returned, it was the only thing Pavitr could remind himself of who he used to be. Now Hobie was quiet, scared, barely able to take in the noise and chaos of the world. Pavitr couldn’t recognize him without his wicks, or without his piercings, or his attitude.
It was as if a whole new person took his place. Pavitr’s chest ached over something different before that, but now it gave a new reason to mull over. Yet, he didn’t stop visiting Hobie. He needed to see him. He had to.
Pavitr brought the notebook whenever he visited Hobie. He usually used it to read when he had nothing to do while spending his time with him.
“What’s that in your hands, mate?” Hobie asked.
“Mm. Some stuff you wrote.” Pavitr said. “You used to write songs, after all.”
Hobie blinked, then Pavitr slipped it into Hobie’s lap. He tried to read it as soon as he picked it up, but Pavitr noticed how his hands shook, how he was reading and muttering the same sentence over again, so he took it back.
“Want me to read it out for you?” Pavitr asked.
Hobie paused. He moved his head, then started to nod. Eyes averted, clutching the blankets, face darkened with burning blood.
Pavitr tried not to think too much of it. He reached out to squeeze Hobie’s hand and proceeded to read out his mind. He doesn’t stumble on his words, he’s had the thing memorized to a T, and he can feel Hobie’s eyes on him. He doesn’t think of it, just thinks of the old Hobie’s thoughts.
He’s surprised the old Hobie didn’t come out just to smack him for stealing it.
Why couldn’t he?
“I wish I could show you around,” Pavitr said, lying next to Hobie in the hospital bed, “but you can’t move without throwing up, huh?”
“Seein’ all these Spider-people swing around the place makes it hard not to be jealous, Pav.” Hobie said, pressing his head against the pillow. They made eye contact.
“Tell me.” He asked.
“Tell you what?”
“Everythin’ you knew about me.”
Pavitr hummed. He reached out, then, caressing Hobie’s face with the back of his fingers.
Then he thought about the city.
“You liked my auntie’s cooking. Butter chicken, mutton biryani. Couldn’t handle spice for shit but would still eat it ‘cause you weren’t a loser.”
(He remembered them swinging together. The building collapsed because of a Green Goblin variant dashing through the buildings. Pavitr threw his web first at him while Gwen and Miles managed to make a netting that kept people suspended. Hobie followed suit.)
“You liked wearing makeup. Your piercings were always silver, but I thought gold also made you look pretty. You were bad at singing— I know you still are, but you played guitar like your life depended on it.”
Hobie chuckled at that. Pavitr’s hand trailed down from his face and kept it on Hobie’s shoulder, side of Pavitr’s body turned to face him.
(Once Pavitr had launched himself off and thrown himself at the Green Goblin, they ended up flying through the air and struggling to find gravity to their fight.)
“Not a role model. Briefly a runway model,” Pavitr said with a smile to himself, “you didn’t have a place to stay so you always hung out with your band, or us. None of us minded.”
(Hobie managed to interfere, catching them with another web, but the board that the Green Goblin piloted shot right into Hobie’s head and didn’t stop until his head hit the wall. He nearly fell if it weren’t for Pavitr catching him.)
Hobie’s eyes were wide and curious.
(Hobie’s eyes were wide but not at all there. He caught him mid-air and swung back to the base, screaming for help.)
“Anarchy was all you can be. We all respected that. You even taught me how to steal from big companies and the British museum.”
(Pavitr remembered the smell of blood so strongly that it never left his mind or his suit. He couldn’t wash it without the red staining the sink. He couldn’t wash it without remembering how much blood was on him. He couldn’t go out as Spider-man for weeks.)
“We were so close, Hobie.” Pavitr said, turning to rest on his back. Hobie still faced him, not ever really looking away. “It’s why I visit you a lot. You used to stay over my place all the time.”
Then he felt a hand reach over to his, and Pavitr blinked in surprise, staring back at Hobie.
“Thank you.” Hobie whispered.
His heart ached. It was beating out of his chest and making his breath short. Hobie tried to move closer but Pavitr let his hands slip and he was off the bed in an instant.
“I gotta go,” Pavitr almost barely said. His breathing was heavy— and then he left the room.
Hobie was eventually discharged from the hospital.
Good.
Pavitr hated being there.
It was easy to make Pavitr mad at little things— but to resent them was a different experience.
The smell of alcohol. The deafening silence of the rooms. The white, blindingly white, walls. The death that encased that entire building. He knew this was a good place to be, but it was also a reminder as to how and why he couldn’t take being there.
It was beginning to seem like Hobie was going to make a permanent residence, but Miguel provided a place for Hobie to stay in and that was much better than anything he could imagine.
He wasn’t independent, not by a long shot. A nurse would stay behind, and their friends would visit as frequently as they could so that Hobie wouldn’t feel isolated.
Miles did his hair. Gwen and him talked. Pavitr cooked.
The house felt alive, thanks to that. Hobie felt alive, like he was before.
But that wasn’t true.
Pavitr just kept hoping that one day those memories would flood back, but the chance of that ever happening drifted far and farther away. He could barely remember how to play his guitar, he couldn’t read things without failing to concentrate and mulling over the pain in his head. Hobie stared at himself in the mirror and couldn’t recognize who the person looking back was.
“This is what I look like?” Hobie asked, hands trailing down from his face to the scars under his chest.
“… yeah.” Gwen said, pursing her lips. Miles came up from behind and pulled him to sit down so that he could continue fixing up his hair. Pavitr placed the food down on the table and couldn’t help but stare at Hobie.
He remembered how they’d spend the nights rocking to music that Maya-Auntie would yell at them for. Painting each other’s nails and spilling some to the wooden floor. Sneaking out and getting food at ungodly hours. Lying together in bed and talking about everything and nothing.
He was never going to have that again. His chest ached, and Pavitr had to control his breath before the others could see.
It was hard not to resent the stranger who took his face.
Pavitr came alone one day. Hobie didn’t seem to mind it. He walked with forearm crutches because he would get too dizzy and weak trying to move on is own. Hobie wore his piercings, new stuff that Gwen got him. He had his locs done in courtesy of Miles, and it was tied up. He looked like a stranger.
Pavitr had Hobie’s stuff in hand and had it up to eye level.
“Not gonna come in?” Hobie asked.
“Right.” Pavitr said. Hobie chuckled. The door clicked shut and they both sat on the table next to each other. Pavitr placed the bag of Hobie’s old things on the table.
“What’s all this?”
“Your things. From— your old dimension. I kept them until I remembered that you had a place to stay now.”
Hobie looked over at the stuff. His notebook, his guitar pick, his makeup and a pack of writing materials. Hobie bobbed his head.
“I was a minimalist, wasn’t I?” Hobie chuckled.
“You were homeless.” Pavitr answered.
“Mm,” Hobie said. “Thanks, Pav.”
Pavitr got up from his seat. He looked down at Hobie for a moment, and Hobie pushed himself up.
“You goin’ already?” He asked.
“Yeah,” Pavitr tried to control his breath, “yeah.”
“Alright, love.”
Oh, how much that word fucking ached.
Hobie reached out to touch his shoulder, though. That’s when Pavitr looked up to see him— right as their lips met.
Pavitr’s heart burst out of his chest and he pushed back into it, just for a little moment before his eyes shot open and he pushed Hobie away.
“What the—“ Pavitr panted, “Hobie?!”
Hobie looked just as confused. “Pav?!”
“What the fuck are you doing?!”
“I— I—“ Hobie sputtered, but he couldn’t get ahold of why Pavitr was starting to panic. His breath shortened, frantically going, “no, no, no, no—“
“I just— I just thought we were—“
“We were WHAT, Hobie?!” Pavitr pulled on his own hair, hyperventilating. Hobie pushed his arms up in surrender, and Pavitr gripped the edge of the table to stop himself from going down any further.
“… What we were was friends.” Pavitr said, but he shut his eyes at the last word. “But I loved you. I told you that and we never spoke again. I fucked up.”
“You didn’t—“
“I did. That was the last conversation we had before the fucking attack. You didn’t love me, Hobie.”
“I do now.”
Pavitr worked his jaw closed. He forced the tears not to stream down his face— but he was so angry. He was so, so full of grief. He wanted to die right with the Hobie that disappeared from the universe. How he wished to have the moment he said it forgotten forever. And it was going to be, just not by him.
“You,” Pavitr turned his head to see Hobie’s face, “aren’t him.”
Hobie only stared at him.
He regretted it immediately.
“Just,” Pavitr winced, finally letting go of the table, letting out a shaky breath, “forget about it. Not just for my sake but for you.”
He looked at the items. The notebook. All that was left of the real Hobie.
“Pav—“ Hobie tried.
He turned away from him.
“Pav!” Hobie tried again.
Pavitr took the door and slammed it shut.
They haven’t spoken until Hobie had decided to forget about that entirely. Pavitr hadn’t come back around until Gwen and Miles noticed it.
Hobie started to play the guitar again. He learned slowly, but he managed to do a few of the songs the notebook was carrying. It was hard to read, hard to pay attention to, but he was making progress. The chords were all so simple but effective, and Hobie liked that.
Occasionally, the items glitched— Hobie had to shut his eyes every time they did, but nothing was too bad elsewhere.
Then the door knocked.
“It ain’t locked!” Hobie called out.
The door opened, and Pavitr came into view.
Hobie welcomed the surprise. “Pav,” he greeted, smile creasing his face.
“… Hobie.” Pavitr greeted back.
“Gwen and Miles set you up?” Hobie asked.
“No… I came on my own.” Pavitr said, scratching the back of his head. He was holding something in his other hand.
“What do you have there, love?”
“Food. I could just heat it up for you, if you’re hungry.” Pavitr said.
“Just leave it at the table. We can worry about eatin’ it later,” Hobie replied, “but Pav— hey, I wanted to show you something.”
“You picked up guitar again,” Pavitr said. Hobie chuckled.
“Yeah, man, how’d you guess?”
Pavitr snorted. The tension in his shoulders relaxed, and Hobie kicked open a chair for him to sit next to him with.
“I found something in the last pages of the notebook.”
“What?”
“A song— and, get this, it’s a complete one. Someone else wrote the first verse but I finished it!” Hobie grinned excitedly, “I just figured out the chords, but we should sing it, yeah?”
“You can sing now?” Pavitr asked.
“No, but you could sing with me anyway!” Hobie said, without any uncertainty. “Look over the lyrics. I’d bet you’ll enjoy it.”
He pushed the notebook to Pavitr’s direction.
So Pavitr took it. It was opened to the page— and Pavitr realized that it was a paper tucked by scotch tape and opened like an envelope.
Hobie didn’t really realize how Pavitr’s heart was about to drop to his stomach. His gasp was soft, barely heard of while Hobie continued to strum his guitar to try and get the sound of the song right.
“We wrote this,” Pavitr said, “we wrote this together.”
“That was your handwriting?” Hobie said.
“Yeah— but you wrote the second half!”
“It’s got a really good sound, don’t it?” Hobie grinned. “Wanna sing it now?”
Pavitr stiffened— then nodded.
Pavitr remembered writing these lyrics. He knows because he was showing it to Hobie when Hobie’d said that those lyrics wouldn’t fit his style, but fuck consistency, right? He loved them anyway, but they never got to actually doing the song. He didn’t know that Hobie took the lyrics and wrote a second part to it.
Pavitr pursed his lips. He watched as Hobie sang his version of how the first verse sounded— all shrill, broken and offkey, but Pavitr saw the joy in his face as he did it.
He sang— a clear, very clear melody before it was Pavitr’s turn.
Pavitr had to read it all over again just as Hobie queued him.
Darling, you've seen how I have lived, homelesss and alone, with nothing to give
Hobie didn’t know what these words meant.
And nothing will come to us; time will tell, in bloodied dust
Hobie didn’t know what any of these words fucking meant.
But I don't wanna leave, for who am I going to be? I've searched the stars, so far from here—
So he pretended.
Pavitr pretended that he could get by this. That he could pretend he was singing with the old Hobie, in a time where they still would’ve remembered their past.
This was Hobie’s last message to him.
A feeling of regret. Words made with a different kind of pain Pavitr didn’t realize Hobie had been going through then. So he sang, tears streaming down his face, holding back his sobs as to not violate the song, because it was the last conversation they were ever going to have.
(“I love you.”
Pavitr was no good with three word sentences. Hobie was facing away from him, and just as he’d registered what those words meant, he turned around and had nothing to say to him.
He didn’t hear a response, he just witnessed it. Mouth pressed into a flat line, eyebrows knitted together, throat swallowing nothing.
Hobie only stared at him.
Pavitr didn’t understand what he did wrong, but looking back to it now it must’ve been a consequence.
So he ran away.)
Our love is going to disappear, but you and I won't live in fear
(He’ll never know how Hobie walked steps forward and waited for him to come back.)
But you and I won’t live in fear, but you and I won’t live in—
(He’ll never know the last of what he really felt.)