Chapter Text
Gold had kind of always been Pavitr’s colour, hadn’t it?
Gold bangles. Gold earrings. Gold chains, ghungroos on his feet and necklaces at his throat. Golden boy, always the high achiever, ever the smart, honest, caring Perfect Pavitr. Golden like the sun, always so valiantly happy and optimistic, sweet and blindly, foolishly trusting.
Gold like fire, red-tipped and sharp and hot but still bright. Always bright.
Pavitr was always the brightest thing in the room, a blazing sun even when it meant burning himself up for it.
But everyone knows what happens when suns burn out and collapse.
Pavitr had never really liked silver before. Until he saw it on Hobie, that is. Pav had always been dressed in gold, it was his colour, since he was small and aching for gold stars and medals, to him being Spider-Man with his gold web-bangles.
Gold wouldn’t fit him now, not this version of him.
He doesn’t want it anymore, either. Not the pretty, glinting confines of it. Not the attention.
Pavitr traces the silver nath with his fingertips. It’s delicate and pretty, a simple circle with a rim of pointy petals, like peacock feathers, and it sits in the piercing he’d done for himself with a hot safety pin a month ago. He’d shoved the nosering in right after, and it had hurt like hell for while – it faded in a week, though, (and it’s a small miracle that it didn’t get infected) and now he needs to touch it to even feel the silver, remember it’s there. He preferred it when it was fresh, he thinks.
He doesn’t want to forget.
He remembers when Gayatri had first gotten her nose pierced – properly, cleanly, not like him – and they’d both immediately gone ballistic, acquiring a truly ungodly number of noserings and nosepins, excited for Gaya to wear them. This nath had been one of those, and both his and Gayatri’s favourite. Pav remembers how he kept appropriating it from her, insisting it was made for him, even though she giggled and pointed out that he didn’t even have a piercing to wear it. And then they’d both laugh and talk about something else, or walk off hand in hand to eat an ice gola.
It was always like that with them. They always laughed.
Except when they didn’t, those rare occasions when they fought; and then Gayatri was steely and cold in her upset, and Pav was brash and angry, and they’d give each other the silent treatment till one of them exploded.
Pavitr doesn’t remember what their fight had been about. Something stupid and childish and unremarkable, although it seemed like the end of the world back then; he doesn’t remember what they said, doesn’t even remember if he started it or she did, but he remembers the week of silence, the sullen tears Maya Aunty had wiped off his face in the evenings and the way they yelled when it finally came to a head.
They’d hugged, in the aftermath. Held hands, shared an ice gola. Laughed.
And Gayatri had pressed the nath into his hand, told him to keep it. I’ve got more than enough, she shrugged nonchalantly, her pretty face in a genuine, serene smile, this one’s for you.
Pavitr had never worn it, but he kept in its own little box in his drawer of jewellery. The only silver moon among so much gold.
It’s been more than a month since he’s talked to Gayatri. He wonders if she still thinks they’re fighting. Maybe she doesn’t even suspect anything else – he always used to be the first to crack.
Look who’s winning the silent treatment now, Gaya.
His heart twists, aches, like it wants to rip itself out of his ribcage and wrap around the person it’s missing, so close and yet so far.
He misses her.
The fact is undeniable, sitting sharp and heavy in his chest until the absence is more like its own presence. He misses how she called him Pappu, he misses the way she pressed a kiss to his shoulder every time they hugged. He misses how she fixed his hair almost as instinctively as fixing hers every time it got messed up. He misses the feel of her hand in his.
Pavitr can’t count the number of times he’s almost messed up in the past month. Almost showed up at her door with her favourite jalebis and an apology. Almost sent her a picture of a morning glory that reminded him of her again. Almost picked up her calls, replied to her texts that have been relentlessly blowing up his ancient Redmi for the past fortnight. She must have figured out something’s off.
He's still dangerously close to fucking up.
Gayatri has always been smart; it’s all Pav could do to even make sure she never found out he was Spider-Man. Even then, there were a non-zero number of close calls. It makes sense that she’s caught on so fast.
Pav doesn’t know why, but he’d really thought he had more time.
More time to act like it’s just another fight, the unresolved argument about Meera Jain, act like they’re both just mad at each other, refusing to be the first to talk, again. To pretend it doesn’t eat away at his insides, every moment he has to distance himself from her, from everyone he loves, for their own good. More time before she starts calling and texting and, gods forbid, comes knocking around his cold home.
The silver at his wrists shines coldly in the moonlight, and Pav huffs a wry laugh, considering them. He leans his head back against the cold, hard brick with a dull thud.
No, the gold doesn’t suit him anymore, not this version of him. This Pavitr who’s been burnt out like a guttering candle finally laid to rest, this Pavitr who has shattered into a million shards and reformed in sharp ice. This Pavitr, with blood on his hands and a leanness to his ribs that wasn’t there before, and the cold certainty of a job that needed doing tied back in the confines of his hair, pooling in the spaces between his fingers. This Pavitr, who is selfish and broken and cruel.
He is all the things Pavitr Prabhakar should never be, all the things he’d been taught to hate. But hey, Pav had tried the other route, tried it for eighteen fucking years now, and look where it got him. Look at all it cost him.
Least he can do is make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else again.
Pavitr wears silver now. Colder. Different. Much less noticeable when you’re sneaking around the city at night, but still a pretty flash for the last thing you get to see.
From his payals, which if he’s honest are more for the pretty, creepy aesthetic than anything else when he’s out prowling, to his kadas that he’d jugaad-ed himself to replace his web-bangles and that he’s really a little proud of – he can flex his Prowler claws out of them, and said claws double as urumis when he swings them – and his arm-bands. They’re a nice accent to the black and purple.
Gayatri would bully him for the purple hair, make him scramble to defend his impulsive decision. Or she’d be mad at him for dyeing it without her, especially considering how many times she’d tried and failed to get him to colour his hair. Whichever came first.
If Pav just tilts his head a few inches to the right, he could have his answer. If he just…
Pav blinks up at the moon through hot, blurry eyes, valiantly clearing off the salt from them. It’s a crescent moon. It’s nice to look at.
He stares at it, letting the speeding lights of the traffic below wash over him, bright and uncaring and bringing no warmth to the biting chill of the night. He stares at the moon, clutching resolutely at his brittle self-control before he does something stupid like peer in through the window three inches away from his head.
They’d printed out the forms together, the two of them. They were supposed to fill them together, too. Help each other with the essay sections, Pav was always good at words in a way she wasn’t. Bounce the questions off each other till they made more sense.
Gayatri stares at the blank stack of college applications in front of her. She wills herself to pick up a pen. Her fingers refuse to obey her.
The cavity in her chest where her heart should be feels numb. So fucking numb.
They were supposed to fill the college applications together, her and Pavitr. Sit together and talk about what second choices were acceptable (MU, Mumbattan Uni, was their top choice, because of course it was – it was the best in state, and Bhim Uncle had taught there, and the art degree at their St. Howard’s college there was unparalleled), agonize over which minors to pick, applying for the scholarships and bullying each other over who would get them, pray they’d get in together, even if they would be in different colleges and departments…
It would have taken a week at least, considering how both of them with their definitely-present intelligence seem to boil down to a singular brain cell when they’re together. Gaya’s dad would have made lassi and pakodas and not given Pav the stink-eye for once, she made him promise. Maya Aunty would have sent some leftover cake from Pav’s birthday, there was supposed to be such a criminal amount of cake…
It would have been fun.
It was supposed to be their thing, the next big adventure, the new chapter with them still together, still best friends, fuck the fact that they’re no longer dating.
Now, Pavitr is gone, and she’s left alone with an unfinished painting of a sun-kissed butterfly that was supposed to be his birthday gift, and a pile of papers, the other matching half of which is probably lying untouched in a dump somewhere.
It’s not fair.
He’d been more excited for this than she had. Always the high fucking achiever that he was, almost unhealthily obsessed with getting perfect scores all the time. Always aiming for the goddamn moon like he couldn’t see he was the fucking sun.
She should never have pushed him away. Maybe if she hadn’t, had fought him upfront on it instead of letting him sulk when he was obviously upset about her new relationship, he’d still be here. He wouldn’t have had the chance to slip away like this, where she can’t get him back, can’t follow.
He’s alive. She knows he is. She’d known it in her heart even before Hobie turned up with the update that he’s definitely alive, but not in a state to see her just now.
She’d flown into a different kind of panic then, all is he hurts and take me to hims.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t easy for Hobie either; they’d looked like they’d break if she pushed too much. So she’d backed off after the sixth time they said no and tried to explain that even they didn’t know where Pavitr was, not really. Just that he was… around.
There was something else Hobie was hiding, too, but Gaya could tell a lost cause when she saw one, didn’t press. She’d figure it out herself.
Her gaze lingers absently on her softboard. At the pinned-up pictures and notes on it, connected with colourful strings, all newspaper clippings about murders and disappearances from the Daily Shehnai, and quick sketches and sticky notes of her own. There’s a chart paper from a school project, currently pushed to the side, that covers it whenever her dad comes in. Gaya had done some digging, connected the dots between Spider-Man’s disappearance and the sudden chain of murders and arson, is so close to figuring out where the fuck Pavitr fits into all of this. Figuring out if he’s okay. Rankling at her own pathetic helplessness if he isn’t.
It's cliché, she knows. But the only person who’d have bullied her for it – the only real best friend she’s ever had, the only one who wasn’t either intimidated, a kiss-ass, or a two-faced bitch – isn’t there anymore.
Gayatri misses Pavitr, misses him so much it hurts.
She shakes her head, and pulls one of the application forms out of the stack. Stares at the first blank for about fifteen minutes, uncomprehending. It takes her that long to figure out what it wants.
NAME: ________________
She can’t. She can’t fucking do this.
He should have been here.
Gaya can’t breathe, suddenly.
(It doesn’t feel like she’s breathed properly in weeks, the choking lump of coal in her throat intensifying with every unanswered call, every unread text she sends.)
She pushes back from her desk with a screeeeech, and stands abruptly. Almost reaches for the cheesy heart-eyes-emoji-stress-ball Pav had won her in a mela, back when they were still dating. Flinches away like it’s a hot coal before her skin even makes contact.
All it does is remind her that he’s not there, he’s not, and she can’t remember what the last thing she said to him was, all they’d shared was stubborn silence, she hadn’t even listened, she’d just been mad, and now he’s gone and she can’t fucking talk to him again and the only person she can think of to vent to about all this is him –
Gayatri wrenches her window open, all but shoves her head out into the night to breathe in lungfuls of chilled, polluted air. It’s not clean or healthy, not by a long shot, but it’s fresh, and scented faintly with harsingars as the season approaches. It’s better than the stuff claustrophobia of her room.
She hugs her arms to her chest as she leans her elbows heavily on the icy windowsill. It takes a few blinks for her vision to sharpen, focus through what she belatedly realizes are tears. She glares resolutely through them, anger licking at her lungs, fucking furious, how dare Pav not show up, how dare he leave it for her to hear through the grapevine that he’s even still alive? How dare he not even tell her he’s fucking grieving, the last thing he should be is alone, but instead of reaching out he just pulls a Mr. India? What kind of asshole best friend does that?
The moon in the sky is a sliver of a crescent.
Somewhere, maybe Pavitr is looking up at it too.
Something, some instinct, prickles at the back of her neck, and Gayatri whips her head around. She cranes her neck searchingly, xamines the wall beside her window on both sides, like there’s supposed to be something there. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t – well, there’s the once-blue-now-grey wall, with the brick exposed in chipping plaster by the edge, and the runaway tendrils of Mrs. Malhotra’s money plant, but there’s nothing else. Nothing new.
Gayatri tightens her grip on her arms, and sighs.
What else had she even expected?
Like Pavitr would just happen to be hanging out here on some wall, like out of everywhere in the city he could be, he’s going to be here, outside the room of the shitty best friend who couldn’t even be bothered to talk to him?
Gaya pinches her brow, breathing strained through her nose.
She can’t put this off anymore, she’s already been postponing it for weeks, the very thought of it making the ever-present ache hurt worse. But today’s the last day, she has to submit the applications this week – especially the Mumbattan Uni one, the deadline on that is tomorrow. She needs to get her shit together.
Instead, she’s been lying around for weeks, just barely stringing together her functionality around the gaping absence of her best friend.
The aloneness just doesn’t stop pressing in on her, sharp claws digging into her flank and refusing to let up.
“Fuck it. Fuck him, fuck all of this. I can’t.” she hisses hotly, slamming her window shut. She can’t be alone right now.
She dives for her phone, scrolls deliberately past the number with three outgoing missed calls today, and settles on the next one. Puts it on speaker as it rings out.
“Hey, maharani sahiba, what’s up?”
Meera’s voice isn’t as rich through her shitty phone speaker as it is in real life, but it’s warm and affectionate and Gaya can feel her tense shoulders uncoiling the slightest bit.
“Hi, jaanu.” Some of her cheer is forced, and Meera must be able to tell the fakeness of her smile, but she doubles down and her girlfriend lets it slide. For now. “Kai karti tu, what are you up to?”
“Just practicing some anatomy from YouTube because the art class at school is a fucking joke and neither of us are gonna get into Howard’s at this rate. What about you?”
“Writing.” Gayatri pulls the application form towards her again, and sighs deeply, “Just the college application. I haven’t done it yet, ugh.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Meera asks gently, sympathetically. She’d already submitted her application last week.
“Just… stay on call, maybe? I don’t want to do this alone.”
“Of course.”
Meera knows all about Pavitr, of course. It’d be hard not to, with how much Gaya talks about her best friend and how they’re used to doing literally everything together. It’d been weird to readjust some things, too, to hang out with Meera and go on dates and cuddle and do things with her in the time that she’d always used to spend with Pavitr. It’d sucked to cut down on their time together, considering how little time she and Pav already got to spend, on account of living so far apart.
No wonder Pav hadn’t liked her dating Meera all that much. No wonder he felt like he wasn’t as important to Gaya anymore.
He must have felt like she was leaving him behind and alone on purpose.
The pang of guilt is hard to swallow down, but she does it anyway.
Meera’s kind about this, at least. Understanding of the situation, as much as Gayatri could tell her – she’s leaving the Spider-Man stuff out, of course, even Pav didn’t know she knew that.
“I’m just going to put on some music, okay?” she says, and Meera hums her assent. Gayatri taps away at her laptop, opening the right tab, until the song she wants starts playing.
The starting notes already make her want to curl up and never get back up, but the nostalgia of it holds her together, somehow, the pain like glue.
Ye dosti hum nahi todenge,
Todenge dum magar
Tera saath na chhodenge…
Ye dosti hum nahi todenge,
Todenge dum magar
Tera saath na chhodenge…
Pav grinned, perking up visibly, as the old song started playing on the ancient speaker he’d helped Mahesh Kaka connect to his even more ancient computer.
“Hey! Our theme song!” he grinned at Gayatri. His smile was infectious, always was, and Gaya finds herself bopping her head and singing along.
“ Jaan pe bhi khelenge,
Tere liye le lenge
Sab se dushmani!”
“Ye dosti, hum nahi todenge,
Todenge dum magar
Tera saath na chhodenge!” Pav joined in.
“A-woof!” the large stray affectionately curled near Pavitr’s feet barked in agreement. He grinned down at the dog, crouching down to rub his head.
“Yeah, even Jignesh the bhau-bhau agrees! See? Ye dosti nahi tootne waali!” he grinned up at her. Gayatri chuckled.
“For the record, I believe you.” Her soft, genuine smile sharpens deviously, “And to be fair, you can’t afford to let this friendship break; I was there in your cringe emo era, remember? Blackmail karna mujhe bhi aata hai.”
“Gasp! Not in front of the children, Gayatri!” Pavitr gasped in mock-affront, dramatically covering Jignesh the dog’s ears, “It’s okay, Jignesh, you didn’t hear that. Emo Pav isn’t real, he can’t hurt you. You atyachaari traitor.” He glares the last bit at Gaya, and she smiles innocently at him.
“Your ice gola’s going to melt, Pappu, ab baith ke kha bhi le. Or well, if you don’t want to eat it, I guess I –”
“Give that here.” Pav swipes his obnoxious bubblegum flavoured ice gola out of her hand, leaving her with her precious kala khatta. Gayatri laughs as he hops onto the counter next to her. He leans back, relaxed, his legs swinging and tapping in beat with the song as they both slurp happily at their treats. The fan overhead swings pathetically slowly, but they have ice golas, and it’s a Sunday. Mahesh Kaka has basically entrusted the shop to them, leaving for lunch, and it’ll take at least that hour and probably more for their college applications to print out; the printing machine in the small Kirana store is the only new appliance there, but even that doesn’t help when the computer it’s connected to hasn’t seen an update since 1997.
Gayatri leans her head on Pav’s shoulder and blinks lazily at the empty street, lit up golden in the afternoon sun. The warmth of his shoulder is the same as it’s always been, solid and steady and unflinching, and maybe there’s something like a prayer in the air as she breathes her gratitude into it.
It had been an awkward week after The Conversation™. The break-up was mutual, yes, but a little bit of weirdness was unavoidable, especially with how long they’d been together. Ten years as best friends, now, and two years dating – and now back to friends. Neither of them wanted to be the one to mess it up.
But here they are, hanging out as they always have, their plans for the future and sticking together completely undeterred by the change in the label of their relationship. No awkwardness in the way she rests her head on Pav’s shoulder, in the way Pav holds out his gola for her to take a bite because he knows she likes the bubblegum flavour more than she’ll ever admit, for all she’s supposed to be a classic kala khatta girl. Printing out their college applications three months in advance, planning ahead like they always do, in sync.
It's a comfortable silence, broken only by the whirring of the printing machine, and the yawning of Jignesh the stray dog. And the song playing in the background, on loop apparently.
Ye dosti hum nahi todenge,
Todenge dum magar
Tera saath na chhodenge…
The faint waft of pineapple lingers even as Pavitr crouches there, stuck stone-still on the wall, ten whole minutes after Gayatri has shut the window and gone back in. He can’t seem to get himself to move, just frozen in place, his heart still trying to beat clean out of his chest.
The panic had been so real for that moment, his Spidey sense alerting him at the last second before Gaya turned to look at the wall next her window, would’ve spotted him. He’d leapt noiselessly to the wall above in the nick of time, just dodging her.
He’s already ruined things by running into the others once, even if it was for their own safety. He can’t do that again – especially not to Gayatri, Gaya who’s too fragile and human, Gaya who doesn’t have any powers to protect her if his presence puts her in danger again.
Pav never should have come here. It was selfish, and awful, and shitty.
But he couldn’t help it. He just needed to see her, to assure himself that she’s okay, that she’s moving on better than he is, at least.
There’s the faint, familiar chords of music playing, and the faint, familiar sound of Gayatri’s voice talking on a call. The smell is unfamiliar, though. Wrong.
Gayatri’s perfume isn’t pineapple. It’s cherry. He knows her smell, her voice, her favourite everything, and this one doesn’t compute.
Pav finally urges his body to move, unglues his hands and feet from the plaster of the wall. Inches down, by the sill, and risks a second to peer inside.
Gayatri’s at her desk, busily writing away at some papers, her phone propped up on video call. Pav squints at the tiny screen, trying to figure out who she’s – oh.
Right.
Meera Jain’s voice isn’t familiar, not at all, but Pav still supposes he should’ve known just by Gaya’s tone who she was talking to. That’s exactly how she used to call him jaanu too.
The pineapple perfume makes more sense now, too. Meera likes gifting Gayatri things, which – well, it isn’t something Pav could ever really afford.
It’s useless to pretend he’s not bitter. He is. It’s an ugly truth, and he’s mean and stingy for it, but it’s true.
Gayatri had come out to him as a lesbian when they broke up. It had been fine in the moment, and he’d been supportive, of course he had. But later, when he was alone with his thoughts, Pav couldn’t quiet the doubts – had she only ever liked him because of the body he was born in? Was that why she’d loved him – because she had, they’d both loved each other, always, first as friends and then differently – was it because he wasn’t a boy, not really? Or, worse still… was this his fault? That he couldn’t just suck it up and be the girl he was supposed to be, the task he failed at so spectacularly that his own parents disowned him? Could he have made her happier, fixed everything, if he’d just… done better, pretended better, not been so selfish and thrown it all away for being the real him? If he’d done more, been different, would she still love him?
Pav would never voice those thoughts. They’re hideous in the bright light of day, and they’re easier to ignore when Gayatri’s actually around – and clearly does love him, she’s his best friend for fuck’s sake.
But then along came Meera Jain, Meera who is pretty and has money and is into the same things Gaya is and is funny and sweet and is so right in every single way. And Gayatri stopped being around as much, and well… it was easier to believe his brain every time she cancelled on plans to hang out or switched up things they usually did together to do them with Meera instead.
It makes sense, probably. They used to be together so often because they’d been dating, of course Gaya’s going to spend that time with the person she’s dating now. Even if she’s only known her for a few months and Pav for their whole lives. This doesn’t hurt at all, he can smile and be happy for her through it.
Except the part where he can’t, and has to resort to avoiding her instead. The part where’s he’s mad, he’s jealous and upset like a child. Because they’ve been best friends for twelve years; which means that since he was six, Pavitr has done every single group project, been partners in every single field trip, saved a seat at every table and bus, always beelined in the same direction, always made plans for every occasion, twinned clothes every time, with Gayatri. And now she has someone else to do those things with, and Pavitr is alone, because he wasn’t enough.
“Achha hai,” he breathes in through his mouth, reassuring fiercely, “This is good. Good. She’s moving on.”
It’s good that she could get over it quicker than he could. That she has someone she cares about to fall back on, to replace him quick and easy. It’s good for her.
Pavitr isn’t good for her. He isn’t good for anyone he loves.
Just look at Maya Aunty, at Bhim Uncle. At what’s almost happened to Gayatri before.
Even Gayatri had seemed to realize it, on some level. Was mad at him. Had whispered “fuck him” out of her window. Well, he can fuck off, no worries.
Good, that she’s moving on with her life.
Without me.
Those are her college applications, Pavitr realizes with a sharp stab of longing, as he recognizes the familiar logo on the form.
They were supposed to fill those together.
Now she’s filling them out on video call with Meera Jain.
This is good. Even if it feels like his heart being nailed to the back of his ribs and drained out.
This is good for her.
Moving on with her life, like normal, covering the small cracks where he’d once been. He doesn’t get to have that any more, that normal life, those plans they made together, those dreams they shared. But she does. She’s going to be so happy without him.
Pavitr’s head thuds back dully against the cold wall as he looks up at the sky. He stares up until his eyes are dry, and turns small, strained smile towards the crescent moon.