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There are days in which Peter's mind won't shut off, and nights where sleep is a distant memory. Nights that stretch on endlessly, days that leave him aching for escape from consciousness. Some nights he lies with Matt, conscious though the night, and others he works. There's an old room that Matt never used much before, and now it's Peter's office-slash-makeshift lab.
Tonight he works. The numbers blur and the words dance before his achy, tired vision. His muscles hurt. Every one of them. He can't think about the equation in front of him. He can't sleep if it would save the world. His head pounds and he's nearly sure he's caught something. Eventually he pushes his work aside, knowing that it's just the beginning of the quarter. He's got time before anything for Horizon's due.
He's got a dream job. The best boyfriend he can hope for. The world's greatest aunt. A place on Max Modell's Think Tank. Part of Horizon's Seven. A private lab. An entire quarter to create anything he likes. No boundaries in his studies. Everything and anything he could possibly dream of researching—he now has access to all of it.
And yet the only thing hindering him from doing /anything at all/ is something as simple as sleep.
Or maybe it's not so simple.
It never is, really. After a while of staring blankly at the wall his desk faces, he pulls out an old notebook, one he hasn't touched in ages and starts updating it, starts scribbling down words. Or he tries to, at least. He thinks in letters, spaces, lines and curves. His mind isn't capable of anything but increments right now.
He finally pushes himself from his chair, shaky, and his head begins to spin. He's too tired to move. So he doesn't. He collapses back into his chair and rests his head in his arms. He closes he eyes. He sleeps.
~~~~~~
Matt rouses from unconsciousness, and Peter's not there. He blinks, scrubs his hand down his face, and focuses. Peter's in the apartment, his office, more specifically, and his heartbeat's steady. Peaceful. Calm. He sighs in relief. They are out of the woods; he doesn't have to worry. They've been through this before. He offers soporifics. Peter doesn't want them, won't take them. Even if he begs.
So they wait it out. They suffer through it because eventually Peter's body shuts out his mind and gives him the rest he desperately needs. Eventually, things get better. He calls Foggy, tells him that he won't be coming in that day. He needs to make sure Peter stays on the mend.
He pads down the hallway and into the office, tracing Peter's hunched outline at his desk, listening to his heart, his breaths, the vague rattle of congestion in his chest. The room smells like illness. Peter's sick.
Matt sighs, goes over to Peter and shakes him just slightly, gets him to move into his arms, and carries him back to their bed. “Sleep tight,” he whispers, carding his fingers through Peter's hair, listening to him drop off again, feeling his fever's warmth radiate off of him. He makes sure they have medicines to help with his fever, any other symptoms he might have when he wakes, and goes back to the office to pick up the mess of papers Peter made.
He stacks them and slips them into a drawer, and eventually comes across a notebook. His fingertips brush over the first line, expecting equations and scientific ramble, instead finding something that catches him off guard: Names.
The first one he recognizes, it makes his stomach drop in realization. He goes on to read the rest of the page, the inks switching, slowly changing in age. The first name is the oldest and has the oldest feeling ink, the last is the youngest, written last night, he's sure.
First it's Uncle Ben, and then it's Gwen Stacy. The ink switches and he reads Captain Stacy. There's another switch, and then it's Bennett Brant. The rest were all written last night. All in the same ink, same exhausted, scribbly handwriting: Jean DeWolffe, Freddie Foswell, Ben Reilly, Billy Connors, Marla Jameson...
He curses under his breath and leaves the office, leaves the notebook, and joins his boyfriend in bed. He wants to wake him, wants to remind him he's not at fault, he didn't do it, he didn't kill those people. He wants to shake him, scream those reminders, anything to make him believe it.
But he won't. He knows he won't. So he just pulls the brunette to his chest and runs his hand through his hair, presses his lips to the top of the boy's head.
“It's not your fault.”