#(living on a hot island makes training inside unbearable sometimes)-

[still-living-like-im-trying]

More art of Commoner Knight Tani (OC) for Nimona:

[samekoblogs]

Haunted

Written for Amorra Week 2023 @amorraweek2023 for Day 1: Scars.

Rating: T for discussions of some heavy topics ahead.

Tags: Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Relationship, Korra-centric, Introspection, Description-heavy, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Angst.

Summary: She presses her knuckles against her forehead, out of tiredness and anxiety.

“I can’t escape you, can I?” she whispers.

In one way or another, it seems he’ll always find a way to haunt her.

Notes: Fic is also under the cut if you're more comfortable reading on Tumblr! Also it's my first time posting here, please have patience 🤧.

~~~

Her parents used to tell her all kinds of bedtime stories when she lived with them. Stories about the southern spirits, made of flesh like humans, of energy and life from beyond another plane of existence; stories about benders of the past, about the many strife and victories her nation faced over the centuries. She remembers only a couple of those from her infancy days, and not with many details. One of those narrated the troubled story of a water princess forced to be locked away and hidden inside a palace of ice, her powers too violent for the world to witness, her emotions too strong even for her family to bear. She was a prisoner in a home that was no longer hers.

Later, she found out that it was common for women in the Northern Tribe to be made to stay in their houses and barely leave them, excluded from taking part in traditions that in the Southern Tribe are shared equally. That people losing control of their bending could be dangerous. Terrifying. A gift turned into a curse. That emotions can be sometimes too much to bear, they come out inadvertently and you can’t force them down. And they become an inconvenience to the people around you. Cages are everywhere, inside or outside everyone, they’re cold to the touch, or scalding as fiery-hot steel.

Perhaps, that’s why she feels cold on her skin and heat in her stomach, as she climbs up the stairs of one of the towers of the Air Temple. The wood creaks under her boots, as she makes her way up to reach the garret atop it. Korra doesn’t know what this tower was used for before; she does know its purpose now.

It was the report of a stolen motorboat that alerted Tenzin and former Chief Beifong. Amid the chaos following Amon’s escape and Tarrlok’s disappearance, it has been rather fortuitous that they didn’t overlook this report.

When they found him, the man without the mask in raggedy clothes, wounds open and bloody, and the unrecognizable body of his brother amidst the wreckage of the ship, they opted to keep the news of his arrest a secret until things would be remotely settled down in Republic City, to prevent further Equalist’s action. Korra doesn’t know when things will settle down. Once again, she’s faced with issues she can’t even begin to untangle. She’s too young. Her prowess alone can’t take her far. She’s powerless, even with her bending returned to her thanks to Aang. She can’t punch away her problems, she can’t kick away this uselessness she feels inside knowing Tenzin and the Council are working relentlessly to maintain order in the disarrayed city. The one thing she’s good at is useless in helping her deal with the aftermath of this mess. So she’s stuck. Irremediably stuck. And does whatever she can to make herself useful, just as to not feel the fear and the pressure and the inadequacy. Unbearable, every single one of them, she isn’t supposed to feel like this, not after all the training she did since she was five.

At the end of the winding staircase there’s a trapdoor. Korra pushes it open and puts the medical supplies she was carrying on the floor. Then, she hauls herself up in the garret.

Amon’s “chambers” are a box comprised of metal and wood, constructed by the inhabitants of the island with the help of Chief Beifong’s most loyal colleagues. She didn’t entrust anyone else with the knowledge of the dangerous prisoner they were dealing with. Although, troublesome isn’t a word that’s appliable to Amon anymore: he’s weak, severely wounded to the point bending doesn’t come to him, and he’s constantly drugged so he can be kept tame. The cage, at this point, is just an overkill measure to ensure he won’t get away this time. Not that Korra will complain about it anytime soon – or ever.

In between the reticle of the bars, Amon’s form peeks out. He’s sitting on the cot, cross-legged. His hands are resting on his stomach. It’s as if he’s deep in a relaxation technique of sorts, his shoulders under the simple tunic are rising and falling in a slow rhythm. His abdomen is pushing lightly against his palms until compelled to compress itself by the pressure of his hands.

Korra doesn’t furrow so much at the activity itself, but more at the fact that he’s up and alert enough to do so. Amon being alert makes the hair behind her neck stand up – the ghost of his fingers pressing against her forehead and taking away all her work, all her achievements in bending, her role and pride, everything—

His icy eyes slide open and rest on her.

Korra pushes down the saliva stagnating in her mouth.

“I’m here to change your bandages. Same as usual,” she announces, forcing herself to step forward. She won’t concede herself even a second of hesitance. He’s more alert, yes, but he’s still too weak for bending, too weak to be a threat and steal away anything from her again. He’ll be a little more loquacious than usual perhaps, but that isn’t a matter she can’t take in her hands either. She could have conversations with literal rocks with the right amount of stubbornness. She can push down the unease once again in the presence of the Equalist Leader and hide the lingering fear from him. She can face anything if she gets it into her head: she has a pretty long line of reincarnations proving this.

Korra retrieves the medical supplies from the floor. All the while, she feels his eyes on her, as if she’s doing anything remotely of interest. Maybe he’s just that bored.

He slowly tears his stare away from her the moment she gets back on both her feet and approaches the… cage. His cage.

“Proceed to do so,” Amon says. As if she had been asking for permission in the first place – not that she would do anything he doesn’t like or makes him uncomfortable. She is neither evil, nor cruel. Perhaps he just had nothing else to say and he naturally fell back on speaking in a rather commanding tone. Korra has still a hard time reading him, although she must admit she’s getting better at it. Whether that’s a good thing or not. She decides it’s a good thing, if it can aid her through this task she had been entrusted with. She pestered Tenzin to death to let her do this. Not only because they needed someone trusted to heal Amon’s injuries, but because she needed to prove she could succeed. Tame her fear and be the Korra she once was.

She fishes a key out of her pocket and opens the door to the cage. She trained her body enough not to jump at the sound of the lock mechanism. She used to leave the door open when Amon was still barely conscious, a hazard for sure, but she couldn’t bear to be alone in close spaces with him, even when accompanied by at least one of her friends every time. As soon as Amon regained some strength, she started closing the door and working on keeping her nerves at bay. It became easier with each visit dictated by a reinforced, ritualistic series of actions.

Amon is already tugging at the tunic to try and take it off on his own. She helped him with it from time to time prior, so she does it this time too, even if the coordination of his movements seems to have improved. Amon lets her help him. He didn’t protest against it when he had been conscious enough to take notice of his clothes being removed, but with his back and torso bared she had noticed the tensity a piece of garments would have otherwise concealed. She found a strange kind of comfort in the fact he had been, apparently, unsure in doing that. They were both in a similar boat, which back then reassured Korra he wouldn’t try anything funny. Not something she could prevent or counterattack at least.

She leaves the tunic on his lap before sitting down behind him, the cot sinking under her added weight. It takes a little patience to unroll the bandages and, in general, do any medical intervention without bending. But it's wiser to make him believe she's still the almost powerless girl that, against all odds, managed to defenestrate him and unmask his lies for the city to see. She's a little smug about it even weeks after. However, her smugness soon disappears when she sees the goosebumps flourish on his uncovered flesh. He’s cold. That’s such a basic thing for a human to experience, yet it still clashes with the image of the looming figure tormenting her sleep. She shouldn’t be so surprised, she had always known there was a human under that mask, but a part of her couldn’t associate a human visage with such a menacing – terrifying – character. She still has difficulty humanizing him, despite tending to his wounds almost daily.

“I’ll make it quick,” she says, spontaneously. He doesn’t need reassurance, he’s Amon. It just feels like the right thing to say and so she does. The wintry weather isn’t getting any better. Pema and the kids downstairs are keeping the stove working day and night. Maybe the room temperature is too low, despite him being of Water Tribe heritage.

Amon’s head slightly turns back to her, his eyes not quite looking at her. Instead, it’s as if he’s acknowledging her speaking. His hair is still short, leaving his head almost bare. They had to cut it to clean the wounds and facilitate the healing of his burns there. Whatever accident involved him and Tarrlok, he took the blow of the explosion from behind. He's lucky he survived at all.

The stitches are keeping the wounds closed, but they still have such an angry-looking red color. The burns must hurt all the same and hinder his movements. They’ll all scar. And they’re not the first scars he’ll receive in his life. There are far older ones marrying his body and small patches of discolored skin as well. They’re so randomly positioned that Korra can’t put her finger on what caused them. She has been speculating ever since seeing them for the first time.

“I’ll…” she starts, breaking the silence. She doesn’t like this man’s silence, gelid and unpleasant. Like a blow of wind cooling the tears rolling down your cheeks. “I’ll bring some extra blankets for you. It’s snowing nonstop outside.”

“I can tell,” he replies.

“It’s the smell, right?” she asks, not truly needing an answer. “Snow has such a distinct smell.”

Even here at Republic City, where its odor has an unsavory quality to it, due to the fumes and pollution of the city.

“Yes,” he says, bordering on a mumble. Far from the authoritative voice she heard him speak with on the radio or during his speeches. 

Korra hums at him. They’re from the Water Tribe. Both of them. They have so many words for snow in their native language. A word for when it’s soft and granular. A word for when it’s hard and old. A word for when it’s freshly fallen. At some point in life, he must have used these words to talk to his father, his mother. His brother. She doesn’t want him to indulge in the thought of ever seeing the light of day. He never will, for everyone’s sake and her well-being. Thus, she drops the subject and continues with her work, applying lotion to the burns.

She should be happy the man that tried to ruin her is in such a state that even conversation comes hard to him. She used to be relieved, more at the idea that he couldn’t hurt her future anymore. But happy? No. Laughing at someone else’s misery isn’t like her, even if said misery benefits her. 

“Your wounds will heal,” she says, with a bit of a soft tone, leaning on cheery. “It’ll take some time, sure. But you’ll feel better.”

“You should remove my bending, Avatar. As your predecessor did with Yakone,” Amon suddenly says.

Korra stops.

“To… him?” she murmurs. Tentatively. Perhaps threading over dangerous waters. She doesn’t refer to Yakone as his father. She fears it would be crossing a line that unburies yet more pain other than the physical one and the grief haunting his mourning eyes. She shouldn’t care, yet she does. Because she’s not a cruel, horrible person, and she cares enough to not add salt to already infected wounds.

“Yes,” Amon says. “A non-bender is treated more humanly than a bender in prison. They wouldn’t have to use coercive methods to ensure I don’t escape.” Amon’s stare becomes vacant in the brief pause that follows. “It would prevent me from ever taking away bending again. Like I did with you.”

Korra narrows her eyes. Is he trying to remind her of that to instill anger in her? To prompt an impulsive action? Little does he know that she retrieved her bending.

“I’ll think about it,” she says. “And not because I’m swayed by your manipulations.”

“You agree that it would be the safer thing to do,” he affirms. 

Yes. It would be.

She sighs. And it would be mercy for him, because before he could return in shape enough to practice any bending, he would be transported to the nearest max security prison and locked away. Bending would be impossible for him anyway.

“I…” she trails off, not knowing where she wants to go with her words. Instead, she takes the syringe filled with the narcotic drug from the box.

“I spared you once, for my own motives,” he reminds her while offering his arm, causing a shiver to run down her spine. She tightens the tourniquet around his biceps to suppress it. “Now, you could spare me for your own motives too.”

Korra moves her lips nervously. She stills her hand before plunging the needle and emptying the syringe. His reasoning is sound, unfortunately. Yet there’s something amiss, something she can’t place that feels weird in his voice. It’s like, through his apathetic tone, something had threatened to break through the surface. She looks at the back of his neck and diverted face, a sliver of blue in his eye glinting with something raw. Primal.

He’s… he’s desperate. For her help.

Somehow, that terrifies her more than if he looked at her with fury, or hate. Does he think himself incapable of escaping his bonds once restrained in a prison? A remarkable bender like him should have more confidence in his abilities. Not that she would offer words of encouragement to fuel said confidence. Are the restraints worrying him this much? Is it the lack of human interaction? The isolation? He did lose his brother, in unknown circumstances. She guesses he must feel isolated right now, lonely. One thing is being alive knowing you have people you care about still living. One thing is being alive and everyone you know is dead, or has turned their back on you.

Perhaps that’s the issue. The fact he survived and, by all accounts, he shouldn’t have.

“You plan to take your own life?” she asks. Silence. Korra can’t help the trembling she feels in her chest. “W-why?”

To her, any concept of terminating your own life is inconceivable. It’s horrible, it fills her with a cold sensation of dread.

“I don’t plan to take my own life, Avatar.” He uses that appellative as if he wants to distance himself from her. But that’s a lie, the one he spoke. She didn’t imagine the vulnerability from before.

“You want me to take away your bending because, if I don’t, you won’t be able to go through it under strict surveillance,” she explains, embers in her throat. “Worse, if I snitch on you, you won’t have a moment in which you’re alone and unsupervised. It’d be impossible.”

Amon exhales through his nose. Slowly.

“You are not an unmerciful person, Avatar. Nor uncaring. Granting death isn’t an immoral act to do. Your previous lives learned this. My brother, he thought too this would be best for both of us,” he says, soft-spoken as she never heard him before. “You have the chance to undo what wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I don’t want to send anyone to their death. I’m not a murderer.” 

She clenches a fist while her whole body rejects the idea of taking life. A human life. 

“My death won’t be on you, Avatar. Only on myself. You are young, but… you are not without reasoning.”

Korra twists her head, as if to smack away from her ears his voice. Her heart is pounding so hard in her chest.

“No. I can’t. I couldn’t,” she says, to him and herself. She can’t. She would feel responsible despite him telling her it wouldn’t be her fault. He’s just saying that because he didn’t get through to her and he’s grasping at straws at this point. Maybe it’s the drug that’s making him less cautious, clumsy with what he’s letting transpire. “You need to lie down,” she suggests, forcing down the lump in her throat. Him not moving to obey prompts her to her feet.

When she retrieves the tunic from his lap, she sees Amon’s vacant eyes following her with difficulty. They’re glassy and lost. She can’t look at them while she helps him put the tunic back on.

She places a hand on his back and one on his arm, to guide him down on the cot.

“Avatar…”

“Lie down,” she commands this time, moving her hand from his arm to his wrist to firmly take it. “Just, lie down. You aren’t lucid.”

If he was, she would know nothing of this. He’s unreadable to her under normal circumstances. It feels wrong, to be able to read a man like him so promptly. It is so, so wrong. She doesn’t feel like leaving him alone after what she heard. It scares her, that he might try something and she would return the next day only to find a dead body. And it would be her fault, for leaving him alone and ignoring the signals.

She presses her knuckles against her forehead, out of tiredness and anxiety.

“I can’t escape you, can I?” she whispers.

In one way or another, it seems he’ll always find a way to haunt her.

She turns to him. He’s observing her through half-lidded, heavy eyes. He’s close to drifting off, the frown on his face ever so slowly relaxing.

Korra lets her hand fall between her thighs.

“Sleep, please,” she murmurs. It’ll be better if she doesn’t have to meet his stare anymore.

It takes one minute for Amon to fall asleep.

It takes longer for his blue eyes weakly looking up at her to blur into her mind and disappear, while she listens to the sounds of creaking wood and the whistling of the wind outside, soft breathing next to her.

She opens her palm, a small flame dances on her fingertips. It’ll be a cold night. She can do well with the cold. But she’s not alone. So, she fuels the flame as darkness descends. A lifeline in the void of the night.

A light, for when there’s no more light left.

[dansedan]

digging through stuff to submit to a writing contest, so here are two original short stories written about a year apart which I’m still generally proud of!

That Which Flesh Is Heir To

Death

The word seemed funny, coming out of her dainty mouth. She seemed too small, her voice too high-pitched in attempted formality. Her German thick with effort. It was one of the major themes of religious art across Europe at the time, she said. She waved her thin arms around her with every word, a little too excitedly, as if using a conductor’s meter to elicit some response from our group. Fear of death was useful to the church: for the sake of convincing the uneducated masses to maintain faith, and to benefit from the guilt of nobles, since their main role then was still in warfare.

Our class was moving on, the teacher rounding up stragglers and signaling the entrance to the next hall. It was filled with statues and paintings and marble, floor to ceiling wrapped in colors much like this one. My feet refused to obey her order, standing instead unflinchingly in front of the statue. In front of her. I couldn’t bear to move my gaze from the figure’s eyes, blank and hollow, despairing. The world blurred around the single point of bitter fate ensconced in marble.

Do you want to see something interesting? I hadn’t expected her to address me. She had moved now- we were side by side- giving off warmth from the proximity of her bare shoulders to my arm. I forced myself to nod, and felt a movement, something stiff and hot against my ear- something plastic. I like to listen to it, sometimes, she was saying, so close to me. It reminds me of this statue. Her fingers brushed the shell of my ear. It was Mozart, and the soft wailing choral voices seemed to echo my emotions as her fingers wilted back into her hand and away from me.

We stood there for a moment, lost in the crowd of museumgoers. An island in their midst, and in that second all I could think was do not let this go. This feeling, this fire in the pit of your stomach, this hollow feeling in your chest that’s rising to your head do not let this go. The violins and chorus and the marble. The cherubs in the vaulted ceiling smiling down with knowing, cruel smiles. Her collarbone and silver band across her chest do not let them go. The chatter of the crowd- Italian and Spanish and Croatian or Dutch. Do not let them go. Not for one second of your life. Do not forget this.

And I felt her press into my side, and touch my shoulder gently. She was whispering into my chest it’s alright, let it out it’s alright I’ve done it too. It’s helped me too, I’ve done it too let it out. I’ve cried here too, I’ve done this too. I feel it too. And as she held me I was shaking. Please do not forget this. Do not let this go.

All that flesh makes willing

Our affair was brief- I was a tourist- but she was beautiful, and cold only in the literal sense common for women of her stature. A thin white thing, like the marble she’d been surrounded with at work. Chestnut hair draped across her shoulders, to the collarbone- I’d never till then comprehended why dress codes, in my country, called to cover the collarbone. I could (and often did) end up staring at her for hours, willing her to be my muse, to make me make something, but she was so pragmatic that she often ended all of these discussions by smiling (I could hear it in her voice, the smiling) and requesting some menial favor. “could you please buy cigarettes”, or  “pass me the salt-shaker”, or “isn’t it late now?”, anything. But she was beautiful, so I did it for her, anyhow.  And so it happened that by the end of the three months stay I’d agreed upon with my agent for the residence the only thing I’d made from her was a larger pile of laundry and a couple embarrassing purchases- underwear, linens, whatever. And even in the final moments, at the train station, she only smiled and said good-bye and told me not to drift off when I was travelling alone, that the front of the train was still dangerous. And she smiled small and nodded sternly as she walked away, foot over unbearable foot blending together in an undulating gesture. And I stood there, dumb and half-blind (the irony) with agony but not saying anything, and eventually I checked my watch and it said it was midnight when I’d almost missed my ticket and got stranded (sometimes I wish I’d allowed that, then. Walked back to her apartment and killed her with kisses, refused to leave. But I was too pragmatic and my rent was due a couple days and I never understood how visas worked) and I made it in by running and forsook her wisdom, sleeping straight to Britain with only a couple minutes of half-lucid awareness where I denied wet towels and assistance transferring train cars.

It was only several months later that I let myself remember her, thick on the tail of another woman as I usually was, reminiscing my journeys from that summer until I suddenly stumbled upon those moments where we’d pressed together, where her smallness met the empty vast of my own hollowed chest and we breathed light the night into the daybreak. And at this memory I at once ached, and softly sighed around my daily life for days again without reprieve, reprimanding myself for forgetting her so quickly, as one does when stirred from sleep when dreams handcrafted by your mind so soon escape you. When the London rain was blue and humid bog-warm I would pace around the city with my coat on wandering. As if I could find her this way somehow. After weeks then I resolved I’d make her- as I was still convinced she had been my muse then- and conscripted through some not insignificant haggling the help of a dear friend to trot to the museum one brief moment to peruse their own swathe of Roman marble as material.

“So you bedded some Italian and now you can’t get over it- what’s with the statues?”

“We met at the museum”

“’The Museum’,” she said mockingly. “You were in Italy, Eva, which bloody museum?”

“The statue-room at the Uffizi”

“there’s more than-“

“she’s the guide there- speaks ten languages. She’s so clever…” I wondered ‘round the room. Bright blue walls surrounded the bright stone figures, seeming almost like a classroom round. “She was beautiful, Hannah.”

She stood still by the entrance- we were alone, and it was all quite quiet, a weekday near the start of June drew little people here. For a few tentative steps, her boots clacked loudly on the tile.

“…how did you meet her anyway?”

“Well, she’s the tour guide.”

“Well most people don’t shag the tour guide, genius.”

We were standing, shoulder-shoulder facing Venus in the corner of the rounded hall. Rather striking, must be- pair of stone-hard lezzies facing just that goddess. Hannah’s fuzz-buzz haircut and her stiff-wool coverall next to my own shaggy hair and rounded shades indoors. My sight-cane stuck to my Martens, clacking with my tics and movements (base-floor-base-floor-base-floor-base-floor).

“Well there was this pair of wrestlers, and I suppose she pegged me just the type then, looking at them close.”

“ah. Gotta love the Romans.”  

“She’s so clever. Did you know she knew the story behind all the statues even, all about the burial sites and everything?”

“M’pretty sure they’re trained to do that”

“but she was clever. She’s really clever.”

“Jolly good then.”

I had to turn then- same comforting brown-orange smudge of longtime friendship as was usual- grab at her elbows till we were close enough to see the limits of her own round ruddy face.

“Hannah dear, I think I love her.”

“I think you’re spitting on me, Eva.” And she grabbed my shoulders playfully and pinched them tight within her plush palms. “and that you probably need to shag someone else and get back on your medicine.”

“you don’t get it, she was beautiful. She was-“ and here I very grandly gestured to the marble next to us, taking a risk and hoping we were still next to the Venus somehow since I’d lost my footing on how many steps inside I’d taken (and taking a risk that I’d maybe slap a piece of ancient history in the process). “prettier than this one, even.”

And Hannah was silent, because she knew better than to mention my blindness, and I dreaded to feel her being right about something I felt so strongly on.

“you don’t…her collarbone- she’s just. So pretty, so-” I hate my blubbering- this small pathetic schoolchild voice I make all suddenly- but soon her arm was back on my shoulder and she was moving close so I could see orange and grey in us fuzzing together, feel her strong arm on my back and nape. And she said “ alright, I believe you”  and “let’s just get you home now”  and we did, gone on the underground riding all the way together although she lived in Surrey and was supposedly only visiting for the day, and she sat in my apartment with the kettle on while I dragged a canvas out of the storage and started glopping color on it, thinking of the nearness of her face in the warm green summer nights of Florence then. Until I tired myself out at night and we just sat still staring at the wall with it, sharing cups of lukewarm grocery-bag tea with no sugar in and staring, staring, staring long and hard and in remembrance. And I wasn’t sure if that’s what she looked like because it had been so long and such a distance. And I felt then perhaps her smile sounded different to the painting, but Hannah spoke after a while of silence saying, “beautiful she is, then.” And that moment I felt fine and shut the door again on feelings- like at the train station back then- and melted into the naked brown of my friend’s shoulder, soft and dark and oaken-sure. And I willed me to forget myself.

[darker-soft-starker]

This, too

For my actual ride or die @starkerforlife6969, who constantly wows me with their talent and beautiful heart, i luh ya xo xo 

TW: mental health issues, angst, hurt/comfort, a mention of Skip Westcott

-----------------------------

Peter dreams. 

Nightmares, most prominently - drifting dust and ash and the crush of cement against the curve of his spine. Often he dreams in flashes of mundane panic, that he’s late for work or he just missed the train. Sometimes the dreams are good, doorways into pockets of time, echoes of memories that feel as real as all his waking moments.

That night he dreams of dinner with May and Ben, except he’s not fourteen like he was when they were all together last, he’s himself now. It’s warm, bright, hazy in that way that dreams are. Tony is there too and they love him. Ben is laughing, all husky straight from the chest as May is recalling a memory of one of her misadventures in college, throwing her head back as she loses her cool and guffaws. She wipes a tear from her eye as she dwindles into soft giggles, looking over at Ben in shared reminiscence. Peter laughs along and catches Tony’s fond expression aimed just at him. 

It’s real, it feels so real. Until the shrill tones of his alarm wakes him up.

Sometimes good dreams are the worst ones.

Like blinking back into reality after one of Beck’s illusions when Peter wakes up he feels every pinch of warmth extinguish to a gritty, cold ash. The memories crumble, slipping away like hands trying to keep water cupped between them. Blinking slowly against the cool morning light, reality settles around him like sediments sinking heavily all over his body. 

It’s like someone scooped out everything inside of him - the call to feel anything results in a mournful echo.

He blinks once, twice. 

Oh, it's one of those days, he thinks.

Huh.

In sluggish, forced movement he takes his phone from the bedside table and silences his alarm. It's sixteen minutes past seven in the morning. He’s an early riser and should have been up already. Showered. In the kitchen. Flicking through social media as breakfast is cooking or coffee cooling or kissing Tony goodbye before the office beckons him away.

Except the impetus to get out of the bed isn’t exactly there. Outside of the bed is everything too big and too loud, even if he didn’t feel so heavy, all of his insides are grey, concrete and congealed, he feels like he would shatter at the slightest touch.

He blinks once. Twice.

The other side of the bed is empty and there is a message bright on his screen.

Had to leave for the office early, won’t be home until late - love you - you at work yet?

Fingers slow, Peter types a response, swallows around the lump in his throat.

Have a headache, stayed home. Love you.

He deletes that. Tries again.

Yeah, omw. Have a good day - love u.

It’s not right to make Tony worry.

He should get up. Piss. Shave. Wash. Eat. Not lie to his partner.

Except, he knows Tony would call. Would want to come home. Would try and shift him out of that concrete casing that presses down all over him and renders him immobile - and Peter just can’t. The thing about days like these is that there is plenty of should-do’s and want-to-do’s but on days like these desire is a foreign notion, incentive doesn’t go here and it means he does nothing. Which only further proves his own uselessness.

So he won’t say anything. He would do anything to protect Tony - even from Peter himself.

Besides, he doesn't want to talk through the saliva in his mouth feels like glue, doesn't know how to, even if he wanted to work through his molasses-like thoughts. He knows Tony wouldn’t mind - but Peter can’t let him see him like this, he has enough to deal with.

Tony is a good man.

Peter isn’t.

He thinks sometimes he believes that he is - good that is. Sometimes he knows that he is - but often the conditioned therapy speak can’t convince him that his guilt isn’t valid, that all his efforts at goodness aren’t just a way to bleach away all of the bad things he is responsible for, that for all his goodness he is just inherently, irrevocably bad.

Rhyme and reason is a joke - why the nothingness takes his breath today of all days, hitting like he’s hog-tied and dumped into the bottom of the ocean. It's not a birthday or an anniversary. It's not a day of any significance, so the inertia that swallows him is baseless - but then again, isn’t it always? Maybe the residue has been accumulating while he's been making quips and jokes because - but what excuse does he have for it, does he ever have for it?

His throat sticks when he swallows dryly and he idly considers leaving the safe haven of the creased bedsheets to get some water. 

Some time later, a minute, an hour, he makes himself go to the bathroom to relieve himself. He doesn't shower or wash his face. He doesn't even remember if he washed his hands. He doesn't get a drink of water.

The bed becomes an island.

Their mattress is too fancy to leave an indent where he normally sleeps but Peter imagines it’s there anyway, a divot to safely rest the contours of his body like a cradle. A safe place for his thoughts to circle, passing from one to another like a slideshow, deliberating, ruminating, around and around like the view-master he had as a kid. Laughably he tries not to focus on it, let it sweep by, but all it does is make the thoughts whirl into a dizzying kaleidoscope.

The laptop on the desk at the far wall shines all chrome and sleek lines, Peter wonders what it would take to fire it up, Netflix his listlessness away. Even his short-circuiting thoughts decide against it.

More than anything the pressure on his chest wants nothing more to ease to the sound of Tony’s voice.

He just --

Sometimes Peter tries to rationalize the entropy of the universe. By thinking every person and force is like a game of chess, energy in and out, everything has a purpose for good or bad, it gets him by. Sooner or later, surely, anything has a meaning or a lesson worth learning.

But then his core is stripped bare on days like today and Peter thinks of his parents and Ben and Natasha and everyone else who is never coming back and thinks this philosophy is wrong. There is no rhyme or reason on a greater scale for permanently blacking out an untold story. There is no greater lesson to be found in a life culled before its time.

The universe isn't playing chess. It's playing darts in the dark.

Focus.

This isn't him, this helplessness. Most days he doesn't feel like this at all, sees the shine on the horizon and the sun through the leaves – and then... some days, in private, his proverbial ability to clot fails and he bleeds out. His bad day isn't a stubbed toe, a missed train and a burnt dinner. His bad day is quicksand, stasis he can’t wake from and completely withdraws from reality - bad days are Ben’s last look of disappointment on replay and the burn of Skip Westcotts’ touch and an aching void where everything used to be.

He doesn’t open up his laptop but he does bring up Instagram on his phone and scrolls through the glossy highlight reels of everyone else's life. 

He must fall asleep because the next thing he knows is a hand is brushing over his forehead, fingers tenderly carding through his curls.

When he blinks his eyes open Tony is sitting beside him. He’s fully dressed, face creased in concern.

“Thought you were at work, baby,” Tony says softly. “You feeling okay?”

Tony’s watch is before his face, reading noon. Far earlier than Peter thought to have himself dressed and behaving with some semblance of normality. 

“M’fine. I didn’t expect you back so early,” Peter mumbles, cheeks going pink.

The response prompts a frown from the older man, the stroking against his scalps slowing as his partner assesses him. 

Shame burns hot in Peters gut when he sees something akin to understanding flashes briefly in Tony’s eyes. Jaw clenching, Peter slams his eyes shut and exhales. Jesus, fuck this isn’t what Tony should have to put up with --

“Hey, s’okay. What’s wrong?”

Peter contemplates his age old story, what he used to tell May and his teachers when the door outside his bedroom seemed too dark a labyrinth to go near. I have a headache. I think I'm getting the flu. Allergy season is sure starting early this year. But the words get tangled in his throat and it's inevitably easier to just say nothing. He can't think of a lie quick enough to replace the excuses in his head.

There's a thumb caressing his cheek, resting at the side of his mouth.

There's a blink-and-you'll-miss spring of resentment in his stomach because he doesn't want to explain at the same time that he does and all of the thoughts bottleneck in his head - like should he act normal? How should he behave, what should he talk about, what will Tony want to talk about, is Peter going to be convincing enough, how far does the truth really stretch - how dirty will Peter feel lying to him -

Every thought stalls like a traffic jam in his head.

Overwhelmed, Peter brings a hand over his eyes and exhales frustratedly.

“I’m sorry,” he manages.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Tony whispers softly from behind him, sheets rustling as he inches closer. “You’re alright, I’ve got you.” 

He doesn’t know how to answer, chest cracking open as the noise in his head reaches an unbearable crescendo. 

“Is it okay if I touch you?”

Peter nods, unable to speak around the lump in his throat. 

Tony crawls into bed with him, discarding his jacket, shoes and belt onto the floor. The cotton of his shirt feels nice against Peter’s face when he curls up and leans his head on Tony’s chest, but he undoes a few buttons to slip his hand inside anyway, just to feel something real and living.

This isn’t what Tony came home expecting, it shouldn’t be his job to look after Peter, shouldn’t have to tolerate this. Peter should do better. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, the ache in his chest getting worse with each passing second.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Tony dismisses, stroking Peter’s hair. “I’ve got you, baby, you’re okay. You want to talk about it?”

The arms tighten around Peter like maybe it could hold him together as he gives a sedate shake of his head.

“That’s okay.” A kiss to his hair. “I love you very much.”

“You too,” Peter murmurs, eyes closing in a mix of guilt and relief.

Another apology rises in his throat but he swallows it down, sinking into Tony’s comforting embrace, listening to this rich tones of the older man's voice telling him it will be okay, how strong he is, how it will pass soon.

Peter loves Tony enough not to argue.

It’s enough.