It's hard to hear either of them - really hear them - when Harry's fear is rattling through his whole body. He knows he's not well, mentally-- he's known for a while. Thought about going to therapy a few times, but in the end, it seemed safer just... not to. There's no way he could unravel and heal without spilling secrets that would be very, very dangerous in the wrong hands. And... that in turn means he tends to just deal with it-- tends to pray that the intrusive thoughts don't erupt into full-blown voices one day. Instead, he opts to fall back on alcohol when his head gets too loud.
So here he is: staring between two Peter Parkers, warring between what's real and what isn't. And he hasn't forgotten his "old life", of course, but... the more time he's spent here - with a Peter that's his husband, that loves him as a husband, that kisses him so sweetly - the more that old life has felt like a bad dream. But one way or another, he had to have dreamed up one of those lives, one of them had to be a figment of his imagination... He's just not sure which one. And he's afraid. Terrified. Because... is this it? Has he finally fallen too deep into his father's impossibly long shadow? ...Is he crazy?
What's wrong, baby? His husband(?)'s voice drifts through the fog of petrified fear, gently giving his hand a tug, trying to bring him back to earth. I'm not a hallucination, the other(?) Peter promises, pleading, desperate.
Harry's eyes are so wide, brimming with tears-- it's impossible not to see how scared he is. How desperately he doesn't want to be hallucinating. He's trying his damnedest to think, to scratch through the shock and find some semblance of truth. Something keeps trying to pull him back to the Peter-that's-his-husband, though... Not just the tugs at his hand, but something else. He wants so dearly to squeeze his hand back and sit down and enjoy this dinner that was so carefully planned out and yet--
...And yet the "other" Peter looks and sounds almost as panicked as Harry feels. Something about that feels too organic, too raw for him to ignore. For the moment, he resists obliging the tugs on his hand (and very, very deliberately ignoring the fact that his "husband" apparently can't see his doppelganger, because that makes his head and chest hurt too much).
"I-- I don't understand. If I'm not hallucinating, then--"
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So here he is: staring between two Peter Parkers, warring between what's real and what isn't. And he hasn't forgotten his "old life", of course, but... the more time he's spent here - with a Peter that's his husband, that loves him as a husband, that kisses him so sweetly - the more that old life has felt like a bad dream. But one way or another, he had to have dreamed up one of those lives, one of them had to be a figment of his imagination... He's just not sure which one. And he's afraid. Terrified. Because... is this it? Has he finally fallen too deep into his father's impossibly long shadow? ...Is he crazy?
What's wrong, baby? His husband(?)'s voice drifts through the fog of petrified fear, gently giving his hand a tug, trying to bring him back to earth. I'm not a hallucination, the other(?) Peter promises, pleading, desperate.
Harry's eyes are so wide, brimming with tears-- it's impossible not to see how scared he is. How desperately he doesn't want to be hallucinating. He's trying his damnedest to think, to scratch through the shock and find some semblance of truth. Something keeps trying to pull him back to the Peter-that's-his-husband, though... Not just the tugs at his hand, but something else. He wants so dearly to squeeze his hand back and sit down and enjoy this dinner that was so carefully planned out and yet--
...And yet the "other" Peter looks and sounds almost as panicked as Harry feels. Something about that feels too organic, too raw for him to ignore. For the moment, he resists obliging the tugs on his hand (and very, very deliberately ignoring the fact that his "husband" apparently can't see his doppelganger, because that makes his head and chest hurt too much).
"I-- I don't understand. If I'm not hallucinating, then--"
--then what the ever-loving fuck is going on?