Peter Parker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
st_arkintern) wrote2018-04-26 10:13 pm
st_arkintern) wrote2018-04-26 10:13 pm
[Fic] Seven Days, Seven Nights
The first day, he thought they were just missing each other. There were days like that sometimes, where he'd go to the restaurant right after she left, and then to the forest and it turned out she was in her room, and she'd knock on the door to her room just to find out later that she had lessons with Mrs. Rasputin.
He told himself that before he went to sleep, because he wanted to believe it and because every day they had missed one another since the whole breast incident at the pool had played out just like this.
On the second day, he thought she was angry with him. Her door was locked and she didn't answer it. He went down to all of her favorite places, inquired if she made it to her shift, asked everyone he passed if they had seen her, but none of them had. Anxiety filled him. He didn't like fighting with Liz. He didn't like fighting with anyone.
But before he went to sleep, he told himself the same story he told himself the day before. But this time, he had a harder time believing it.
On the third day, he realized she was gone.
That was the day he went up to Darryl and asked to see the guest list, his heart racing, hoping against hope that somehow his intuition was wrong and that Liz was just mad at him and they'd fix things and everything would be all right.
But when his fingers filtered through the pages and his eyes scanned the words and the numbers there, he finally came across the words he hoped he wouldn't see:
He spent the afternoon pacing, trying to sort his thoughts, but there were no sorting them. Every time his mind seemed like it was on the cusp of putting things in order, something scrambled it all up and he had to try again. And as much as he tried, he couldn't make sense of it. He couldn't make sense of anything at all.
On the fourth day, he woke up against the door to her room.
He fell asleep there the night before, hoping perhaps that the door would open and he would just fall through and everything would be okay again. He didn't know why he hoped it because he knew it wasn't going to happen, but he hoped it anyway. He needed hope then more than he needed hope for a very long time.
He sat against the door the entire day, and people gave him curious looks as they passed him in the hall. None of them said anything, but he wondered if they knew Liz was gone or they just hadn't noticed yet. He looked at the wall and found faces in the wood paneling there. None of them were Liz's.
On the fifth day, Alec hauled him back to his room.
He'd fallen asleep outside of her room again the night before and hadn't gone back to his room. Maybe Alec figured he was staying with Liz, or maybe he'd figured out what had happened, but whatever the reason, he found him and hauled him up to their room on the 3rd floor. He thought he heard Alec complaining in the same sort of way he did when he wanted to sound put-out, but really wasn't.
Peter turned on the TV even though there wasn't anything he wanted to watch, because the sound somehow brought him some comfort. He was five minutes into an episode of something when he thought he heard Liz's voice. Younger, but it was hers, he was sure of it.
The girl on the screen looked just like her, only younger, and Peter knew that she wasn't Liz and Liz wasn't her. But for the first time, he had absolute focus on something that wasn't his own muddled thoughts. When the episode was over, he watched another, hoping the girl would make a reappearance, but she didn't. Not in the next one, or the one after that, or any of the episodes Peter watched until he finally dozed asleep.
On the sixth day, Alec insisted that he leave their room.
Peter tried to sound like his normal self, voicing his objections and telling him he was sleepy (and he was), but Alec's tone told him there was no room for argument. He sat in the library for awhile, staring at the pages of this book he was sure he'd normally understand, but couldn't understand right now. Nothing seemed to be making sense. Not the science or the math or the equations written there, plain as day, or his situation now.
Instead, he wondered if Liz was okay and when he finally decided she was, he wondered if she remembered anything about this place, and if she remembered this place, if she was with Max and if she was, was she happy?
There were two parts that were in complete contradiction with one another. One that told him he should be happy that she was back home, that she was with people who loved her and would protect her; the other, the selfish part of him that was angry and sad and lost because she was gone. He hated that part of himself.
He checked out the book from the library even though he knew he would never read it and went back up to the room and laid down. That night, Alec didn't come back and Peter hoped that he was staying in someone else's room.
On day seven, Peter decided he'd try to act normal.
Alec hadn't disappeared, and when he came back in the morning, Peter was sorting and folding his laundry. It was strange how the routine somehow managed to keep him distracted in a way nothing else did. When he leaned down to put his clothes away, he found a book there. Immediately, Peter knew what it was. He dropped his clothes and they landed at a pile at his feet, but he didn't care; he pulled it out immediately and paged through it, eyes scanning over pages he'd read, and pages he hadn't. He doesn't stop until the last page with her writing.
And everything she's written there is normal. That day was no different from any other day for her, even though it was life-changing for him. Peter didn't know how to feel about it. Everything in the journal was so normal, and everything here felt like it wasn't.
He eventually refolded the clothes and placed them back into their drawer and Peter went out to the forest where Liz had taken him that day he talked about his parents. He sat down with her journal and read all of it from the beginning and wondered if it just wasn't there when she got home.
There was so much in it. Things he had forgotten and things that he hadn't. Good memories and some unpleasant ones. And for the first time since Liz had vanished, Peter found himself crying, tear after tear hitting the pages. The loss was so great and there was no memorial, no ceremony for those people who left. He had closure with his parents, with Uncle Ben, but there was no closure for this.
Before Peter went to sleep, he told himself that things were going to be okay. And that they might not be okay tomorrow or the day after that or the day after that, but someday they would be. Because like that first night when he told himself that they were just missing one another, he desperately wanted it to be true.
He told himself that before he went to sleep, because he wanted to believe it and because every day they had missed one another since the whole breast incident at the pool had played out just like this.
On the second day, he thought she was angry with him. Her door was locked and she didn't answer it. He went down to all of her favorite places, inquired if she made it to her shift, asked everyone he passed if they had seen her, but none of them had. Anxiety filled him. He didn't like fighting with Liz. He didn't like fighting with anyone.
But before he went to sleep, he told himself the same story he told himself the day before. But this time, he had a harder time believing it.
On the third day, he realized she was gone.
That was the day he went up to Darryl and asked to see the guest list, his heart racing, hoping against hope that somehow his intuition was wrong and that Liz was just mad at him and they'd fix things and everything would be all right.
But when his fingers filtered through the pages and his eyes scanned the words and the numbers there, he finally came across the words he hoped he wouldn't see:
Room 189 - Vacant
He spent the afternoon pacing, trying to sort his thoughts, but there were no sorting them. Every time his mind seemed like it was on the cusp of putting things in order, something scrambled it all up and he had to try again. And as much as he tried, he couldn't make sense of it. He couldn't make sense of anything at all.
On the fourth day, he woke up against the door to her room.
He fell asleep there the night before, hoping perhaps that the door would open and he would just fall through and everything would be okay again. He didn't know why he hoped it because he knew it wasn't going to happen, but he hoped it anyway. He needed hope then more than he needed hope for a very long time.
He sat against the door the entire day, and people gave him curious looks as they passed him in the hall. None of them said anything, but he wondered if they knew Liz was gone or they just hadn't noticed yet. He looked at the wall and found faces in the wood paneling there. None of them were Liz's.
On the fifth day, Alec hauled him back to his room.
He'd fallen asleep outside of her room again the night before and hadn't gone back to his room. Maybe Alec figured he was staying with Liz, or maybe he'd figured out what had happened, but whatever the reason, he found him and hauled him up to their room on the 3rd floor. He thought he heard Alec complaining in the same sort of way he did when he wanted to sound put-out, but really wasn't.
Peter turned on the TV even though there wasn't anything he wanted to watch, because the sound somehow brought him some comfort. He was five minutes into an episode of something when he thought he heard Liz's voice. Younger, but it was hers, he was sure of it.
The girl on the screen looked just like her, only younger, and Peter knew that she wasn't Liz and Liz wasn't her. But for the first time, he had absolute focus on something that wasn't his own muddled thoughts. When the episode was over, he watched another, hoping the girl would make a reappearance, but she didn't. Not in the next one, or the one after that, or any of the episodes Peter watched until he finally dozed asleep.
On the sixth day, Alec insisted that he leave their room.
Peter tried to sound like his normal self, voicing his objections and telling him he was sleepy (and he was), but Alec's tone told him there was no room for argument. He sat in the library for awhile, staring at the pages of this book he was sure he'd normally understand, but couldn't understand right now. Nothing seemed to be making sense. Not the science or the math or the equations written there, plain as day, or his situation now.
Instead, he wondered if Liz was okay and when he finally decided she was, he wondered if she remembered anything about this place, and if she remembered this place, if she was with Max and if she was, was she happy?
There were two parts that were in complete contradiction with one another. One that told him he should be happy that she was back home, that she was with people who loved her and would protect her; the other, the selfish part of him that was angry and sad and lost because she was gone. He hated that part of himself.
He checked out the book from the library even though he knew he would never read it and went back up to the room and laid down. That night, Alec didn't come back and Peter hoped that he was staying in someone else's room.
On day seven, Peter decided he'd try to act normal.
Alec hadn't disappeared, and when he came back in the morning, Peter was sorting and folding his laundry. It was strange how the routine somehow managed to keep him distracted in a way nothing else did. When he leaned down to put his clothes away, he found a book there. Immediately, Peter knew what it was. He dropped his clothes and they landed at a pile at his feet, but he didn't care; he pulled it out immediately and paged through it, eyes scanning over pages he'd read, and pages he hadn't. He doesn't stop until the last page with her writing.
And everything she's written there is normal. That day was no different from any other day for her, even though it was life-changing for him. Peter didn't know how to feel about it. Everything in the journal was so normal, and everything here felt like it wasn't.
He eventually refolded the clothes and placed them back into their drawer and Peter went out to the forest where Liz had taken him that day he talked about his parents. He sat down with her journal and read all of it from the beginning and wondered if it just wasn't there when she got home.
There was so much in it. Things he had forgotten and things that he hadn't. Good memories and some unpleasant ones. And for the first time since Liz had vanished, Peter found himself crying, tear after tear hitting the pages. The loss was so great and there was no memorial, no ceremony for those people who left. He had closure with his parents, with Uncle Ben, but there was no closure for this.
Before Peter went to sleep, he told himself that things were going to be okay. And that they might not be okay tomorrow or the day after that or the day after that, but someday they would be. Because like that first night when he told himself that they were just missing one another, he desperately wanted it to be true.