Chapter Text
“Get up, Picasso, it’s time to go.”
Peter’s head lolls unto one shoulder as the door behind him creaks on its hinges, momentarily breaking him out of his reveries. His eyes remain fixated on the far wall, idly running his tongue over bloody teeth.
“You're here early… Did my good behavior get me a shorter stay,” he drawls, standing up and putting his arms behind him as he’s done so many times before. Peter does love a good routine, but getting cuffed wherever he goes took some time getting used to.
The guard groans at the sight of the wall as he enters the small room. The cuffs clasp a bit tighter than usual, but Peter doesn’t flinch.
“Does that look like good behavior to you,” he replies sarcastically, gesturing ahead. Peter shrugs, letting himself be shoved through the door. In the hallway the guard grasps his shoulder in one hand, the other coming up to press the switch on his walkie talkie.
“Get someone down here to clean up solitary. Yes. Yeah, again . For fu- no, listen, I don’t care, just get it done.”
Peter smiles to himself absentmindedly, knowing that they can try to scrub the evidence of his confinement off that wall as many times as they want, it'll be in vain. In the end he'll be back in that room and you'll be smiling down at him again, a streak of blood willed into your shape on the concrete.
"Get that looked at before it gets infected, I don't wanna have to deal with it," the guard mutters, nodding in the direction of Peter's split lip as he releases him back into his cell, letting the cuffs fall from his wrists.
They're not allowed much in the cells, but he's made do with the basics; pen, paper and a bottomless well of deep, dark devotion. The letters and drawings and pages upon pages of journal entries that chronicle his downward spiral, they're not enough, but he makes do. For now.
There's a yawning chasm where his heart should be now, because of what you did to him. To the both of you. But he fills that chasm with dreams of you, your beautiful body shattered on the craggy rocks beneath him, sun bleached bones withering away. He never used to picture it so vividly, your destruction, but ever since that fateful night… The events of that night run alongside any and all thoughts in his head, all the time, an undercurrent of regrets spilling over into every waking moment. He can't shut it out, can't help but replay it on a cruel loop.
It serves as an important reminder though. He was careless that night. Blinded by his adoration for you, fooling himself into thinking that something so worth having would come so easy. It never does, after all.
Mistakes were made that night. Mistakes that won’t be made again next time.
Rummaging under the mattress, Peter withdraws a small, crinkled journal, flipping through the pages until he reaches a blank one. Not that there are many left, he notes with a new wave of annoyance, not looking forward to having to bargain with the bitch in charge of commissary again for the third time this month.
He’s not allowed to send you letters, but he writes them anyway. They number in the thousands now, but he still has so much more he wants to say, no, needs to say to you.
He thinks back to the very last day he laid eyes on you, across the courtroom. You’d been shaken still, a crutch leaned against your chair. He’d focused on you so intently he thought his eyes might pop out of his skull, determined to memorize every little detail of your being for the days to come. It had annoyed him that your attorney had dressed you up for the occasion, the formal clothes and carefully combed hair a far cry from your usual appearance, the casual ease with which you usually carried yourself stifled by the court-appointed, ceremonial garb.
You had looked back at him only once that day, at the exact moment of his sentencing. Visible relief had swept your features in that moment and he’d pretended that the smile wasn’t at his expense.
You looked so frail back then, a porcelain doll that he could reach out and shatter with just a tap. If not for the cuffs and the guards and the guns, he might have tried.
Overpowering you had been easy even without the crutch involved.
At that point, he’s sure his touch would’ve seen you crumble like a house of cards.