More Than Insight
Description: Sometimes it's better to have someone there than suffer alone as a matter of pride.
Paring: Electroborn
Other: This is a little inconsistent but I couldn't find a way to change it around. This is outside of the series I wanted to do.
The first sign that something was about to go wrong was not the loud clattering of the pen hitting the glass surface of the work desk. The first sign was the change of the air in the room. A swift and involuntary clenching of the lungs spoke far louder than sound.
His hands would shake. Those violent shakes and Harry would clench his fists so tightly they made the whites of his knuckles show. No matter what he was doing at the time, no matter how important to the boys views, he would concentrate on that single movement that would keep his his from the continual rattling they would suffer from at random moments.
Electro himself would watch from whatever perch he had chosen that day.
Electro was generally content with just existing in the same space without doing much. He believed that Max Dillon had slowly begun to fade from his mind further and further every day. Like he was burning out of it one electrical current at a time. Things still remained strong within his mind. Little details of Max's desperation and fleeting sanity that had plagued him for so long it they would remain a part of the being that was becoming singularly Electro over time.
Those details of Max Dillon still lingering with Electro were what kept him continually by Harry's side even after the instance where killing the Spider had failed. He hadn't been able to retrieve the blood which Harry so desperately wanted to acquire but he had been able to... Gently coerce Oscorp back into Harry's favor with the agreement that the company was technically under Electro's control as well.
He had say over particular details and if he felt like really speaking beyond a few words a day. He even had the right to argue business related topics with the young Osborn heir himself. Harry got far too invested into his arguments, generally resorting to voice raising so they never really lasted long.
Electro wasn't a talker. He certainly wasn't a yeller. Not unless you pushed him hard enough, which Harry was careful never to cross that line.
That was something of Max Dillon that had faded. The stuttering rambling on and on had burnt out. He spoke forcefully and clearly now. He wanted to say as little as possible and MAKE people understand what he was saying. It was now so simple to achieve and left him with more satisfaction than he could ever imagine.
He was seen with Harry. He was heard with Harry. Even if he was feared with Harry he did not care. It was all good enough.
More than all of that, Harry could truly see him. He'd seen him since the first time they'd met. He considered himself to be Electro now, it wasn't that he didn't have any desire to be Max Dillon it was just that he wasn't. This Electro thought to be an absolute. Harry, however, continually called him just by Max. Even going as far to give him little nicknames, playing around with each syllable depending on his mood to call him by.
But he was never Electro to Harry. He was always Max or some alteration of it.
Harry was the last person on this planet to see 'Max' because no one had ever seen Max before. They'd only ever seen Electro. Max was dead to the rest of the world yet somehow he didn't mind if he wasn't quite dead to the kid who he almost took the job as a body guard toward.
Thus, just as Harry could see him, he could see Harry.
Sometimes he focused on anything but wherever Harry's hand had begun shaking in order to offer a sense of respect toward him while he got himself under control. Other times, he would watch until the tremble had passed. Harry never said anything, he would pick up the pen or whatever he'd been working with at the time and continue on without a word, whether Electro had chosen to watch him or not, and continue working.
By the time Harry had turned twenty-one it had only become increasingly worse. The trembles happened far more often and Harry couldn't catch them quite as quickly as he use to. They were harder to just hide by sticking his hands in his pockets or holding them in his lap when they could return during a handshake or spasm so badly that he would lose the pen he'd been holding previously. The disease had set in quicker in Harry than it had his father and perhaps others before him.
Harry was only calm when he thought he was alone, however. He didn't know he was almost constantly being watched, seen, by the man of electricity himself. That Electro saw when another piece of furniture or set of glasses would need replacing once Harry lost his temper on them. When he bent over his desk in a half sob muttering to no one that he didn't want to die.
Not like that. Not so soon. His father had died before he'd reached his sixties and Harry was due to be picked up by Death's boat before he even reached thirty.
Electro selfishly wondered where that would leave him if Harry died within the next ten years. Where would his purpose be left? Would someone who would take on the company keep him on as a similar roll or would they seek out to have him destroyed as others did before Harry hired him on by his side.
If anyone did would he honestly want to? When others saw them it was with fear and even disgust. When Harry saw him it was with interest and a sense of equality between their standing positions. It wasn't just Max he lost slowly but surely, it was also little pieces of the emotions that counted him as human. Things like sympathy and happiness were so easy to forget how to feel while anger and bitterness were still easily acquired.
The way he existed only the lightning could understand.
Yet seeing Harry diminish into these sickly states still brought up some sort of twinge of these difficult to reach emotions. Perhaps they would never truly fade but stay dormant until something awoke it... Like the beginning of one of Harry's increasingly frequent fits.
At the moment he was seated across the way at his glass desk where he was typing away at its surface some sort of contract he'd passively mentioned earlier. Hands rose from the surface while he blew out an air of air as lids closed slowly in a moment of concentration so it would just pass.
He didn't notice that Electro had moved to his part of the room until he saw the others constantly shimmering reflection in the surface of the table, staring down at him while he sat in his chair, he let out an unconvincing breathy chuckle, like he had no real clue why the man had crossed the room over toward him, “What? You're looking overly intense today.”
The joke was left to die in its place. It usually did anyway with Electro. He seemed to lose his sense of humor along with his fully human form. If the man had ever had one. Harry had never known him as a human anyway. He only knew as much as he could gather before setting Max free from his specially made containment cell.
He recognized that Max's arms were reaching down around the chair but wasn't quite sure of what he was doing.
He felt static right above his hand as the man slipped them right above Harry's, not quite touching but settled right above. The tingle of electricity made Harry tense up for a moment just from the unknown of what Max was really doing. He'd been a trustworthy companion up until this point and hadn't shown any signs of wanting to retreat from such a thing but he'd never been so brash as to approach him this closely.
“Max.” He began shortly, questioning tone in his voice but Max only made a sound that told him to be quiet. The suit the man had been given made it to where one could set a hand on Max where the suit covered him and they would only feel static. That was unless he pushed the electricity beneath the suit forth outward into the area around him. But his hands weren't completely covered by the suit, only his palms but his fingers were completely exposed.
The scientists at the Oscorp lab were still trying to figure out how Max's powers worked but he wasn't entirely compliant to aiding them in research. He didn't want them to figure them out. He wanted everything about his powers to remain his own. He didn't want papers printed about himself outlining how exactly he works. This would be his. No one would be the thief with the secrets of his very person.
Electro's hands slowly settled directly upon Harry's trembling hands, both fixed on the surface of his skin they easily stretched out above the top and over his fingers. Harry's shoulders tensed up for a few moments while the sparks of electricity lept about his skin. It hurt and only burned if it was left there for an extended amount of time.
Even with the pain and sting of the constantly traveling electricity Harry relaxed into it. He felt the tremble of his hands slowly come to a light twitch and Max's hands rose to level just above Harry's skin to avoid any further damage. There were already rising scorch marks on Harry's skin but he didn't stop thinking that it had been the right thing to do.
Harry let out a slow breath that that rivaled itself in both its relief and exasperation. He flexed his fingers back and forth only wincing when he felt the pain from his skin as a result of Electro's touch.
They remained like that for a few long moments. Electro did not make a move a muscle but his constantly static inducing skin made his presence known. Harry would only move ever so often to flex his fingers and watch with rapt attention as the light scorches traveled with them. He didn't know how much time had passed when Electro finally moved going back to his original post.
In all truth, the man had expected only silence from Harry past this. They would return back to their duties as Harry hated facing when he was in pain. He never wanted attention called to it. But Harry's eyes hadn't left him yet.
“Hey... Max.”
This returned Electro's gaze far faster than he would have liked.
Harry had taken a pen into his hand, tapping it into the desk in a rythmic pattern. A gesture of stress. Electro didn't respond, his stare was enough to absolutely know he was cateloguing every word you were saying.
Harry took in a deep breath, his eyes cast away, he obviously had no desire to say this, “Ya know... Thanks... Just... Thanks.”
With that Harry was back to his work at the desk, thinning fingers tapping away at the screens that contained his work, not bothering to retrieve the pen he'd dropped earlier.
Just for a moment he felt that small breakthrough which was Max Dillon still very lightly hovering between the thick glass which separated him from Electro. With the Osborn boy it really could surface ever so often.
“You're welcome...”
“...Harry.”