🥄 for miss party hardy and sir harold plz
——— * random act prompts ↪ ( ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᶦⁿᵍ ᵎ )
there’s still soil wedged in the creases of his loafers, still a phantom weight left from pallbearing only days ago ———- norman osborn is dead & that’s final. shifts in power & harry moves up, changes ranks. still, the hardest title to carry is that of the orphan. life now takes place in a mansion for one & the young osborn suddenly misses having to sneak guests in & out under the watchful eye of his father. his nights ? spent trapped on the threshold of his father’s office. he spends hours standing, watching, waiting. can’t cross inside, no, or else the world is all red & green. GREEN. ———— green & monstrous.
it catches up with him. god does it ever. the transition ? not easy. it’s as his father always said, ❛ respect is earned ❜ usually followed by an ever disdainful ❛ and if you carry on this way you’ll never earn any ❜. no one wants to work under a child & most do a poor job of hiding their displeasure —— or maybe they just don’t care to.
should have seen it coming. hindsight is twenty-twenty. there’s a hand on his shoulder & it dawns on him that he’s been out cold at his desk. doesn’t know when it happened & there’s a fight to make his way back to reality. it’s hazy but the figure is persistent. gives him one more shake. eyes crack open & lock on light blonde locks. felicia hardy. his mind puts it together eventually. ❝ —- not too close. ❞ is slurred, doesn’t think he’ll ever hear the end of it if he gets her sick, too. he should count his blessings. if it had been anyone else to find him… we’ll he’d rather not think about it. ❝ call a car. please.❞
he sums it up to stress & a lack of sleep. he’s now forever indebted to the felicia hardy. how she gets him in the house & tucked away is a mystery —- one he’s sure is filled with colorful language, both parties likely guilty ( like fighting with a toddler — he can & will sleep right here on the bathroom floor, thank you very much ). the horror ends in the living room. his battle coming to a close when he’s ushered to the sofa & his head hits the pillow. there remains one gripping panic, something that won’t let him rest, ❝ no medicine. felicia, please. ❞ he can’t explain. a best kept secret. he’s not brave enough to subject her to his horrors. he can’t relapse. not now. they’re his final words, but unlike everything else so far they’re clear ; laced with desperation & maybe the slightest bit of fear.
the amount of time passed is unknown to him. he rises to the sound of the television & neck cranes to search the room. pulls the blanket around him tight to chase away the remaining chills. she’s there & it’s foreign. no one has ever really cared. there was never any hand holding or telling him it was going to be okay. he just had to work through it. head cocks & nose scrunches at the plate on the table - accompanied, of course, by a glass of what he only assumes is water. he’s quiet for a long time, eyes dancing from the tv to her. loss for words is the most appropriate. he must look as confused as he feels because his hand is taken from him & a slice of fruit is placed in his palm, ❝ it really is just going to come back up again.❞ a last small act of defiance, he doesn’t feel hungry. he feels —— gross. he’s quiet again —— picks through things when he’s told to. each time is answered with a huff. eventually he’s a little more lively, sits up, starts to do things on his own. it takes awhile, too long actually, before he says it, ❝ thanks. you didn’t have to but ——- thanks.❞ doesn’t know if she realizes how much it really means to the osborn & for a short but sweet time the mansion isn’t for one, nor is it haunted by green ——- it is very much alive & beautiful —– & because of her he flourishes.
