you won't bury me

She’s letting out a huff, and then shakes her head. “Well, you know, we can just share. You know.”

“Eh, whatever, go for it. Not like I’ll be around to see how lame you are for copying me.”

The only thing she wants to say is ‘how high are you?’ but she’s not bringing that up, so she’s just leaning up to kiss him, deeply.

There’s something on her mind, he thinks, but his mind isn’t letting him think about it so he kisses her back, humming a little as he brings his hand up to cup her cheek.

“No. Rude.”

“Kate, I’m dying, give me the gallows humour or let me plummet into the helpless hospice-care despair and sorrow. It’s going on my tombstone first and there is no way you’re beating me out on this race.”

“Okay, I want that on my tombstone. I really do.”

“Tough shit, I’m gonna beat you to it.”

“It was. And to think this all started with you telling me I looked like shit,” she pulls back just enough to give him a small smile. 

“You don’t look like shit. You look like if comfort snacks were human.”

“That may be your thinking, sir,” Caitlin said as she read through the charts and prepared her notes for potential trial runs of drugs, “but I’m a woman of science and I can’t afford to think like that. There’s a solution to every problem; a cure to every disease that just needs to be found. The people who quit clearly don’t share that mentality. If I work on some experimental formulas, are you open to trying them? Or would you prefer I just come in and evaluate your progress? It’s entirely up to you.”

Harry exhaled again as she outlined his options, worrying at the skin on the outsides of his thumbnail and frowning. There was a long moment of silence before he dragged his eyes back to hers. “...Listen. I have two options here and they aren’t the options you’re giving me. I’m on three antipsychotics, a mood stabiliser, and an antidepressant, and that’s the only thing keeping me level in my head. Taking anything experimental? I can’t risk going off the deep end. Interactions fuck me up. Trust me, I’m an addict. I know drugs. So I don’t have to choose between experimental formulas and evaluation. I have to choose between not dying and staying sane.”

“I’m glad they’re not in my brain, my brain’s a dangerous place,” she says with a small laugh. She’s silent for a moment, before she tilts her head up, pressing a kiss to his lips. “Have I told you lately how glad I am that we’ve met?”

Harry smiles into the kiss, humming a little, low in his throat. “Hm, you’ve mentioned it a few times. Coffee was a good idea.”

“You didn’t technically hire me, but I am on your payroll. Your last physician decided to quit and they needed someone short-notice. Look,” she lowered her arms to her sides and exhaled sharply, “I will give you the best care that I can and do everything in my power to try and reverse what is happening with you. All I ask is that you work with me.”

Maybe it was a side effect of being dying, but with that, with the simplicity of her words, Harry’s demeanour sagged and his hackles shrank to fit as he heaved a sigh. “Look, there’s nothing you can do. There’s no reversing this. It doesn’t work and if it does, it’s just postponing the inevitable.”

“I’m not cute, I’m badass,” she quips and then finishes up the email and such, before closing her laptop. She snuggles into his side, peppering kisses against his neck. “I get that they’re trying to help me, but you know, I know what I can handle.”

“I know you know what you can handle but they don’t know what you can handle. They’re not in your brain.”

She feels like she’s been slapped in the face and she just stares at him for a moment before shaking her head. “I didn’t… mean it like that and I’m sorry Harry, I didn’t. I guess I deserve all of that.”

“Damn right you fucking do. I already know I’m dying. Don’t need to be told I can’t live before then. It’s rude.”

She lets out a small laugh. “None taken, darling. I’m sorry, I got a little… well, into it. I don’t know why I like you, but I do. I apologize if I came on a little too strong. I’ve been known to do so.”

“It’s fine. I don’t trust people easily. Corporate industry does that.”

Harley was oblivious to any sort of imposed upon personal space, already long since settled back into her own place. “Hmmm.” a short ponder would have her attention turned towards him with a snap, speaking with hands of twisted fingers. “And you promise not to leave without me?”

“Where’s your sense of adventure? Beat my chauffeur back here and you can do what you want.”

She has a lot that she could say. But really, she doesn’t want to start a fight and he’s high, he can’t really hold a proper conversation. She knows the next time he’s sober, she’ll have to have a talk with him. Even if it’ll be hard. But this is real, it needs to be addressed. “Trying to figure out what classes I can take next semester,” she says, softly, leaning into him. “They don’t think I can take a lot of classes and they’re like ‘you’re going to run yourself thin’, but they obviously don’t know me,” she lets out a little laugh, shaking her head and then tilting her head to press a kiss to his jaw. 

Harry presses his mouth against the side of her head after she kisses him, humming a little, deep in his throat. “You’re so stubborn. It’s cute.”

“Promise my ass, you’re fucking dying. If he helped you once, he should help you again. Fuck that, Harry!” And then she’s shaking her head, looking away. “I don’t want you to die, dude. Yeah, you’re kind of fucked up, but hey, I am too, so is everyone else in this world and you’re my friend. I care about you. Besides, aren’t you dating that redheaded girl in a wheelchair? Kinda hard to date when you’re dying, huh?”

“Fuck you, Kate. What, I can’t be in a relationship just ‘cause I’m fucking dying? What else am I not allowed to fucking do, huh? Work? Eat? Sleep? Shit? Do you want me to fucking get a doctor’s note every time I want to take a dump? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like. Screw you. Being fucked up isn’t the same fucking thing as being fucked. You’re fucked up. I’m fucked up. Big deal. I’m the one who’s fucked here, not you, not unless you’re hiding a terminal illness too, but if I had to guess I’d say you’re not. Why? ‘Cause you don’t get it. You just don’t get it. So fuck you.”

Zatanna smiled at him, a touch amused and tilted her head, “yeah I think I got a few more tricks up my sleeves.” She took a drag of the smoke, the feeling familiar in her lungs even after quitting so many times. Her exhale took the shape of a butterfly flapped it’s wings once, twice, before drifting, shapeless in the breeze. “That better?” It’s cheeky and teasing but she still looks at him expectantly, smile in place. 

“Not even close. I’ve seen more impressive than that without even tripping.”

“You shouldn’t. Even if your death is in the future, there are still ways to change.” She’ll have to find some of her old immortal friends, see what they can do. “You just have to hold onto your hope, Harry Osborn.”

“...Listen, no offence, but I don’t really know you.”

She knows. And her heart pangs in her chest and she watches him go, not sure of what to do. She wants to call him out on it but she doesn’t want to fight and she’s not sure and she’s confused and she’s hurting and ugh. She scrubs her hands over her face when he disappears and it hurts the way he didn’t look at her when he got up. She knows she has to be supportive, but she doesn’t know how to be supportive. So she grabs her laptop, quickly pulling up advice columns and such about helping and how not to be an enabler and she’s bookmarking them so she can read later. And then she’s getting back to her work, or at least, just staring at it, waiting for him, hating the fact that she knows what he’s doing.

He’s in the bathroom and he’s standing, staring at himself in the mirror, wondering how much longer he can put this off. How much longer he can put himself, put the few people he actually gives a shit about through this. Harry flushes the toilet, though he knows Babs knows why he’s in here. And then he turns on the faucet before tipping the white powder onto the back of his hand and inhaling it. The effects are instantaneous, but he doesn’t know anymore just how much of that is psychosomatic and how much is the drug itself, but he feels good again, he feels good and he feels like crap for feeling good, but he doesn’t care because he feels good. He turns off the faucet. And he returns to his girlfriend, moving towards her and putting his arm around her as he sits down next to her, pressing a kiss to her hair. “Hey, beautiful. What’cha doing?”