Spiderson Oneshots

Exclusive Beauty--Peter and Harley

Warnings: Food mention, death mention, language, small injury, a small argument...and the return of the ever elusive fluff!

Everywhere Peter goes, there's beauty. It's as tiny as a wildflower creeping through the cracks in the pavement and as large as a twisting willow with its siblings right at its side. It's the quiet hum of music from far-off speakers and the close laughter of a child. It's the smell of fresh-baked pastries and salty popcorn from a nearby fair. It's the feeling of soft fur against your hand and the ridges of smooth swirling shells. It's the taste of sweet fruit on your tongue and spicy sauce with something salty. It's a thousand things that combine to make something as grand as can only be encompassed in a word that breaks the rules of grammar just in its simple existence.

Peter's used the word as a descriptor so many times that it nearly loses its luster and shine. There are a thousand other words to describe why something is beautiful—because it's soft, because it smells sweet, because it's warm—but those words aren't enough on their own. "Soft" is a good word; it's the slide of your fingertips across something warm and distinctly homely. "Sweet" is a good word; the anticipation waiting for cookies to cool just enough to eat and the heat of it as it melts in your mouth. "Warm" is a good word; it's the comfort of being bundled away in a blanket when your nose is still pink from the cold outside knowing that you won't freeze. The words are homely and comfortable and happy, but they lack the inspiration of awe.

When something is beautiful, you grasp for words. Your tongue is tied in impossible knots that you can never hope to undo. You can gape and stare, but words fail when all you want is to share even a pinch of the beauty with someone else. No one else will smell the cookies the same way you do and think of waiting for them to cool. No one else will huddle beneath that blanket in the exact same position or with a nose the same shade of cold-blown pink. No one else will feel the soft fur of a beloved pet and think of the days spent in pain-staking training or playing with that red rubber ball.

No one else can hope to see beauty in exactly the same way, but perhaps that's part of the wonder of it. You are wholly and utterly unique in the way you view things, and that lends itself to a type of beauty all its own. A type of awe-inspiring bred just by seeing that everyone is different, as wondrous as a mountainous landscape or a morning's sunrise.

Peter sees. He sees the beauty of everything around him in all its breathtaking glory. How utterly stunning that the world has created all of this, birthing each glorious petal like the most heartfelt gift without tiring once. How each figure that crosses his path is so terrifyingly unique that it's like never seeing the same person twice as they grow into their place. He's astounded by anything he sees, but he never wants to stop. He never wants to stop smelling the delicious scents that waft to his window each morning as nearby eateries prepare for the day. Never wants to stop feeling the wind's gentle fingers in his hair or the warmth of blankets after a good night's sleep cradled in heat. Never wants to stop tasting the sweet minerals in a cup of water or the bitter aftertaste of blackberries and the like. Never wants to stop hearing the voices around him, constantly amazing him with the diversities in simple speaking that create a language millions speak to be able to share things with one another.

He's opened his eyes and his ears. He sniffs the air now. He savors the taste of things on his tongue. He lets his fingers rest a little longer on things as he drifts by.

Peter's found beauty in the world.

It was a long time coming.

—~—~—

For the longest time, all he could see was gray. It was the cold seeping gray of a storm that crawls up your spine to dig its claws into your very brain and never lets go. It was the pain of a constant headache, one that was internal enough that nothing could soothe it other than ridding himself of the gray entirely, something thought impossible.