The Heart Stone - Black Cat x Spider Man

Five - Hungry Like A Wolf

I appreciate the irony, but I am not a napper. Not a power napper, and most certainly not a cat napper, so the fact that the world is blurry and my eyes are heavy and the same anxious, sinking feeling lies like a dead weight in my stomach (which is exactly why I avoid the activity at hand. who can nap and wake up not feeling like they've graded down half their molars and the world is about to end?) makes me feel shame like I have never felt it before. Not only did I nap, but I napped not long after waking up, and I also had the most excruciating dream. 

I was inches away from snatching THS from its glass container, only seconds away from taking my sharpest nail and drawing a perfect circle just big enough to fit my wrist through and hook the sucker onto my finger, letting it hit the light like a ruby coloured disco ball as it dangled there, delighted to meet its new owner. I swear, it was so close to me I could hear it calling out, the same way some people but a shell to their ear and insist they can hear the ocean, but I wasn't like those poor deprived souls looking for hope in the bottom of a dead crustation's old home. I could actually hear my name being called. 

It was Parker, but it wasn't, it was someone else's version of Spiderman. It wasn't mine, not the one I'd become so acquainted with, the one I sent so much of my time trying so hard not to think about. 

"You're no match for me cat."

He said.

There was no charm behind it, no flirtatious undertones that I'd come to expect from our encounters. He gave me nothing to hold on to and nothing to replay in my head before I fell into a deep slumber, a collage of carefully constructed could have beens, strung out the same way you hang washing on a line in summer. It made me hate him in an instant, made me want to puncture a hole in his ego the same way you want to burst the balloons at a children's birthday party. 

I stole a glance at him, but he moved closer, at a speed so fast that I almost didn't see him get there. He was dressed in his full suit, but even then I could tell his eyes had changed, they weren't as soft as they usually are. I think he hated me too. It gave me a hard look into what could have been, how our dynamic could have shifted if either of us had any restraint of self respect. It made my chest feel like it was being hollowed out with a shovel, like how you dig a grave.  

When I looked back at The Heart Stone, it had gone. Someone was telling me I have a choice to make and I need to make it fast, but how could I choose? Spiderman could never give me what I truly want from him, and The Heart Stone is starting to feel like a part of my identity. 

I must have fallen asleep after I watched the news, I think I remember trying to distract myself from thinking too hard about what my next move should be so I started counting back from one hundred. Fat load of use that was.

"Time to start the day boss."

Boris says, and I almost want to stretch my arm out just enough to hit him in his scrawny little face. At least I know where to go to get coffee now.