Chapter Text
October 5th – present
This time there was no flash, no hangover, no fuzzy memories.
This time, there was Henry Husker’s amber gaze – in boxers and a t-shirt, standing against the open, curtainless window, hips resting on the sill, a cigarette slowly smoking between his fingers – fixed on Anthony, still deep in the half-sleep of a lazy October morning.
Outside the window, Brooklyn was slowly waking up, and the questionable apartment building where he had found the apartment was already mostly up and running; he could clearly hear the latino music of the third-floor tenants coming up the fire escape nestled on the left side of the building.
He exhaled the smoke from the left corner of his lips and let the cigarette ash crumble down onto that fire escape, hanging the filter back up in his mouth as he reflected on the night he had just spent.
He knew, he knew perfectly well what would have happened if he had answered that damned message; in his defense, he had really tried to drag it out, to not indulge him, to let it go.
He’ll get tired of you, Husker, he can have whoever he wants, you’re just a silly crush.
For once, he had agreed with the little voice in his head and had acted accordingly; Anthony would have forget about him, label him as an almost-fuck and not text him again.
And instead.
Instead there had been that week of sparse messages that, apparently, had not discouraged the blond in the slightest; at that point, the flirt that Husk had tried to let go of had collided with the thought that hadn’t left him since that night he had fallen asleep drunk.
That thought he had lingered on several times – especially after seeing him again – in the bathroom. Or in bed. Or on the couch, when he contemplated all the ways he wanted to feel him again.
Taste him, kiss him, touch him.
So, he had replied. And replied again. And he had ended up with Anthony’s cheeky grin in a gangster suit that had made him rock hard right there, behind the bar.
Fuck.
He had silenced the little voice, pushed all the messes in his life into a corner and followed that desire that had been eating him alive since that night and damn it had been worth it.
He took another drag of smoke, filling his lungs, while the thought that had crossed his mind in the park when Anthony had given him the number came knocking on his conscience again.
Oh no, one time definitely wasn’t nearly enough.
He blinked and focused on the object of his musings as he turned over in the sheets – a decidedly less luxurious setting than last time – and opened his eyes again.
In the light of that Saturday morning, the left one was even greener than usual.
“Hey.”
Husk looked at that still slightly sleepy smile and something soft made his stomach churn pleasantly; he threw the now finished cigarette out the window and closed it, before moving closer to the bed again.
“Hey.”
Anthony took a breath, slowly sitting up and looking around while absentmindedly scratching his tousled blond mop. Whether from sleep or from Henry’s fingers that had repeatedly run through it, is not given to know.
The look with which he searched for Husk’s amber gaze had a hint of vague embarrassment that the man struggled to focus.
“Sorry I fell asleep here.” oh. “I usually don’t…”
The sentence trailed off, as if he didn’t know how to continue.
Henry listened to that silence – he felt again all the fragility that was in it, exactly the same one he had read on his face the previous morning – and sat on the edge of the bed.
“It’s ok.” he replied, calmly, earning from the other an initially confused look that faded into another grateful smile.
With a twinkle in his eyes that Henry was learning to recognize, Anthony stretched languidly, letting himself fall back again, sinking into the pillow and looking up at him; without makeup, those lashes were almost blonde.
“So.”
It was becoming a habit.
“... So.”
The blond chuckled, running his fingers lazily over his chest and thoughtfully playing with his nipple piercing.
“Would you show me around, while we’re at it?” he raised his left eyebrow, peering meaningfully at him and tilting his head against the pillow to stare at him from another angle.
Henry scratched a half-laugh from his vocal cords, shaking his head slightly and sliding to look at the room: a bed, a closet, a chair cluttered with clothes. Stop. He didn’t even have a nightstand.
“There’s not much to see, really.” he replied, coming back to stare at the other and lingering longer than necessary on the shape of his morning hard-on under the sheets.
When the other noticed, of course, he smirked and lowered the sheet completely.
Another thing Henry was learning: the words ‘ shame ’ and ‘ Anthony ’ couldn’t be in the same sentence.
“Oh, I think that here there’s definitely something to see.”
Husk felt his desire resurface and tug at his lower abdomen again, beneath his boxers, as he watched Anthony move to rest the head in his lap and watch him intently – heels planted on the mattress, knees bent and legs spread. The right hand holding his pink cock at the base, to show him even better, made his mouth water.
He reached out to gently brush the hair out of Anthony’s eyes, in a thick breath.
The latino music from the third floor filled the quiet and excited silence, which made Anthony giggle again – he rubbed the back of his neck against Henry’s bare leg, making him shiver as the pleasure once again invaded his brain completely and sent the blood elsewhere.
“What would you say–” he forced himself to listen to the blond’s words, who in the meantime had started to rub that hand between his legs, slowly. “If I’d make you breakfast before you show me the house?”
Henry swallowed, making his Adam's apple bob up and down and glancing right at Anthony’s cock, in a low noise of assent. In a rather sudden gesture that caused a surprised noise from the other, he rolled to lie on top of Anthony, ending propped up on elbows and tucked between his legs.
“Actually, I’m pretty hungry.”
The other’s laughter sounded crystal clear and genuinely amused in Henry's practically empty apartment – a sound so delicious to hear that it gave him butterflies in his stomach.
Just quit it, Husker.
“I was talking about coffee, Husky, I didn’t imagine you were so–” he felt a pair of hands placed directly on his ass, to push him closer and rub against his already half-hard cock. “– cheeky .”
Husk shook his head in yet another ironic snort at the sight of that smirk, intercepting the glint of the golden canine.
“Look who’s talking.” he retorted, pressing hips against his, which elicited yet another soft and languid moan from the blond.
God please, do it again.
“As if you don’t like it.” the blond teased him in a sigh.
“Fuck if I like it.”
Anthony laughed again, in that same crystalline way, and Henry thought for a moment about the last time he had felt so light, as the blond folded his arms behind his neck and brushed his lips against his bearded cheek.
“We’re really going to have breakfast later.”
“Mh-mh, later. ” Henry searched for his mouth with hunger in that response, but… The ringing of the doorbell paralyzed them both.
Tony pulled away enough to look him in the eye with furrowed eyebrows.
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No, I–”
Wait a minute.
The memory of a phone conversation from a while ago flashed in his head, accompanied by the annoying voice of the social worker telling him that the first day of inspection was the morning of… The following Saturday.
Ohssshit.
Henry went white, so much so that even Anthony seemed to be worried.
“Woah, Henry, what–”
“What day is it today.”
“You know, you should really learn to put question marks on your–”
“Tony.” he called back, getting up on his knees to let him move freely. “What day is it?”
The blond propped himself up on his elbows, looking at him with his left eyebrow now raised again.
“Saturday.”
“Shit!”
The doorbell rang again, patiently waiting, as Henry jumped up and pulled on the first pair of pants he found in the pile on the chair, trying to make himself decent; all under the confused gaze of Anthony, who was still half-lying and very naked in his bed.
“Husk, will you please explain to me what the f–”
“It’s the social worker from the court coming to see if my house is suitable for my daughter.”
Judging by Anthony’s expression, his brain had just crashed.
“The social work– Okay. Oh. Okay.”
Good, he was starting to react.
“Comin’!” Henry announced loudly enough so that he could be heard from the closed door, looking back at Tony who in the meantime had gotten out of bed, hugging the pillow.
Incredible how even in that situation he didn’t seem to know shame.
Husk thought quickly about what to do and eyed the window as the last bastion of defense from one of the most unpleasant situations of his life.
He dragged his gaze back to Anthony, scratching out a half-sigh of annoyance. Definitely not how he wanted this morning to go.
“You have to go.”
“What, I disappear?”
The fact that Tony had added a ‘magician’ gesture with the hand not busy holding the pillow did not improve the situation at all.
Husk simply jerked his chin towards the window.
“There.”
The blond dragged a glance at the window, catching a bird fluttering on the other side. He looked back at Husk, looking rather unamused.
“Very funny.”
“What?”
“We’re on the sixth floor!”
“Yeah but there’s the fire escape.”
“And I’m fucking naked, Henry, I’m not going down six damn flo—”
The doorbell rang again.
“What do I do? ” Tony hissed. “As hilarious as it’d be for the social worker to find me naked, I don’t think it would work in your favor with your daughter’s matter.”
Husk looked around once again, ignoring the sarcasm.
Think think think.
He blinked, eyeing the door behind the other man. Of course.
“In the closet.” he ordered in a murmur, pointing to the wardrobe behind him.
“I’m out and proud since I was–”
“Cut the crap, Jesus, and get in the fucking closet!”
Anthony looked behind him, over his shoulder, and once again searched for Henry’s like he seriously couldn’t believe his words.
“Really ? Like a fourth-class lover–”
“Either in the closet or we’re about to start a bad porn. Take your pick.”
Perhaps it was the intonation of the last imperative – stern to say the least – that made Anthony sneer and obey.
“I’ve never filmed this one.” he informed, disappearing with the pillow into the closet, just an instant before Henry left him there to go open the door and silently ponder the meaning of that sentence.
Was that a joke? He decided to prudently set aside the matter for other priorities.
On the way, he picked up the other pieces of clothing that they had left scattered around the night before and silently wondered if he had thrown away the used condom left in the bathroom sink.
As he opened the door to Stella – that’s how she had introduced herself on the phone, the week before – he told himself that he would think about it at the right time.
Closing the door behind Stella, after seeing her out, Henry leaned forward to rest his forehead against the door. If anyone had to rank the worst experiences with social workers, he was relatively sure to climb at least into the Top Five of the worst impressions you could make on someone.
Where was the Henry Husker who charmed his players at the table, when he dealt the cards? Where was the one who gambled and had such a shameless poker face that he always took home the best bets? Or the one who, regardless of the consequences, smiled and looked proud and bold even if he had nothing in his hands?
They took him from you in that basement, Husker.
The little voice cruelly reminded him that the past before the Accident was just that: the past.
He should have stopped calling it an Accident and started treating it for what it was – a score settling, a punishment, the fucking karma – but the need to cling to the bottle on that Saturday morning that tickled his perception told him that was a discussion for another time.
Anthony.
The thought of the blond man locked in the closet had made that visit even more terrible: he had been on tenterhooks the whole time, while Stella wandered around that decidedly small house, clicking her heels on the ruined parquet and writing down who knows what in the folder she carried with her.
She had asked him a lot of questions, to which he had answered absentmindedly, out of terror that Anthony might come out of the closet or that Stella would think of opening the doors for some mysterious reason and finding that surprise decidedly unsuitable for a little girl.
She had asked if he had a job, if he received a regular salary, if his lifestyle could adapt to shared custody of a minor; it was Lidia’s father – adorable grandfather Dixon – who imposed himself on his daughter on asking for Caroline’s sole custody and a part of him, to be honest, didn’t even blame him.
How many times have you gambled away all your croupier tips without bringing home anything? How many times have you taken your paycheck and gone all in without thinking about the consequences?
Going back to the bedroom, looking rather gloomy, and stopping in front of the wardrobe, he told himself that maybe he really didn’t deserve to be Caroline’s father.
He knocked on the door, swallowing his resentment towards himself and thinking that next time he would make a much better impression on Stella.
“Yeeeees, who is it?”
Anthony and sarcasm were best friends that morning.
“It’s me, you idiot.”
“Ah, so I can go out now?”
Henry was sorely tempted to lock him in and leave him there, but he forced himself to take a deep breath and count to ten in his head. Maybe twenty.
“Hurry up, before I change my mind.” he muttered, opening the doors first.
Inside, he found Anthony sitting at the bottom of a practically empty closet; he had put on one of his shirts, which fit him more or less right – maybe a little short on the sleeves, given how tall he was – and had fished out a pair of boxers.
The blond caught his eyes and – with a half-annoyed, half-amused twitch – stood up, grabbing the pillow he had brought inside, and gracefully exited the closet as if it were a carriage, giving Henry a little shove. Like a true prince.
“Fuck it, I thought she would never leave, I was about to have paralysis in there.” he groaned, stretching and pulling his arms up to crack his back in a grimace. “How did it go, anyway? I couldn’t hear much locked in there.”
The silence and Henry’s rather funereal look made him suck the air between his teeth, the tip of the tongue teasing the golden canine in a rather eloquent expression.
“Ouch. I’m sorry, Husky.” From his tone, he seemed sincere. “Come on, I’ll make you breakfast, a real one this time. Let’s see what you have.”
Henry followed him toward the kitchen, a simple kitchenette in the bare living room: a half-sapped couch left there by the previous tenant dominated the middle of the room, a TV sitting directly on the floor and a small square table with a couple of chairs placed in front of the living room window, which also overlooked the fire escape.
“You know, that’s not necessary.” he began, scratching the back of his neck with a vague discomfort as he watched Anthony take all the abandoned containers of Chinese food and throw them away, carelessly, opening cabinet doors a bit randomly to try to orient himself and figure out how to put together breakfast. “I don’t want to keep you, if you have somewhere to go.”
The blond turned to stare at him, raising his left eyebrow again with a biting expression.
“You lock me in a fucking closet for an hour and now you worry about my errands?”
Good point.
Anthony clicked his pierced tongue, returning to his occupation: he opened the refrigerator to peek inside, leaning slightly on the door with indolence.
“Now you sit down and have breakfast. Then I’ll get the fuck out of here.”
Husk mumbled something, metaphorically ruffling his fur and dropping into his chair with a heavy sigh, fingers threading through his hair to support the head, elbows propped on the table.
For a while there was silence: a pleasant one, actually, the sound of a domestic morning in which Anthony muttered to himself something that Henry took to be Italian as he cobbled together an impromptu breakfast from what he had on hand; which was almost nothing.
Henry had forgotten he had eggs, or a toaster. Even milk, and considering Tony’s grimace as he sniffed the carton before throwing it in the sink, he had forgotten about it a long time ago.
In the end, the plate he found in front of him – scrambled eggs and slightly burned toast – along with a cup of coffee were the best breakfast he’d had in a week.
“Thanks.” he breathed, without even thinking, and he wasn’t just talking about breakfast.
Thank you.
Tony winked at him, with that left greener eye, and sat down in the last remaining chair, with his cup of coffee and breakfast, and began eating with gusto.
There was still the same silence, broken only by the indistinct sound of who-knows-what reels scrolling under the other’s lacquered thumb, who, while chewing his eggs, chuckled every now and then at what he saw on his phone.
It was a scene so simple and familiar – so reassuring – that the lump of worry and anger from that morning’s encounter slowly softened with each sip of coffee he took.
Over the rim of the cup, Husk peered intently at the man sitting in front of him, picking up on the thread of their previous conversation.
“Porn, huh?”
Anthony blinked a few times, yanking his attention back to him and locking the phone again before crouching a cheeky grin; one of his usual ones, in short.
“I don’t do it anymore, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No, I was wondering how a dogsitter ended up shooting porn, actually.”
Tony shrugged nonchalantly, shoving the last forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.
“Like everyone else, I guess: the Porn Fairy Godmother showed up and said ‘ Tony, you’re going to be a star! ’” He also mimed a higher-pitched voice than usual and a very telling and explicit hand gesture, making Henry chuckle – very softly.
“And you liked it?”
“Shooting porn?” he asked rhetorically, raising his left eyebrow as if he didn’t really believe the question he was just asked.
Henry nodded, seriously.
Apparently, Anthony didn’t read any prejudice in his expression, after having fixed him with a narrowed gaze, because he went back to his coffee and leaned relaxed back in the chair, resting his right ankle on the left knee of those very long legs.
“.. It was fun, at first,” he replied, after a brief hesitation. “When I could choose what to do and who to do it with. Then the requests became more and more and nothing to my taste. Val–”
Anthony stopped abruptly, breaking a syllable in half.
Henry stared at him and it was his turn to raise his thick eyebrow, silently perplexed.
The other didn’t return the look, observing without really seeing it the plate full of toasted bread crumbs, silently connecting who knows what pattern of thoughts.
Thoughts that, once again, showed the vulnerability that Henry had only glimpsed.
He returned to look at his amber gaze after a couple of moments in a smirk, as if nothing had happened.
“Let’s say that my career as a pornstar ended when I found myself with five dicks in hands and a spreader. I only have two holes to fill, you can imagine what happened.”
Husk was torn between excitement and disapproval; he decided that no, he didn’t want to imagine it and took another sip of coffee instead.
Anthony’s phone vibrated, on the table, but he didn’t even bother to unlock it – he just glanced at it, for a second, looking back at Henry.
“This whole– Court thing.” he began, cautiously, only getting a sort of grunt from the other. “How does that work? I mean.” he stood up, to take his and Henry’s empty plates directly to the sink. “The social worker is checking on you because you can’t be with your daughter?”
The question, posed with the respect and calm of someone who is also prepared to not have an answer, didn’t bring back the lump of anger but scratched a little against the melancholy that never completely went away.
He sighed, resigned.
“Not exactly.” he corrected. “My… My ex-wife has requested sole custody. Which means I can’t see my daughter except once a week, and she can’t stay here to sleep until the social worker decrees that my house is suitable.”
Even though Lidia told you that you could see Caroline whenever you wanted and you never do? Even if she’s always the one asking you to pick her up from school, just as an excuse to not make your father-in-law suspicious?
According to that little voice, the only one who wasn’t making an effort to improve the situation was Henry.
Always and only him.
Anthony, meanwhile, had disappeared into the bedroom for an instant; he peeked at him while he rummaged through Husk’s pants pockets – exactly as he had done in the hotel – to search for cigarettes and a lighter and return to the living room with furrowed brows.
“Mh.” he muttered, making a silent gesture to ask if he could light one, to which Henry responded by waving his left hand lazily. The click of the lighter preceded the rest of his sentence. “And if she gets custody, what happens to you?”
“That I will only be able to see my daughter during supervised meetings once a month.”
Saying it out loud hurt even more.
Suddenly, the urge to spike that coffee with the whiskey he kept in the pantry above the stove came back to bite his stomach.
Tony – who had opened the window to let the smoke out, before settling back into his chair – watched him in silence, tapping the filter of his cigarette and dropping the ash into the now empty cup.
“That’s so shit.”
Husk just nodded, finishing his coffee and getting up to take the cup to the sink.
They sat in silence for a while longer, the sound of the water from the sink and Anthony’s cell phone that continued to vibrate every now and then, still ignored by its owner who, after a few moments, cleared his throat.
“I know what you said and that things are still complicated and all that–” and even without the pause, Henry knew exactly what was coming next. “But would you like to, I don't know, go out with me?”
He turned off the water and dried his hands directly on his shirt – having a rag it’s not even contemplated, of course – turning just in time to see the blond finish his cigarette and drop it into the remaining coffee, where it went out with a sizzle.
“Haven’t we been on a date before?”
“If you count my heroic rescue and last night, when I practically picked you up from work, as dates, you’ve had some really shitty dates in your life.”
Henry rolled his eyes, begging for patience from anyone who might listen. Or maybe Hell would listen more than the Heaven above, who knows.
“Tony–”
“Hey.” Anthony had stood up, to join him in front of the sink and interlace the arms behind his head to be able to look him straight in the eyes, although he had to lower his gaze a little given the height difference.
Husk found himself, unconsciously, placing hands on his hips.
“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t fucking care about your messes, Henry?” He sighed, patiently. “Do you think you’re the only one with problems?” he scratched a half laugh directly from his vocal cords, particularly bitter. “Fuck, we could sit here all day talking about my messes, and there wouldn’t be enough time.”
Husk stayed silent, looking somewhere between his freckles like he would put them together to create a drawing.
“If you want to get away from the shit that is your life and you want to do something–” he ran his left index finger over Henry’s throat, sliding over Adam's apple and down to the round collar of his shirt in a naughty smile. “Something other than just fucking, I mean.” Husker looked him in the eyes again, Anthony’s index finger still hooked on his collar. “Date me.”
Henry scrunched the shirt fabric against Anthony’s hips, running through all the possible answers and opting for another question instead.
“Why?”
Why do you want me, when you can have anyone? Why do you want an old drunk who hasn't even been able to keep a wife, let alone be a father?
Anthony chuckled again, soft and crystalline – a softer version of the laugh that had previously made something flutter in the pit of his stomach; now, the outcome was exactly the same.
“Because I like you, whiskers.” The simplicity of the answer made him blink a couple of times. “I thought you got the idea, huh? I chased you for like a week, after practically begging you for your number.”
Henry was silent again, savoring the sensation and feeling vaguely dizzy.
Anthony’s hazel and green eyes, when he looked for them, were still there, watching him.
“Losers stick together, right?”
It was that rhetorical question chuckled by the blond, probably as a joke, that made something click in Henry’s brain again. Something pleasant that made him smile, a flicker at the bottom of his amber eyes as he slid his hands to his hips under the fabric of the shirt.
“Right. Okay.”
Anthony clicked his pierced tongue again, satisfied, transforming that hand hooked to the collar of the shirt into a more substantial grip on the fabric as he started walking backwards, aiming for the bathroom and dragging Henry along with him.
“Then we’ll talk about it.”
“Next weekend I should see Carol–”
“Shshsh, easy.” Tony cut him off, practically talking over him. “I said, then . Now, like a good host, you should show me the shower.”
Henry raised his left eyebrow again in a hungry smirk.
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah, Husky, good manners dictate it.”
“Then who am I to neglect good manners.”
“There. Good boy.”
Anthony reclaimed his mouth for a kiss, leaning with his back against the bathroom door and putting an end to that conversation.
On the living room table, Tony’s cell phone vibrated again.