Chapter Text
November 24th – Mountainside Treatment Center, one year ago
The plastered ceiling of his room was a refined shade of beige and as happily anonymous as everything else in there: the refectory, the activity room, the art lab, the infirmary.
Even the room where they all sat in a circle, along with what Anthony was firmly convinced was a Disney princess who had escaped from some book.
With his arms folded – they had taken all his clothes off him and the only color he was allowed to wear was a frankly hideous gray – he watched Dr. Charlie Magne interact with one of the other patients who was telling yet another sob story that was all the same: my father never loved me, society never understood me, snorting even the plaster makes me feel less alone.
A part of him was firmly convinced that all junkies were clichés in terrible taste.
You too, Tony.
He frowned, annoyed, at yet another comment that Valentino’s voice whispered in his head.
The gesture did not go unnoticed by Charlie, considering that he found her big brown eyes and a welcoming smile right after that.
“Do you want to share something with us, Anthony?”
The blond blinked, looking around and catching the glances of everyone present.
Show time.
It was Angel Dust who smiled languidly, spreading his legs and sliding the hands up his thighs in a seductive movement until they stopped at the knees.
“People usually pay to watch me while I use my mouth.”
Scattered giggles came that made him smirk again; Charlie remained impassive, her and her calm smile.
“So nothing?”
“It depends, baby. I can put on a show, but I don't think everyone can afford it."
One of the patients – a slimy looking guy who couldn’t wait to fuck him, judging by the way he looked at him – adjusted the crotch of his pants and Angel clicked his pierced tongue against the cheek.
“See?” he pointed at him, unashamed, making him blush violently. “He would definitely pay for that.”
The guy in question, without another word, stood up with a grunt and, covering his erection, walked out of the room.
Charlie sighed, while a general buzz spread among those still present.
“This isn’t working, Anthony,” the blonde spoke, over the chatter and making him feel for the first time like a child who had done something naughty. “We started these meetings two weeks ago and if you don’t feel like talking that’s fine, but making others uncomfortable is against the rules of our facility.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault that guy got a hard-on just looking at me!”
The statement slid into a room that had gone deadly silent; Charlie had never lowered her gaze and was staring at him, serious and professional.
Anthony had always hated silence.
The taste of vomit, the bathroom floor, the feeling of his heart pounding so hard against his ribs he was sure they would crack. Blue yellow blue again. The stinging smell of disinfectant, his sister’s tears, the scent of flowers slowly withering on the nightstand of his hospital bed, ‘get well soon, amorcito’.
“What do you want me to say, anh”? he blurted out, perhaps to silence the crazy buzz of thoughts and swallow the beginning of yet another panic attack. “That I tried to kill myself in my friend’s bathroom cause I thought dying would make all this shit stop?”
Those words, spoken out loud for the first time, had the violence of a gunshot.
Anthony winced at the recoil, looking back at the people present and, for once, he didn’t like being the center of attention.
Not even a little.
Charlie’s smile softened and something inside him loosened a bit.
“Let’s start from here, shall we?”
November 24th – present
There's another thing Anthony had always hated: hospitals.
The memory of what had happened more than a year ago had haunted him – whispering in his ear – the entire time they had spent in the ER being treated.
Sitting on the bed a few feet away from Henry – even though he was behind a curtain, he could hear everything perfectly – he had diligently answered every question he had been asked: yes, it was my ex; yes, I had sex against my consent; no, I do not want to press charges; yes, I intervened to defend myself and Henry Husker, who you are treating nearby.
He had endured the doctors’ and policemans’ stares as they filled out his chart, he had listened to the results of the drug test and he had answered the hardest question of all: no, I was not forced to take drugs.
The same shame he had felt answering the docs’ questions when he was hospitalized for overdose.
A burning humiliation.
He hadn’t wanted to be hospitalized; he had had himself treated and stitched up where necessary, confirming that he was being followed by a psychiatrist and taking care of a lot of other bureaucratic matters that he had to fill out in order to get out of there.
He had been forced to call Molly, since she was still his legal guardian, and he had to tell her what had happened; he had pressed the receiver of the hospital pay phone against his ear, listening to her sob for at least five minutes as he tried to reassure her.
I’m fine, Henry came to save me.
I’m fine, I didn’t overdose.
I’m fine, now I’ll start over.
The truth was that two of these three statements had made him feel worse: all things considered, he was the one who saved Henry and, above all, starting over meant having flushed a year of sobriety down the toilet because he hadn’t been able to control himself.
Husk, on the other hand, had perhaps come out worse.
The fight with Valentino had given him a nasty cut on the back of his head and a concussion, which had left him lethargic for the entire medical check up.
When he had regained consciousness, and after having confirmed that it was nothing too serious, he had resisted with all his will the hospitalization and had signed a bunch of papers in which he had assumed all responsibility for leaving against medical advice, with the promise of stuffing himself with painkillers and being monitored for at least 24 hours by someone.
The someone in question was none other than Anthony, who had not hesitated for a moment in offering himself.
He had met Henry’s amber gaze – for the first time since they’d been taken to the ER – and had read a lot of indecipherable things in it.
Shame, sadness, gratitude, and something else.
Something he couldn’t name.
They had called a cab and headed to Brooklyn.
Henry had practically collapsed on the sagging couch as soon as they got home and hadn’t woken up for the rest of the day.
To kill time, Anthony had wandered around the house piling up empty bottles, just like the thoughts that got tangled up in the silence.
They had a lot to talk about.
When Henry opened his eyes, the sun had almost set again.
Anthony was sitting on the floor next to the couch, his chin resting on his knees curled up against his chest; dressed in an unlikely gray jumpsuit that they had given him at the hospital, considering that when the ambulance had arrived he had not had time to put anything on and had only followed the paramedics who had wanted to treat him too.
He hadn’t let go of Husk’s hand for even a second during the ride to the hospital.
He met Henry’s amber gaze, in the golden light of the sunset, and it took him a couple of moments to understand what was happening.
“Hey.” Anthony smiled softly, in a murmur.
Laid on his front, Husk reached out absentmindedly with a hand to search for Tony’s face, who leaned forward to meet his fingertips. A soft caress on the freckled cheekbone, swollen and purple from Valentino’s fists.
Anthony closed his eyes for a moment, in a slow sigh, before looking at him again.
“I’m really here.” was the answer to that silent question he had read in his eyes.
Henry blinked, a couple of times, withdrawing his hand that remained awkwardly suspended in mid-air before he sighed and sat up in a grimace.
“Hey hey, take it slow.” Anthony rose to his knees, to help him. “How are you feeling?”
“Like they tried to smash my head.”
Legit.
Husk, looking upset and grimacing in pain, gingerly placed his left hand behind his neck to feel the bandage covering the wound.
“The doctor said you have to come back in a week to remove the stitches. I’m afraid you’ll be left with—” the blond cleared his throat, with a vague unease. “A scar.”
A path carved into the flesh on his back, that Anthony had traced with his fingers. With kisses. With sighs.
“Doesn’t matter.” Henry replied, with the same, tired defeat he could read in him but mixed with something different. Something that tingled softly on Anthony’s tongue as he met the man’s gaze.
“At least this time it’s for a good reason.”
Damn Henry Husker, how come he always made him blush.
Tony cleared his throat, standing up.
“You have to put ice on it. Lie down, I’ll get you something.”
“I don’t know if I have ice, honestly.” Husk groaned, lying down again this time on his back with yet another painful grimace.
Anthony opened the freezer with the mathematical certainty that there was the quintessential cliché that serves in these situations: bingo.
He grinned, grabbing a bag of frozen peas that had been there for who knows how long – maybe Henry hadn’t even bought it – and closed the door with a flick of his hip.
“God bless frozen foods.”
“What the fuck is that?”
Exactly.
Anthony shrugged, sitting back down and holding out the bag of peas.
“Let's thank the previous tenant, whoever that was.”
“They found him dead in here, that’s why I pay so little rent.”
“Let’s thank him doubly then.”
Henry placed the bag of peas under his neck like a pillow, and trying not to press too hard on the wound, he relaxed under Tony’s watchful gaze.
The silence that fell shortly thereafter made so much noise.
“Look—”
“Look—” they repeated together, before stopping at the same moment and looking at each other again with that soft unease that pervaded the room.
Husk cleared his throat.
“You first.”
Anthony shook his head.
“No no, you first.”
The truth was that he wasn’t sure he could speak, considering his heart had jumped into his throat.
He looked at Henry and stopped the urge to push the salt-and-pepper tuft back from his forehead by fiddling with the hem of the sleeves of that hospital-smelling jumpsuit.
Sanitizer, machine beeps, aseptic lights.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for—” Henry stopped again, as if he were digging the words out of a very deep place, deep down somewhere. “Getting you into trouble. I am really sorry.”
Judging by the way he avoided his gaze, Anthony could tell that wasn’t exactly what he was sorry about. Or at least not only that.
The big pink elephant in the room.
Anthony crooked a sad but calm smile.
“Don’t worry, Henry. I’m the one who overreacted.”
“No, you’re right, I shouldn’t have interfered,” he continued, peering at him. “I didn’t think he would get to—” he ran his amber gaze over Anthony’s injuries: the split eyebrow and various bruises on his face, purple finger marks around his neck, his bandaged wrist and who knows what else.
A ‘what else’ that Anthony hoped he hadn’t heard, on the other side of the curtain.
There was no pity in Henry’s look, but there was again that ‘something’ he had read in the hospital that he couldn’t name.
That he didn’t dare name.
He cleared his throat again.
“Eh, Valentino is built like that.”
Violent, cruel, possessive.
“It wasn’t the first time, I’m used to it.”
On his knees on the bathroom floor choking on his cock, handcuffed to the sink pipe.
Henry didn’t add anything; he simply watched him in silence, thick brows furrowed and that bag of frozen peas used as a pillow.
The silence grew heavy again and suddenly Tony couldn’t sit still anymore.
He stood up.
“You want something? I can make some tea, considering the painkillers it’s better not to have caffeine.” He forced a chuckle, trying to fill the silence somehow.
In that same apartment, the day before, there had been the same, deafening silence.
He turned his back on Henry, heading toward the kitchenette to look for a kettle – a gifted moka pot, him teaching Husk how to make Italian coffee, Henry’s confused but amused expression as he listened to him talk in detail about what it means to drink a good espresso.
Ghosts of a month in which he simply couldn’t have helped but fall in love with him.
Anthony had just filled and put the kettle on when Henry’s words came from behind the couch.
“I’m an alcoholic.”
Anthony remained silent, his back turned, as if turning around could have interrupted this sort of confession as fragile as glass.
He held his breath.
“Actually, I’m a gambler who started drinking so I wouldn’t gamble away all my money. Usually it works.”
Henry’s low, velvety voice seemed to come from some remote corner of his consciousness – a defeated murmur, someone who has tried everything to not say anything and ended up breaking into a thousand pieces.
“I've been since I was a kid, basically. The guy who was supposed to be my father taught me how to count cards. I became a croupier as soon as I was of legal age to do so and I never stopped.”
Anthony started breathing again, slowly; he turned, leaning against the kitchen cabinet and peering at him over the couch: Henry was lying there, one hand over his eyes, like someone who either spoke now or would never do so again.
“You know how I met Lidia, but I didn’t tell you we already had problems before my—”
Accident.
Husk cleared his throat once again.
“I gambled away my entire paycheck, sometimes even the tips. She probably would have left me a lot sooner if it hadn’t been for what happened to me.”
His tone darkened.
Anthony ventured closer, moving around the couch again and carefully sitting down on the floor in front of him, where he’d been earlier.
Husk still didn’t look at him.
“Four years ago, I got caught cheating at the wrong casino. They took me, locked me in a basement and enjoyed flaying my back for I don’t even know how fucking long.” the hand over his eyes tightened into a fist. “When I was about to pass out, they’d drug me to keep me awake.”
Anthony felt his blood freeze at Henry’s mirthless half-laugh; it sounded more like a strangled sob.
“It wasn’t— An accident.” Henry sounded like it was the first time ever that he spoke out loud this thought. “It wasn’t a fucking accident. Maybe the fact that the scars look like wings, that’s an accident.”
What man’s cruelty creates, sometimes, is a horrific wonder.
“I started drinking when we moved to New York. We couldn’t stay in Vegas anymore, it wasn’t safe. I tried to fix it, to stop gambling. I ended up replacing it with drinking, and as you can see, that was a really shitty choice.”
Anthony leaned forward and rested his chin on the couch, next to Henry’s arm; he silently rubbed his freckled nose against the fuzz on his arm, making him flinch.
Husk didn’t stop talking.
“The Sunday I ghosted you, when we were supposed to meet, it wasn’t just because I got the call from the social worker, it was because I was ashamed of myself. I was so wasted I couldn’t get up from the floor.”
“Oh, Henry—”
“No, let me finish.” He removed the hand from his eyes and turned his head, causing the frozen peas to creak, to search for Anthony’s eyes with a silent urgency.
Almost as if he wanted to see if he was still there listening to him or if he had left.
“You’re right, I was such a self-righteous bastard to accuse you of not telling me everything, so—” he took another breath, lighter, as if he had finally freed himself of something. “I truly am sorry.”
The feeling of a tension melting away, somewhere, and at the same time a weight dragging his stomach down.
You’re a hypocrite too, Angel Dust.
A junkie. A whore. A liar.
Anthony swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry, as something vaguely resembling panic began to make his breathing quicken.
“Hey.”
Henry’s hand, accompanied by his murmur mixed with a comforting ‘ssssh’, came to brush his knuckles over his swollen cheekbone again, in a hinted caress. When Tony met that amber gaze, and Husk realized he could actually touch him, he opened the hand to cup his cheek in a quiet smile.
The kind of person who has now pulled all the skeletons out of the closet.
“You don’t have to tell me anything.” Henry spoke softly again, without taking his eyes off him. “You don’t have to feel obligated. I told you ’cause I wanted to tell you.”
How the hell could he not fall in love with this man.
“Let’s start from here, shall we?”
In that moment – with those words that Henry had unconsciously spoken in the same way Charlie had unlocked something inside him a year ago – something inside Anthony trembled.
A breath that became a sort of sob, a sound that made Henry’s thick eyebrows furrow with vague concern.
“Are you—”
“I OD’d.”
The same raw sincerity that Husker had used with him a couple of moments before, except that Anthony looked him straight in the eyes.
If he hadn’t – he was sure about it – he would have shattered into a billion pieces; as if the gold of that gaze could hold together all his cracks, in the poetic and poignant representation of a kintsugi.
Henry breathed silently, slowly, focusing better, unable to remove his hand from his cheek.
“A year ago, during a Halloween party. I took a bunch of stuff ’cause I wanted to stop thinking that Valentino would rather be with his Wall Street daddy than me. What an idiot, right?”
Henry didn’t answer, but the sweetness and silent reproach in his gaze were quite telling.
Tony sniffed and went on, bending the head to press his cheek against Henry’s palm in another caress.
“You too know how I met Val. What I didn’t tell you, though, is that I started doing drugs with him.”
Breaking into a billion pieces.
“At first just a little something every now and then, you know. MDMA, blue pills, all stuff to work better. When I was doing porn it was hard to stay horny all the time, so—” he shrugged, not as if it were a good enough excuse but only as a matter of fact.
Husk just nodded, lightly stroking his bruised cheekbone with the thumb.
“Then came the heavy stuff. Nose candy, dope, oxy. I tried a little bit of everything. I became an addict without even realizing it.”
But you knew full well what you were doing, amorcito. You liked it, you asked me for it.
“When Valentino wanted to punish me, he left me without drugs. I started working as a hooker for him because sometimes I had no other way to earn a fix. I still do sometimes, with certain clients.”
My precious little slut in love.
Under his cheek, in Henry’s palm, Anthony began to feel something wet and a part of him felt even more ashamed, while the other finally began to breathe.
Let it all go.
“When I overdosed, Molly helped me. She paid for my rehab, and I started to feel better. I’ve been going to therapy for a year, give or take, and before last night I had managed to stay clean.”
Another tired chuckle, mixed with a sob.
Anthony clutched Henry’s hand, nuzzling the nose in his palm, hiding there for a moment or two before continuing.
“The day we fought, when I said all those horrible things to you, I went out and took molly. I lost control, I don’t know what came over me—”
“Tony.”
“I feel like a fucking idiot for having wasted a year of—”
“Tony.”
“—sobriety for what, anyway? ’Cause I didn’t realize that you were just trying to help me and ’cause you don’t love me? I made the same stupid mistake that—”
“I love you.”
You know that feeling when the world stops spinning and everything starts to fall apart, but in a good way? When your breath catches in your throat and your stomach jumps in a feeling of euphoria and dizziness? Panic, but without fear?
There.
Just. Like. That.
Anthony Scavo stared at Henry Husker as if he were seeing him for the first time, as if in that moment time had stopped and gone back all at once, catapulting them back to the first night they’d met by chance.
That moment when he could have ignored that drunken daddy and his search for trouble but instead decided to intervene.
Their very personal “what if.”
“… What?”
Henry smiled, as if he had not just shocked the man sitting on the ground, in front of him.
He caressed his wet cheek again and Tony remained silent, confused, convinced that it had just been a trick of perception. He had surely heard wrong.
“I thought I had lost the will to live at the bottom of a bottle. Or that I gambled away all the love I could give to someone. But since we ended up in this situation, I started to feel better.”
This couldn’t be true.
“I started talking to Lidia again. I started to want to be a better father to Caroline, to put in the effort at work. I started to think that maybe I didn’t want to fuck it all up anymore.”
“Henry—”
“And it’s all because of you, Anthony. When I think of myself the way you apparently see me, I feel like a better person.”
“I’m not—”
“I’m serious.”
Husker’s amber eyes had never looked so beautiful, in the dim light of a Brooklyn apartment, in a black and white world where the only people in screaming color were the two of them, while everything outside had slowly gone dark.
Dark hair, whiskey eyes.
Anthony watched the man he’d accidentally ended up in bed with talk and tell him something he never thought he’d want to hear. Not after all those bad relationships, not after Valentino. Not after the venomous fear of never being enough for anyone.
He could never have imagined that that drunken almost-fuck in a completely random night would lead them to this moment.
To that crooked smile of a man who looked at him and saw him for who he really was.
“It’s because of you that I learned what it means to love someone again, asshole.”
And right there, right then, something tightened in Tony’s stomach, something that had nothing to do with the hangover, mdma, or Valentino’s fists. Something warm, soft, the same feeling that only last morning he had spat in Husk’s face with the anger of someone who doesn’t want to feel certain things.
Because Anthony always knows how it ends.
And yet, someone should have told him right away that falling in love is not something that takes your breath away.
It’s breathing.
Slowly, calmly, deeply.
It’s not feeling short of breath, instead it’s a breath of fresh air, oxygen when you feel like drowning.
The hug he held onto Henry with, because even that little distance had become unbearable, was pure instinct.
And love.
The silence with which Anthony held him, while Husk returned that hug and pulled him against him to let him lie down on top of him and sob against his neck, had the same urgency as what poets write: sometimes, you need someone to slap you when you deserve it and someone to kiss you when you feel like dying.