Chapter Text
December 23rd – one day earlier
It’s gonna be okay, Anthony had told him.
He had tied his tie – though Husk was perfectly capable of doing it himself – and had solemnly placed the hands on his shoulders to look him straight in the eyes.
It’s gonna be okay.
Debating with himself whether to order his fifth coffee of the day, Henry Husker wondered if it had really been a good idea to accept this meeting.
The lawyer would have told him no; since the video came out, he had prevented Henry from having any further contact with Lidia, so as not to give the opportunity to provide any further possible evidence against his case.
But it’s Lidia , that little voice had told him, which sometimes sounded not like the gambling Siren but like a friendly, reasonable voice, When has Lidia ever tried to screw you, in your life?
He had talked Anthony about it, one night when they were in his Brooklyn apartment: them, a Chinese take away dinner and a bunch of boxes to unpack.
You need to make this house cozier, Husky. I can ask Molly if she has furniture they don’t use, books, anything you can use for Caroline’s bedroom.
Said and done.
However, in one of the rare pauses in Tony’s river-like chatter, Henry while sitting at the tiny kitchen table – stabbing the noodles with his chopsticks in a rather dark pout – had grumbled that Lidia had asked him to meet before the last court hearing.
Anthony – dressed in an oversized red sweater because “ Christmas is almost here, Husky, you should start getting into the Christmas spirit and stop acting like a sexy daddy who’s perpetually pissed off at the world ” – had stopped his bite halfway and had silently weighed the matter.
Not what Lidia had suggested, but Henry’s expression.
Do you trust her?
Yes.
Then go. If she’s like you told me, you really should go.
And Husker, who by now had become incapable of saying no to that man, had obediently put on his tie, his black suit that he was wearing during signing divorce papers – the night he had met Anthony – and had gone to the meeting arranged before the hearing.
Now, sitting at a table next to a bar’s window not far from the courthouse, he considered whether to get up and leave like the coward he had always been.
“Henry?”
He blinked, stopping looking out the window at the particularly snowy and frenetic bustle of the day before Christmas Eve and focusing on the woman who had just stopped in front of his table.
Lidia had the same expression she had that night who knows how many years ago, when a young Henry Husker fresh from a big poker win had deservedly spent half of what he had earned on the most beautiful dancers in Las Vegas.
Even though he had one sitting on his lap, the moment he saw Lidia in the bluish lights of a nightclub he had fallen in love instantly.
He cleared his throat and tried to stand up, a little awkwardly, to welcome her; she raised her hands calmly, motioning for him to remain seated while she took off the scarf from her neck.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“There’s half an hour until the hearing, we have time.”
“Yeah.” Lidia smiled a little wistfully but resolut, which made Husk’s eyebrows rise in a slightly curious way. “Sure. How are you? Are you feeling better?”
Henry absentmindedly felt the back of his neck, where the stitches had given way to a new scar.
Anthony’s freckled nose tucked into his hair. The slow breathing of someone asleep and deep in some dream. An Italian mumble, Tony’s hands pulling him closer, his back and his old scars pressed against that slender chest that swells with a sigh before sinking further into the dream.
“Yeah. Better.”
In every possible way.
“Anthony says hello, by the way.”
Lidia smiled softly, taking off her jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair.
“Is he okay too?”
A tangle of thoughts unraveled like a yarn in Husk’s head, in a confused, chaotic but happy mural of the past few weeks.
The evenings spent at Anthony’s house or in his apartment, watching stupid movies without actually seeing them because they ended up fucking after about twenty minutes.
The furious fight they’d had about the proper way to fold pants in the closet and the angry sex they’d made peace with – Anthony’s hand planted against the wall, the other gripping Husk’s as he pumped his cock at the same pace as he sank into him, the shortness of breath and the rough kisses he’d used to mark the neck of the man who’d fucked with his brains in the first place.
The afternoon dog-sitting walks with Anna, who had asked Henry why Caroline couldn’t come with them to ice-skate in Central Park.
The mornings when he had looked at Tony, sitting at the table of that apartment that was slowly becoming a little more ‘home’, while the blond ate breakfast scrolling through Tiktok videos on his phone and Husk found himself smiling like a teenager with a crush.
In love.
He smiled a little at Lidia, nodding.
“He’s okay too.”
The woman smiled back, still in that same way, which made Henry adjust himself better in the chair while the other one called off a waiter so she could order.
“So, what is it.”
Husk had never been good with questions. Or patience. Or anxiety.
Suddenly, he thought with fervent longing about ordering a whiskey neat.
No, don’t be a fucking coward.
A new little voice had joined his head lately: his own.
Lidia took a slow, solemn breath; she straightened her back, with that ballerina grace she’d never truly lost.
“I have decided to withdraw the sole custody request.”
Husk blinked again, a couple of times. He’d definitely misheard.
“I’ll say it at the hearing today. I didn’t want to do it from the start.” she continued, with a sigh, thanking the waiter who arrived with her coffee with a nod. “But you know what my father is like. And we barely spoke anymore, and it seemed to me that you didn’t care about—”
Lidia didn’t say it, but the name rang out in the silence between them, tinged by the chatter of the bar around them.
Caroline.
The urge to order something strong came back forcefully.
Husk remained silent, taking in all those words that didn’t even sound like an accusation. They were just the truth of the facts.
Who knows if the swing he had set up in the living room was still there.
He cleared his throat, swallowing a lump of discomfort that made his Adam’s apple bob up and down.
“You don’t, uh, have to justify yourself.”
“I do.”
“Lidia—”
“ I do , Henry.” she insisted, with the stubbornness that had made him fall in love.
He probably had a thing for stubborn creatures, he thought with a half-smirk.
“I'm sorry for putting you through this. As bad as it was between you and me, we loved each other so much and you didn’t deserve it. Caroline didn’t deserve it.”
“How is she?”
The pain of not being able to ask her directly.
Lidia smiled again, softly, over the rim of her teacup.
“She misses you a lot, but she’s fine.” she allowed herself an amused half-snort, full of tenderness. “She made a lot of drawings for you, says she wants to give them to you in person. To you and Anthony.”
Something inside Henry tightened and softened at the same time.
“There’s also him, Anna and some sort of frogs’ army that I don’t quite understand where they came from.” she raised her right eyebrow, amused.
Like on Halloween, the image foolishly happy of what his life could have been from that moment on.
“Tell her that I miss her so much too.”
Lidia nodded softly.
“I explained to her that it wasn’t up to you that you hadn’t seen each other anymore.”
The wave of gratitude towards his ex-wife made his chest swell in an instinctive sigh, a tension released slowly along with the pain.
Let it go.
“I wanted to tell you in person, before the hearing, because I wanted to look into those golden eyes that made me fall in love all those years ago.”
Lidia’s voice – firm but full of emotion – called his attention again; he looked at her expression and, somewhere, realized that this was the first open and mature conversation about their feelings since it all started.
Ever since they had killed a part of him, in that basement.
And no, it wasn’t an Accident.
“We both have our faults, Henry, but I’m so tired of this cold war. My father can say whatever he wants, you may not have been a good husband but you are definitely a good father. And that is what matters, now.”
Let it go.
“I’ve started therapy.” Saying it out loud to someone other than Anthony – who had told him what to do, who to contact, how to behave – made it even more real. “I’m just getting started, but…”
He shrugged, because there wasn’t much else to say.
He had years and years of gambling addiction and alcoholism to unravel on his psychiatrist’s couch.
Lidia smiled at him for the umpteenth time, and Henry straightened his back, with a pride he’d almost forgotten he felt.
“I wonder if they’ll even be able to do something about that bad temper of yours.”
The man snorted an amused half-laugh, watching as she finished her tea and looked back at him.
“There’s one more thing I wanted to tell you—”
Lidia rested a hand on her belly, gently; there was only a hint of roundness under her palm, but Husk watched that touch and a flicker of awareness crept into his amber eyes.
He searched again for the woman’s gaze – which was also Caroline’s – and in her somewhat melancholy but happy silence he read many, many things.
Henry just smiled at her, without a trace of remorse or resentment.
“Congratulations, Lidia. You deserve to be happy.”
You deserve to be loved the way I loved you, before life got in the way.
She gave a sort of half laugh, mixed with a sob – the raw emotion held back, a full stop being put on their story. It hadn’t been the divorce; they had stopped loving each other months before they signed those papers.
The idea that Lidia was starting a new family didn’t take away anything from what they’d had. It didn’t take anything away from their family, partly because of Caroline and partly because certain types of love don’t disappear. They simply become something else.
“Thank you, Henry.”
He bowed his head in a silent nod, before standing up and putting on his coat.
“We have to get going, if we’re late and my lawyer sees us together he’ll want my head.”
Lidia stood up, giggling, and silently accepted Husk’s help in putting on her jacket; she peered over her shoulder at him, as if she was unsure whether to ask something that eventually escaped her lips anyway.
“What about you?”
Lidia’s question seemed completely casual, but Henry knew exactly what his ex-wife was asking.
How happy are you?
Husk also retrieved the scarf, wrapping it around his neck a couple of times.
He thought about the surreal conversation he had with Alastor – backed by a combative Cherri who had kept her promise – to get his job back from Zestiel, the other day, and about yet another debt he had contracted with the man he claimed was his best friend. And maybe he really was.
He thought about the late dinner he and Anthony had promised each other that night, after a performance audition for a club other than Valentino’s. The owner was a certain Asmodeus, a name that was popular in the Village scene.
He thought about the way the blond had purred in his ear, lying on top of him that morning. The unrestrained laughter, silenced by a wooden spoon thrown at that freckled smug face, when he learned Henry didn’t know how to ride a bike.
He thought about the kiss he had left Tony before leaving the house; something quick, soft and almost absentminded, with the ease of something that seemed to have been born years ago but instead had been four months.
Henry smiled, searching for Lidia’s gaze.
“I’m happy too.”
December 22nd –two days earlier
The previous night’s snowfall, totally unexpected, had paralyzed New York; the Italian curses that Angel had reeled off on the way to the Mountainside Treatment Center would have made his mother very indignant.
I raised you better than this, Anthony.
He seemed to hear perfectly that voice that he hadn’t heard for a long time – too long – that was scolding him with a stern look that underneath was sparkling with amusement.
In any case, his appointment with Charlie – the last one before Christmas – was supposed to start a quarter of an hour earlier than the moment he had catapulted himself to the reception, blond hair full of snowflakes and nose red from the cold.
He had just had time to say hello to Loona – returned by the usual vaguely bored look and the pop! of bubble gum – and fish a red lollipop out of the glass jar, before the doctor appeared from the door of her office with a smile and called him inside.
Days after his relapse – after Valentino, after Henry had told him he loved him and had held him in a hug that had lasted an hour, a week or maybe just a minute – he had been officially summoned by Charlie, informed by Molly of what had happened.
Although he had shown up covered in bruises and guilt, the psychiatrist had dismissed the matter very simply: it can happen.
He had looked at her, one eye still half closed from the beatings, and the last residue of shame had melted away the moment Charlie had smiled at him with her mouth closed and reminded him that he was still recovering; that the risk of relapse in drug addicts was very high; that the fact that he had felt so guilty for having given in to temptation was proof that he was truly detoxing.
That there is always a way to start over.
And Anthony, in that month, had started a lot of things over again.
He had quit his job at The Vees and started looking elsewhere. He had stopped being a hooker, this time completely. He had helped Henry find a therapist who could help him unravel the complex and beautiful mess that was his life.
Most of all, he had taken up photography again.
He had turned a room in his apartment into a small darkroom and started papering the wall behind his bed with all the photos he had developed: faces and dogs and Manhattan’s corners, intertwined with pink and purple lights.
Sunken into the leather couch in Charlie’s office, lollipop in mouth, Anthony studied the photographs on the doctor’s bookshelf and stopped again at the one where the laughing blonde doctor was hugging her girlfriend.
A face half hidden by a pillow, an almost shy and happily exasperated smile; a five o’clock shadow, tawny skin, salt-and-pepper waves that sleep and Tony’s fingers had further tangled; Henry Husker’s amber eyes looking at him, lovingly, from that pillow.
“So! Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
Charlie’s voice snapped him out of his musings, making him blink and search for the doctor’s hazel gaze.
He could have told her that, the other day, Fat Nugget’s foster family had introduced him to other owners and his dog-sitting business had expanded even further. Or, he could have told her that Henry had officially given him a drawer in the tiny closet in his apartment, and that Anthony had instead taken half the closet or so, without the other saying anything to his statement ‘I have more clothes than you.’
Instead, he looked at her and took a deep breath, removing the lollipop from his mouth.
“I’ve decided to press charges against Valentino.”
When love becomes something that hurts, you have to suck out all the poison.
Shake the devil off the back.
Maybe it was the snow falling outside the window that made the studio’s silence so soft, or maybe it was that twinkle in the back of Charlie’s eyes, as she closed her notebook without writing anything down for the first time since their meetings had begun.
Uncomfortable chairs, provocations and distrust.
She looked at Anthony as if contemplating something, a success of some kind. She took a deep, satisfied breath, which the blond found himself unconsciously imitating.
Finally, she smiled at him with a pride that made Tony want to truly live up to that expression.
“This is how you heal.”
December 24th –present
Henry Husker, exhaling a lungful of smoke with which he had just plastered his lungs, listened with a resigned air to the twentieth time that Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ came on Spotify’s Christmas playlist, blasting out of the Bluetooth speaker that Anthony had placed on the small kitchen table – where Henry was sitting – while he finished decorating the Christmas tree.
Well, calling that sort of slightly mangy branch that the neighbors downstairs – the ones with loud latin music – had given him a ‘tree’ was a bit of a stretch, but Anthony seemed as excited as if it were the Rockefeller Center’s tree.
And so, the Christmas spirit that the blond had brought into that house had officially taken over his living room. And his bedroom. And his bathroom – Henry had remained there staring with silent resignation at a silver garland hanging from the mirror.
The good thing was that while Tony worked, Husk could silently look at his ass and think about everything he was going to do to him next.
“You like it, Husky?”
Damn if I like it.
He had the scruple born from who knows what recesses of his conscience not to answer out loud, considering that most likely the demanded answer was a little different from what he liked at that moment; let’s just say that the fact that Anthony was walking around his apartment in a pair of indecently short shorts – the ones he usually uses while pole dancing – didn’t help his concentration. At all.
“Hmm?”
He didn’t have time to focus on the real object of that question before a flick landed right on his nose.
“... Ouch.”
“I swear you’ve gotten hornier since you met me.” Anthony scolded, now standing in front of him; he clicked mischievously his pierced tongue, raising the eyebrows a couple of times and making him blush. “Focus.”
“I’m focused.”
“On my ass for sure, but I was talking about the tree.”
Henry leaned to the right, past Tony, looking at the mangy branch stuck in a pot. It was still a mangy branch, only now it was wrapped in a mass of brilliant garlands and had a star on top.
For some reason unknown even to him, that image sent a wave of tenderness through him.
He put out his cigarette in the ashtray with a sizzle and reached out to grab Tony and pull him into a silent hug.
Since he was still sitting, the blond had to slide between his legs.
“I take it as a yes.” he chuckled, and Husk felt his arms slide over his shoulders and around his neck, fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck to give him scritches.
Henry closed his eyes and nuzzled Anthony’s belly, in the white wool of an oversized sweater, in a full and purred breath.
Tony always smelled of cherry, the same body wash that was everywhere now: in his sheets, in his closet, on him.
There was something deeply domestic and intimate, in the silence that fell between them, mixed with yet another corny Christmas song.
“Oh, my shrink invited me to her wedding.”
Husk opened his eyes, blinked, and lifted his forehead from Tony’s belly so he could look up at him and raise his left eyebrow.
“Congrats?”
“You can say it face to face, since I can bring a plus one.”
“Tony—”
“You have time to get used to the idea, it’s in March.”
Which meant, once again, he had no say in the matter.
What love has fucking done to my brain.
Henry sighed, letting Anthony go after he leaned down to kiss him on the forehead and gave him a little push to get out of the hug and get back to decorating the little tree; he ran his left hand through his salt-and-pepper tuft, as if he were reflecting.
“Okay.” plus one at the wedding. “Sure, if Al hasn’t killed me by March, chopped me up and stashed me in one of the hospital morgue’s cubicles where he works.”
Anthony snorted ironically, peering over his shoulder – on tiptoe to hang Christmas balls from the topmost, scrawny branches.
“You serious?”
“Nah— Maybe. ” Actually, no, he couldn’t know for sure. He shrugged. “I don’t know. But if I don’t get a backer for Zestiel’s speakeasy, I’ll be out of work again.”
Anthony hummed the tune of ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas’ , not looking at him, before speaking again.
“Did you know Charlie’s father is Samael Magne?”
“Who?”
Tony sighed, turning fully to look at Husk with a hint of blame.
“Seriously? Have you ever read gossip in your life?”
“Nope.”
Anthony sighed, patiently.
“He’s like the epitome of a triple-D daddy.”
“… I’m afraid to ask what that means.”
“Divorced, delicious, disgustingly rich. I don’t know about his dick, so I’ll stick with facts.”
Henry looked at him, blinking once, unbothered.
“I still don’t see how this is going to solve my problem.”
“ Well. ” Tony smirked, a cryptic glint in his green-hazel eyes that Husk caught just as the blond turned to look at him again. “If I asked Charlie to invite Alastor to the wedding, they might get to know each other. And if they do and Creepy Face convinces him to invest in Zestiel’s place…”
Bingo.
“… Shit.” he looked at the blond with the look of someone who had just had an epiphany. “Did I already say I love you?”
“Yeah, but keep talking baby.”
Henry chuckled, then rested his chin on crossed arms on the table with another sigh; he glanced at the time on the Bluetooth speaker, before going back to look at Anthony as Santa’s Elf.
“You better get ready or you’ll be late for your sister’s.”
“Oh, I told her I’m not going.”
Husk frowned and stood up straight, glancing at the other.
“Tony—”
“I want to spend Christmas Eve with you.” he interrupted, without even looking at him. The naturalness, and stubbornness, of someone who doesn't seem willing to listen to reasons. “Let me be a little sappy, hm?”
“It doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s right, you’re the sappy one.”
“Hey, stronzetto , do you want to—”
“Let’s just say, save me from an endless Christmas Eve dinner.” Tony turned to look at Henry, a crooked smile and a half-laugh stuck there, deep in those mismatched eyes. “You have no idea what an Italian holiday dinner is like.”
No, he didn’t actually know.
His plans for a lonely Christmas Eve tinged on a warmer hue than he’d imagined.
Life definitely goes in unexpected ways, sometimes.
He cleared his throat, swallowing a lump in his throat that was definitely something else – anything – and not some intense, happy feeling that he couldn't swallow.
The incredulous effort of someone who’s used to swallowing only poison.
“Are you okay with celebrating with me?”
“Where else could I be?” Tony replied, taking a few steps away from the small, scrawny tree so he could take in the whole thing. “After practically saving your life twice, I’d say I can’t let you out of my sight for a moment.”
Henry snorted a half-laugh, getting up to join him there in front of the tree – the lights Anthony had just wrapped him in reflected in the glass, illuminating the soft snow outside the window that was whitening Brooklyn.
He stopped there, next to him, and reached out with his left arm to wrap around his hip and pull him against him in a half-step – the need to feel him against him, as he looked at the light he had brought into that apartment.
Into his life.
“Tony.”
“Mh?”
Henry didn’t even look at him; he had memorized the shade of his gaze.
“You know your left eye is green?”
The blond peered down at him silently, before chuckling softly—a soft, amused sound.
“I never noticed.”
So, no one had ever told him.
Henry held him tighter, lifting the muzzle to place a kiss somewhere in the crook between his neck and shoulder – half exposed, given how oversized was that sweater – and purred.
“Hey, shall we go to the diner from the first time we went out?” Anthony asked after a few moments, curving his neck so he could rest his cheek on Henry’s head without taking his eyes off the tree.
Henry stopped purring and sighed patiently.
“Am I going to witness that fries and milkshake crap again?”
“Hell yeah, baby!”
Hell yeah.
Outside the window of a diner in Brooklyn, the snow continued to whiten New York, immersing all the houses in a landscape of the kind you find in glass globes; the ones that if you shake them, they all start to sparkle in a blizzard.
There was condensation on the windows and a bored waiter – different from the girl from last time – who was probably wondering what had he done in his past lives to spend Christmas Eve shift in a diner. It would have been a decidedly boring evening, if it hadn’t been for the only customers at that unlikely hour: two guys swaying in the middle of the hallway, even though they technically couldn’t do it.
The waiter rested the cheek on his right hand, elbow propped up on the counter, and swayed his head silently to the melody of an old Italian song whose lyrics he didn’t understand; probably that tall, lanky blond guy, who almost disappeared in a white Christmas sweater, wool socks and Docs with fuchsia laces, understood him very well, considering how he chuckled amusedly at the words that the man hugging him – a forty-year-old- ish with tawny skin, salt ’n pepper hair and amber eyes, wearing black jeans and a dark red sweater – was singing in his ear.
He stared at them for a few more moments, undecided whether or not to interrupt them to ask if they wanted to order something else; then, he peeked at the jukebox and the almost finished vinyl.
He came out from behind the counter and, without being seen, inserted another coin.
The song started again.