Checking in on Happy – pt 2 [Henry]

It was nice, not having to worry if they would be relaxing after their individual difficult days and have the intercom buzz with one of the pack bothering them for something, or that they would be making love and Henry’s emergency telephone would go off with someone in labor or someone shot up or someone clawed half to death. It’s been quiet, and that’s why Henry was able to come up here without his cell phone.

He left his cell phone downstairs.

Tristan can feel the last of the tension of his husband’s day leaving Henry’s body as they kiss, and he relaxes in a way that no amount of stretching could have allowed him, and his breathing starts to escalate. Pulling back, Henry’s eyes search Tristan’s, and he laughs that self-conscious laugh he may never break himself of.

“It’s been two years and I’m still crazy about you,” he explains, his voice lowered now that they are in each other’s space.
[Tristan]
It was nice to not have to be called on every moment of the day, not to have to worry, not to keep their cell phones on them 24-7 because something could and did go wrong so very often. They’ve learned to step back, to say no sometimes, to leave. the phones. downstairs. In fact, 99% of Tristan’s texting now has nothing to do with pack or the Eagles, but everything to do with random teasing of his husband while they both are at work, busy with their jobs, and only having little snatches of time to send a few letters here and there.

It’s nice.

Even when Tristan still shows up at the packhouse, it’s to do Decker’s laundry out of habit, and little else. Randi took over most of Tristan’s pack house duties, but she refused to touch Decker’s boxers. Can’t say as they blame her, and Tristan has stopped in once a week to make a laundromat run without fail. Even then, it’s quiet. The pack knows he still exists and is happy, and he’s not being called on 24-7 at the most inopportune moments.

The last of the days tension leaves Henry, and that laugh that he’ll never break himself off brings a soft grin to Tristan’s face as his fingers smooth Henry’s hair at the nap of his neck, blunt nails trailing lazily over his skin. “That’s convenient, as I’ve decided you ain’t ever gonna get rid of me. I’m rather crazy about you, too.”

So long as they get to keep Tristan for laundry purposes, he doesn’t suppose that it matters much to Decker and his crew if Henry never shows his face again.

That is, to be perfectly honest, the least of his worries right now. They’re standing together, and Tristan’s hand is in his hair, and Henry slides the ball out from between them to hold it under one of his cocked arms. He grins one of those rare teeth-displaying grins to showcase the full extent of his happiness, and slides his arm around Tristan’s waist to tug him in closer.

“Good,” he says.

But the Eagles have given them the greatest gift of all, the ability to live their lives close, protected, but without interference, and they really can’t ask for more than that.

And it’s nice. VERY nice. Being here on the rooftop, tugged closer to the man he loves more than life itself, despite the fact they were going to play basketball. Kissing is much more fun than basketball, truth be told, and so he captures Henry’s lips for a lingering second kiss, a promise of what is to come…

…then taps the basketball out of his arm, steals it and does an almost sorta ok attempt at a layup. The fact that the ball makes it into the net is much more luck than skill.

He must think that he is going to be able to just kiss Tristan, that maybe Tristan’s had enough fresh air and exercise and will want to go back inside. The next thing he knows, Tristan is galloping across the roof with the stolen ball and he himself is standing with a yearning in his chest.

“Hey!” he protests, trotting along after Tristan at a pace meant to catch up rather than lap, and when the ball miraculously makes it into the net, Henry catches the rebound and starts sprinting back down the ‘court,’ dribbling the ball as though it were an extension of himself.

The protest brings laughter, even as Henry sprints away with the rebound, much more gracefully than Tristan could ever manage. Henry is one with the ball. Tristan is much better suited playing with balls of another sort. But – he gives it the good college try and sprints after Henry, still laughing along the way. “Hey what?! It was my only chance to get in a point and you know it….”

Incorrigible, always.

In the beginning Henry used to blush with the slightest provocation. Tristan mentioning either of their genitalia, what they were or were not doing the night before or how much he loved visible parts of Henry’s anatomy were enough to make the older kinsman flush with color and try to hide the fact with a hand. That seems to have decreased in the last year or so, with Henry becoming desensitized to the younger man’s attempts to embarrass him, yet he can still be hit by being suddenly kissed or touched in public, or by speaking about what goes on in the bedroom when they are someplace in the building where they could potentially be heard.

That was his only chance to get in a point, and Henry takes a jump shot from what would be the center line if there were painted lines. It hits the backboard and just barely makes it into the basket: but he makes it nonetheless. Panting, as per the rules of the game, he stops running and lets Tristan retrieve the ball.

“You tire me out fast enough and you’ll get plenty of other opportunities to score,” Henry says, planting his hands on his hips and catching his breath.

He shakes his head, and grins over his shoulder at Henry. They do, in fact, lend truth to the addage that opposites attract. Henry, quiet and reserved and often hiding how he feels – and Tristan, who is the epitome of one wearing their emotions on their sleeve, no matter what they are. Hell, his fondest memory of Decker is when he deigned to give Tristan relationship advice about Henry. It still makes him laugh – not because it was bad advice, because it wasn’t, but because it came from DECKER of all people, and that was as close to acceptance as the Eagle Alpha would ever get.

Though he knows enough not to bring it up to Decker ever again. Ya just don’t push your luck with a Garou who can break you with his pinky in 15 different ways, without breaking a sweat.

But, back to the matter at hand, and the worry that Henry might tire out… a brow creeps upwards toward those curls, and then Tristan grins as he dribbles his way back toward his husband. “And you always said you were never too tired to score..”

They’re both getting sweaty, the temperature tonight being in the high 60s, and they’re both getting out of breath with all the running that Henry thought would do them both good. His hands slide up Tristan’s whip-thin arms and up his tense neck, into his spring-like curls, and he kisses him with more power and passion than they have exhibited yet this evening.

“I’m always ready for you,” Henry all but purrs, then makes an attempt to steal their battered ball.

“…HEY!” the protest that echoes Henry’s previous one as his husband purrs at him and steals the ball away. There’s no hope of his stopping that steal after a kiss and purr like that.

He gives chase, but it is hopeless, because he’s laughing in protest, despite the realization.. “You know, I kinda like this full contact version of basketball….”

Tristan can’t see the smile on Henry’s face as he gallivants across the roof, underneath the basketball net mounted on the side of one of the utility huts, and around the back. The hut creates an inverted L shaped where it connects with a generator that is dormant with the electricity to the building being on, and it is in the crook of the generator and the hut that Henry goes now.

Gasping for breath, he drops the basketball on the tarpaper roof and secures it in place with the bottom of one sneakered foot. That done, he reaches for the hem of his gray t-shirt and pulls it up to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, his hair flopping against his brow and in dire need of a trim. The move flashes everything between his hips and his sternum, a long line of light brown hair traveling the entire length of his midline.

When he looks back up and if Tristan hasn’t started towards him already, Henry beckons to him with a finger.

Henry beckons him closer, and that boyish grin reappears across pretty lips, and he moves from a walk to a jog to join him in that little crook between the hut and generator. He tips his head to wipe his brow against the shoulder and sleeve of his t-shirt, before joining his husband. He places hands on hips and arches a brow, his grin teasing and mischievous. “You beckoned?”

Henry takes Tristan by the hips now, guiding him to one side of the crook between the hut and the generator, 75% of his body hidden from view across the northern street by the generator and his entire being obscured by the utility hut on the west. With his back against the cool concrete of the hut, Tristan is pinned in place when Henry steps off of and away from the basketball to feast on his mouth again, breathing his air and calmly pawing at him with long, thin-fingered hands.

“Mm,” he says as he pulls his mouth away, kissing at the L of Tristan’s jaw, the throbbing carotid artery beneath the skin of his throat, the jab of his clavicle out of the sloping neck of his t-shirt. His hands are traveling up and down his sides, sliding over bony ribs and ridged abdominal muscles, and once he loses himself, pressing their lower bodies together as he slides his hands down the back of Tristan’s gym shorts.

“I love you,” he murmurs, quiet for their proximity to one another and not out of fear of being heard. If anyone is coming Tristan will be able to hear them in the stairwell, will see the roof access door cracking open where they have propped it that way with a cinder block. “God, I love you so much, babe…”

In the meantime, unless Tristan stops him Henry is going to his knees and taking Tristan’s shorts with him.

He slides his arms around is husband, without hampering the exploration of fingers sliding over ribs and abs, a little moan escaping as Henry pulls them tight together by way of skinny fingers down the back of his shorts. He leans forward to capture Henry’s lips again, to catch that murmured declaration of love, and reply only with lips and tongue in those bare seconds before Henry drops to his knees, taking his shorts with him.

Tristan, ever the more open and impulsive of the pair, has absolutely no intention of stopping Henry… in fact, it’s outright encouragement as he watches him, eyes twinkling with sparked passion and the purity of feeling Henry’s mere presence evokes. He slides his fingers through his husband’s hair, his voice a throaty moan… “I love you too…”

He listens to the cues coming from his husband’s breathing and his throat, he speeds up and slows down as is necessary, and it isn’t until he has decided that Tristan has had enough that he lets him have his release.

When it’s over, when Tristan is gasping for breath and spent, Henry wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and hitches his husband’s shorts back up, reaching for a hand to help him off of his knees: Tristan knows how bad his knees are from almost five years as a paramedic. He spends his life transitioning from sitting to standing to kneeling and back again, practically Catholic in his occupation.

“You’re corrupting me,” Henry says, pressing a kiss to Tristan’s cheek before adjusting the fall of curls on his husband’s temples.

Afterwards, as he fights for breath, and slowly finds himself earthbound after the heights of heaven his husband had lead him too, he can’t help but chuckle softly, breathlessly as he helps Henry up from his knees, having no problem lifting him from prone position with the aid of his own strength. He slides his arms around Henry and pulls him close, chuckling softly as he leans into that kiss against his cheek.

“I know. I should feel ashamed – yet strangely? I’m not….”