[Henry Allard] It had come out of nowhere.
They were driving home from meeting with Imogen, Tristan commanding the 18-year-old truck that Henry hasn’t been able to sell since he left Wisconsin, never mind the fact that the entire engine and everything else that could possibly be removed has been transplanted at least once, when Henry suddenly pointed out a Best Western on North Broadway and said, “Pull in here.”
There weren’t a great deal of rooms vacant this time of day, but check-in was at 2:00PM and it’s well past by the time they pull in. They’re given a room with a king bed and smoking accommodations, Henry doesn’t tell Tristan how much it is, and they aren’t inside the room more than ten seconds before Henry is throwing the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the exterior knob, locking every single lock on the door, and tugging Tristan towards the bed.
And the desk chair.
And the shower.
The sun is hanging heavy in the sky now, threatening to dip down, and Henry is still in the shower, resting his forehead against the tile and letting the water saturate his skin. He’s sore and spent and yet somehow strangely rejuvenated, but he isn’t speaking. He’s just breathing, and reaching back for Tristan if he’s still there.
[Tristan Stern] Tristan was chuckling as he left the private moment with Imogen. Something she had said as he walked out the door broke through, and gave him an honest moment of amusement, one that was sorely needed. Imogen, despite her ways or because of them, is good medicine.
He’d driven, and did not question the decision to pull into the motel, get a room, and abuse it thoroughtly for a few hours. The bed. The desk chair. The shower. Everything but the floor, truth be told, because who knows what that floor has seen. [As if it could be worse than what they, themselves, have seen.] There is no complaint – in fact he’s just as sore and spent as his husband.
His husband who still isn’t speaking, but is hogging the hot water as he breathes. He reaches back to see if Tristan is still there, and finds soap slicked skin, and a willing form moving closer, wrapping strong arms around his husband and holding him close. Lips rest against the back of his neck, briefly, curls tugged almost straight under the amount of water they hold tickling Henry’s skin as Tristan rests his forehead against the bony shoulder of the man he’d give his life for, over and over again.
He breaks the silence, with a soft chuckle. “Better?”
[Henry Allard] Henry had not been silent this entire time they’ve been making love. Even if it was just the silent sounds of exertion as he was on Tristan’s lap, or crying out when he tightened his legs around him on the bed, he’s been there and vocal; there are bite marks on both of their biceps and shoulders from where he has tried and failed to keep himself silent. This is a nice motel. It’s in a quiet part of town, and there is green everywhere, and later Henry is going to want to go for a walk, but right now he is coming down from rough, breath-taking coupling with his husband.
Pulling Tristan closer, he runs his hand up and down his husband’s slick side as the younger man holds him.
That’s when the silence breaks, and Tristan asks if he’s better.
The answer comes after a shaking breath, after salt water that Tristan doesn’t see: Henry folds his once-broken arm, the one attached to a recently dislocated shoulder, under his eyes and sobs, dissolving into tears for the first time since he woke from that nightmare yelling for his father.
“I’m sorry,” he says, with more inflection in his voice than Tristan has heard in days, but he doesn’t stop crying. It just escalates.
[Tristan Stern] Henry dissolves into tears that Tristan can’t see, but can feel working it’s way up through his torso, shaking the back that Tristan holds firmly, pulling him tight into all the safety that two arms can give. He’s strong – strong enough to hold Henry up when the sobs overtake him, strong enough to hold his husband close and to let him sob as long as he needs too. He’s strong enough to know that Henry needs this more than he does anything else, and to give him exactly what he does need. Strong enough to keep himself together – for the both of them.
“I know.” is what he eventually says. He doesn’t promise that it’ll be alright, that everything will be ok, because he can’t promise that and Henry knows it. Instead, by being there, the promise remains that he won’t go anywhere, that nothing will keep him from his husband’s side, no matter how much it seems the world will try and pull them apart, to reclaim their favorite punching bag.
He just holds him close, offering his strength to hold his lover up while his has faltered, his lips pressed light against the back of Henry’s neck. “I know.”
[Henry Allard] Henry doesn’t stay turned away from Tristan for very long. He never does. When those strong arms fold around his deceptively thin torso, Henry nearly wipes out whirling around to throw his arms around his husband’s body and bury his face in that neck he had been adoring with his mouth minutes ago.
He sounds exhausted, and he cries so hard that it’s a wonder he isn’t going to fall apart under the weight of whatever it is that has driven him to this point. Henry hadn’t cried in earnest since the day that Richard karate chopped his cast, when he spent an inordinate amount of time vomiting and trying to pull himself back together on the bathroom floor while everyone else gave Richard the cold shoulder.
Like everything else in this world, like everything bad that batters at them and tries to corrode the strength that they have offered each other in turn, it ends. Henry does not cry forever. A few minutes is as long as his breakdown lasts, even without his forcing himself back into orderly compliance, and when it’s over he takes a shuddering breath, sniffs the moisture out of his sinuses, and rests his brow against Tristan’s jaw.
“When I said ‘As long as we both shall live,'” he says, still teary but no longer falling apart, “I didn’t… I didn’t mean until I was thirty-one.” He pulls away to look Tristan in the eye as he speaks; his eyes, quietly red, have turned a painfully vivid green from his tears. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t…”
He’s going to break down again if he doesn’t stop talking.
[Tristan Stern] Henry nearly knocks them both over, but Tristan simply redistributes his weight to catch his husband at the end of his spin, and hold him tightly as he cries. He lets one hand brace against the back of the shower until they’ve settled back into balance, then wraps that arm just as tightly around Henry as he can, holding him close and offering every bit of strength his lean frame can give.
The tears never last long, and the admission afterwards has Tristan taking a long, shuddering breath. He meets those green eyes evenly, his own impossibly dark and almost impossible to read anything other than the naked worry he doesn’t bother to hide. “I know.”
A pause, and then he takes Imogen’s advice, advice that matched his own, that he was hoping to pull a quick one on his husband and MOVE to the beach instead of just find one and get their feet wet in the ocean. Tristan can make a living anywhere, by violin or his cooking skills. Henry can too, especially if they find a place where being a paramedic means laying around until someone gets heatstroke. What he says though, is simply. “I know. As soon as we have clearance, we’re going to the ocean. And if we like it, we’re not coming back.”
If there’s anything in him that hates the idea of leaving Chicago, the Eagles, his friends – it doesn’t show. He has one concern. Henry. And Saving Henry’s Life.
[Henry Allard] “What–“
Henry’s hand, soapy and strong despite the weakness that he feels cutting to the core of him now, reaches up to touch Tristan’s face. They’ve been together for over two years now. They’ve seen each other through some of the darkest moments of their lives, have almost died trying to keep each other safe, have stuck their necks out for each other, and the fact that Tristan is talking about leaving–not running: neither of them would ever run away from their responsibilities here, no matter how frequently one of them practices–doesn’t have Henry hopeful, or excited, or relieved.
He looks confused.
“Babe…” Swallowing the confusion out of his throat, frowning, he slides his hand around the back of Tristan’s head, sodden curls draping over his bony wrist and his fingers disappearing under the curtain of dark hair, and he holds him with the other.
The idea of leaving a place he had called home clearly doesn’t bother Henry for his own sake. Shit, the man left home when he was seventeen. He wasn’t old enough to take out a loan by himself, he wasn’t old enough to vote, he couldn’t buy cigarettes or pornography, but shy, goofy-looking Hank Allard was able to get himself back on his feet and independent in a city that has been trying to drive him insane lately. He sobbed as though he were truly bottoming out just now but Henry forgets how strong he is sometimes.
Now is one of those times, but he isn’t dwelling on himself right now. Tristan is talking about leaving his friends, his pack, his family behind for him, and Henry’s confusion is sublimating into concern.
“No… I’m sorry, I’ll…”
He has to stop himself from using words of his father’s, from telling Tristan that he’ll ‘buck up.’ This isn’t the goddamn military, even if there is a war going on.
“I didn’t mean to fall apart on you. We don’t have to leave.”
[Tristan Stern] “Shhh…” he says. Henry forgets that Tristan moved around his entire life. He left home after high school, he took to the road, traveled the entire length and width of the Continental US, and didn’t settle down again until a chance meeting with a scruffy gnawer who he… well, let’s tell the truth, fell in love with, and loved intensely through years of unrequited agony right up until James left. And then he met Henry, and the past two years have been nothing but bliss, distracted occasionally by the Nation.
“Shhh. Home is where you are. Not the Eagles, not Paulo, not the guys at the station. Home is where you are. And if I let you stay here for me, then losing you will be my fault. Losing you is not an option. And just because we move away for a while doesn’t mean we’re never coming back. Paulo’s taught me well – between that and my violin, we can make a good living anywhere. Though I’m taking Imogen’s advice…”
He doesn’t say that ALL of this was his own idea mirrored in Imogen’s advice – “and getting you a damn treadmill for the living room.” It’s said in obvious tease, and now Henry knows exactly what had Tristan chuckling as he left the cafe earlier.
[Henry Allard] “A treadmill is such a good idea,” Henry breathes, laughing the reluctant laugh of a man at the end of his rope, scratching Tristan’s scalp not like a puppy but like someone beloved and strong. A moment later he lets his eyes fall shut and rests his forehead against his husband’s, simply existing with him as he digests what he’s just been told.
Imogen’s wanting to speak to Tristan couldn’t have just been to tell Tristan to have Henry buy a treadmill. At first he had to have been thinking that it was to talk about Eagles business, that it had absolutely nothing to do with him, but now that he is taking longer than two seconds to think about it it appears to be dawning on Henry what they were talking about.
It doesn’t sit well with him, but he sighs and kisses his husband on the mouth a moment later anyway. Calming green eyes open again to reveal that some of the balancing gray in their coloration is returning, and he tightens his arm around Tristan’s waist.
He sniffs, pulls his head back enough to give them room to see each other, and asks, “How are we going to go anywhere if Thornton thinks they’ll arrest me if they think I’m a flight risk?”
[Tristan Stern] He moans softly at the fingers in his hair. He’s always been a man of few words, and a lot of physical contact. A small touch here, a slide of fingers through hair there, a clasp of hands, a hug, a kiss, even a slap on the ass. He’s a creature of touch, and reacts to the same with the contentment of a beloved and strong man… with an overly optimistic view of life.
“Don’t worry. We weren’t talking about you behind your back or anything. Imogen is concerned. She was with me when I talked to Thornton. That’s all.” And if Imogen is concerned enough to actually say something? There you go. “As for the how, we’re going to have to wait for them to give us the all clear. Hopefully that won’t take too long. It will, however, give us time to decide where we’re headed, and start to get things in motion.”
A pause, and then he lifts a brow. “You wanted to see the ocean. How do you feel about the Jersey Shore?” And that should ease the worry of Tristan leaving his family, as it puts him closer than ever to his sister, Andrea. Not to mention they’re leagally married there.
[Henry Allard] How does he feel about the Jersey Shore.
“Jersey?” Henry teases, smiling for the first time all day, making him look younger as it softens his physical appearance. The man would be fending off females left and right if he weren’t so reserved, if he didn’t keep his personality hidden behind a high wall.
That teasing is capped with a slow, lingering kiss a moment later, the lanky paramedic sharing breath with his husband as the thought of getting out of Chicago starts to sink into that thick skull of his. They would be leaving behind both of their jobs, both of their friends, both of their lives in order to try and get back on some sort of solid ground… they would be further away from Petra but closer to Andrea, and they would be in some semblance of safe territory with the state of New Jersey being the one that granted them their civil union.
Chicago has a statute that flat-out banned same-sex marriage, after all. They have had to go through hoops making sure that if anything ever happened to Henry that Tristan would have his health benefits and would receive widow’s compensation from the fire department, that if anything ever happened to Tristan that Henry would be recognized as his next of kin and his emergency contact. It hasn’t been easy here, but in New Jersey they would have rights similar to those enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.
They could buy a house out there. They can’t afford a house in Chicago. They’ll have to rent for the rest of their lives. They could think about–
“I liked New Jersey,” he says, when the kiss ends. “How do you feel about it?”
[Tristan Stern] Henry teases, and Tristan relaxes, just a touch. He’d been wracking his brains trying to figure out how to bring it up without it seeming like an accusation, a final straw, a demand. To hear the tease makes him smile, and that kiss is met with a relieved touch, a lingering joy in the simple act of kissing his husband.
They would leave much behind, but would gain a new world, a new lease of life, a new chance for Henry to get strong again, lest the Nation invade their lives there as well. It gives them a chance, which is something Chicago is making near impossible over the last few months.
“I like Jersey.”
It’s where he met James. It’s where he stopped running. It’s where he settled down to be closer to Mama Grace, to Andrea, while still having the distinction of being one state away. (…Over a bridge. Such a long distance…) They’d be farther from Petra, but she could visit anytime, just as Andrea has here, in the reverse. “As long as you promise not to grow a mullet, and singing Springstein songs…”
[Henry Allard] Henry bursts not into tears this time but into contented laughter, looking at his husband with a baffled yet delighted expression on his face as he makes him promise not to grow a mullet or start singing Springsteen songs. His fingers start moving in Tristan’s hair again, and his gaze softens into something pleased, and even a little proud, as he watches the man he’s chosen, the man he’s promised on more than one occasion to be with until they are both so old they’re wiping dribble off of each others’ mouths out on the front porch rocking chairs and fighting over the remote control at night.
He wants that. And he can’t have it here. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Henry can handle mortal city life, and Henry can handle slight demands from the Nation, but he cannot handle both and is dropping everything in an attempt to juggle his friends, his work and his duties on top of being a husband.
If he weren’t completely frazzled he never would have cried like he did just a few minutes ago. That he had told Tristan he was losing it weeks ago, that he told him again now that he just can’t do this anymore, is the closest he has come to trusting and accepting Tristan into his life than he has ever come with anyone else. What might have happened if he had just kept this to himself and not admitted he needed help is too blood-chilling to consider for very long.
“You mean that isn’t an entrance requirement?” he asks. “I don’t have to grow out the back of my hair and profess my love for Bon Jovi before they’ll let us buy a house and stay there?”
[Tristan Stern] “A house?” He considers this, and then laughs. “I said no Springstein. I said NOTHING about cutting out Bon Jovi!” And he leans back, unwinding his long arms to spread them wide, letting Henry hold him still as he belts at a barely respectable….
“Shot DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN in a BLAAAAAAAAAAZE of GLOOOOOOOOOORY!”
….oh dear. The things one learns after 2 years of being together….
And under it all is the determination, the contentment of a decision having been made. Now that it has, there’s only the need to put it into motion. They can handle anything – as long as they are together, and as long as Henry can once again grow strong. He cannot do that in Chicago. It’s time to find a place where he can.
[Henry Allard] [And wrap!]