TW: tad bit of angst, mention of divorce, reader feels a bit insecure, henry is an ass but we’re working on him, brief mention of addiction/sobriety
A/N: Writing is hard but I’ve been working really hard on this so I wanted to share it even though there was really no point to the plot I just wanted to write for Henry. I have literally no posting schedule/writing schedule anymore. This takes place post Waltz in the Storm, only we’re gonna say Ann survived and took Annette and divorced Henry okay bye ily all so much.
...
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Your eyes are round and full of mixed emotions — trust, fear, maybe some excitement — as you grip the helmet shoved into your hands with a vice grip.
Henry watches you from the seat of the Harley he had bought with the money from the sale of his and Ann’s estate after the divorce. It’s ridiculous, really. Completely over the top, particularly for someone who was just making a comeback in their career and trying to get back to some sort of financial stability. “Just get the fuck on the bike and try to keep up with me, will you?” His tone leaves no room for argument, his face is playfully skeptical.
The red Harley Davidson motorcycle is “fully loaded” as the sales person had told the two of you as you made your way across the show room floor just a few days ago. It’s completely with heated grips and a backrest in the passenger’s seat and a full scale infotainment system for Henry to blast his favorite music between gps directions as he sees fit. He’d passed on the built in defensive driving mechanism and balked at the Milwaukee-Eight 114 engine and even sprung for the most expensive of saddlebags. Hell, he’d even told you he was planning on getting the leather embroidered with his initials.
Did this surprise you? No, not in the slightest.
Henry is eccentric.
It’s your default response to the questions and comments and concerns expressed by each member of your social circle from the moment you’d mentioned that you’d been seeing someone. Questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how and worries about whether or not someone who shined so bright would be good for you and whether it would even work.
Honestly, you ask yourself the same thing almost every day. If you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t be able to see it.
He asks himself how you can see it every time he wakes up to your hair spread across his pillows.
Back to the matter at hand. You. Him. Big scary motorcycle.
You turn your feet inward almost absentmindedly, standing pigeon toed and letting your shoulders tense up as he kicks off the bike with an exaggerated groan and comes to stand in front of you. “I’ve never done this before.”
Henry pulls off his own helmet, tosses it to rest on the seat, and smiles knowingly at you. “That’s never stopped you before.”
“Shut up.”
“Ann never —”
Your eyebrows furrowed and your lips parted just a bit. It was the one thing he continuously did even a year and a half into your relationship that made you lose your mind. He stops mid sentence when he sees the disappointment on your face.
“I’m not Ann.” You say, trying so, so hard to not ruin the night. He’d been waiting for a break in the much needed rain falling over LA county for the past week to take you out and show you a good time. Try as you might, your lips start to tremble ever so slightly and you let the helmet clatter to the ground, beyond frustrated with him. With yourself even?
He rushes forward, hands all over you and your face before you can even bend at the waist to pick up the discarded the mixture of plastic and fiberglass at your feet. “I didn’t mean it.”
“You did it again.”
“But I didn’t mean it.” Henry says, pleads with you. His brown eyes convey the honest to goodness truth of it all and you know he’s good for his word. He really didn’t mean to.
The past year was tumultuous, everyone knew that. Finding Ann stranded at sea on the coast just ten miles away from where Annette slept safely on board the yacht with her father. The accusations, the words thrown like daggers. The bliss and fervor and passion of their early days slipping away faster than vinegar leaves the bottle when you pour it, the whole ordeal just as sharp and bitter to taste.
You’d been introduced to it just as the papers had been served to Henry’s modest home that had been inhabited for six months before Ann had made her final decision.
He’s grateful for your loyalty and tells you that much just about every day. There isn’t a day where you doubt his love for you — how could you when you watch him work on himself in therapy and in the gym and with the way he tosses his cigarettes to the side and limits himself to a carton a week somehow?
However, the one thing you had zero tolerance for was being compared to Ann.
Henry bites his tongue as he looks at you. He represses the urge to yell and ask why it always has to be about you, why you always have to nit pick when he does something you don’t care for. He takes a deep breath and focuses on the feel of your skin and how it’s almost as if it’s a balm for all of the negative emotions and thoughts crammed into his head. He reminds himself that you aren’t doing anything wrong by calling him out on this, that it’s appropriate to. Rather than lash out, he takes a deep breath and says the words he had been working so, so hard to work into his vocabulary in sincerity over the past year. “I’m sorry.”
The apology rings through your ears and settles in your mind. You sit with it for a moment and think about the Henry you had heard of prior to meeting him — the violent outbursts, the juxtaposition of his drinking and smoking habits in conjunction with his almost militant like work out routine. The selfishness and the narcissism and the screaming.
Your brow knits together as you process his words. “You’re sorry?” The words felt foreign on your own tongue, you couldn’t imagine how he must feel.
He nods slowly, giving you a once over as his cheeks begin to heat up. “I’m really, really sorry.” Henry promises, swears it. “It’s force of habit and that doesn’t make it right. I’m sorry. I’m working on that.”
You nod after the last word leaves his lips and you’re reminded of the fact that, yes, he is working on it. He’s working on a lot of things and you remind yourself that the whole reason he bought the bike was to celebrate one year of sobriety. With bated breath, you stand on your toes and kiss his cheek bone gingerly, an acknowledgement in it of itself. You know Henry doesn’t need your words.
Henry leans down and kisses your forehead, then crouches and grabs your helmet. He stays close to the ground for a long moment and falls to his knees. He buries his face in the fabric of your shirt and rests his arms just around the small of your back, memorizing the feel of holding you and relishing in the way your hands almost automatically move to thread through his hair, no longer matted from neglect and back to its usual thickness and shine.
After a few moments of silence, you pull back just a bit to look at him. “I’m proud of you.” You whisper, eyes shining with a mixture of emotion.
His own eyes bore into your face, always working on committing whatever it was he was currently feeling to memory. “Thank you for helping me.”
A smile breaks out on your face and you shrug before leaning down and kissing his temple. “Always.” You murmur. “Now, will you please get me on the bike? Show me what I’ve been missing all these years.”
Henry smiles, the expression of satisfaction much wider than your own flash of your teeth. “You sure?” He asked, repeating your words from just a few minutes prior back to you.
“I’m sure.” You respond while trying to suppress the giggle that threatened to bubble past your lips at his teasing. You can’t help but cackle as he all but drags you to the bike and helps you put on the helmet, letting you inspect the bike before hopping on. When you finally straddle the seat, his left hand comes to rest over your arms, now looped around his waist and hanging on for dear life, before he hits the ignition and punches it, riding off in pure bliss and leaving the events of the past year behind, as it should be.
