Hello:D just spilling my Henry thoughts
I really like the idea of Henry meeting a more optimistic reader and not liking their energy at first, lashing out towards them when they try to get a little too close or help him. But then slowly falling for the reader so he gets a little softer. Letting his guard down, finally allowing himself to be loved, and becoming putty in their hands.
Fire Escape
(Henry Letham x Neighbour! Reader)
2005, JANUARY The rain was the same as always: thin but relentless, turning the narrow streets into mirrors of grey sky. You’d stepped onto the fire escape for some air, stifled by the pre-storm humidity in your eighth-floor apartment, when you noticed him already there above you, leaning mindlessly against his own fire escape with a cigarette burning down between his fingers.
Henry Letham, the brooding artist from upstairs whose grungy nineties music sometimes bled through the walls at 3am, not that you minded: you liked knowing someone else was awake if you couldn’t sleep.
Henry snapped out of his trance as his cigarette burned his finger. As he looked down to take a drag, he caught sight of movement below, and the unusual sound of footsteps on metal. His hair flopped into his eyes as he peered down at you. You nodded politely up at him, giving him a cordial smile and a small wave. “Ok if I sit down here?” He eyed you cautiously, then returned his gaze ahead of him, watching the cars pass like he didn't care if you lived or died. “Do what you want.” You didn't reply, almost taken aback by how rude he was— even for a New Yorker. You scoffed and turned away to sit with your back to your flat. With your knees drawn up, you opened the book in your lap and began to read.
The silence stretched lengthily, the sound of light traffic and wheels on wet concrete making you forget there was anyone near you at all. Until, after a few minutes, the man above you exhaled sharply and you saw a cigarette butt fly over the edge of the fire escape. “You’re new." He said it like a statement rather than a question, though you were certain he was looking for a response. You stopped reading and dog-eared the page, twisting around so you could speak to him without craning your neck. “I guess," you replied. He just looked on ahead at the road as if he'd never spoken in the first place. "I...moved in last month?” You were unsure how he didn't know somebody was occupying the apartment below him. He glanced back down, blue eyes sharp and guarded like he was waiting for something else.
You learned then that Henry didn’t do platitudes: he grunted and returned to his apartment; you stayed out and read.
FEBRUARY You never pushed to speak to Henry after that— he seemed depressed, self-loathing, a bit of an energy vampire— but at the very least he knew you were there. Since January, you had spoken to him twice: that one time on the balcony, and the one time you offered him soup after you heard him coughing for three straight days.
You told yourself it wasn’t your business: he was a grown man that chose to smoke a pack of day, and who was also kind of an asshole, if you were being honest. You almost talked yourself out of it, but the coughing continued as you began to turn around, raw and miserable, and something stubborn in you won. Some people aren't happy enough to be kind; others just don't know how. You weren't sure which category Henry fit into, but you knew that the only way to combat either of them was to be kind in turn.
If all other philosophy failed, at least the soup would stop him from coughing so madly late at night that it woke you up.
Thus, you found yourself standing in front of his apartment door on the ninth floor, tupperware warm in your hands and feeling increasingly heavy. You knocked: it took a long time for him to answer. When the door finally opened, Henry looked better than you expected, even as pale and unshaven as he was. He was wearing a long-sleeved jumper and dark jeans, hair falling once again into his face. He blinked at you like he was trying to remember who you were. "What?" You cleared your throat. “I, uh, heard you coughing from downstairs.” You lifted the container to his eye line. “Thought this might help." Henry stared at the Tupperware for a moment, expression unreadable. You furrowed your eyebrows, confused by his silence. "My coughing interrupting your beauty sleep?" he accused. You weren't sure how to reply to this. You were a little annoyed, but you don't know what you expected based on your first interaction. “You don’t have to take it,” you scoffed, “I just figured... better than coughing up a lung. Whatever."
As you began to turn away, Henry grabbed the container from your hands, eyes never leaving yours. His long fingers brushed your own: they were surprisingly warm. Then, he stepped back into his apartment and slammed the door, the frame rattling in its wake. You stood there, stunned, staring at the peeling paint on his door. Right. Of course. You turned to leave, sighing, when the door opened again. You spun around to find Henry stood there, one hand on the knob, looking forlorn. "Thanks,” he said, voice hoarse, chewing his bottom lip. You blinked. “Sure." He closed the door again, gently this time.
Henry thought that he hated your small kindnesses at first, your pitying glances and delivering of his mail when it got posted through your letterbox instead of his. He hated even more the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about you, and how much he looked forward to seeing you. He found himself on the fire escape more often, smoking more often as an excuse to be out there. He felt sick when you didn't come out; he felt sick when you did.
On the afternoons where you did venture onto your make-shift balcony, you rarely exchanged more than a few words with Henry. A week after you'd visited him at his door, you asked how the soup was. He had said "good," and handed you back the tupperware. You'd leaned up to grab it from his fire escape, and he'd taken great pleasure in the brushing of his fingers against yours. He wished he had more stuff of yours to give back.
You didn't know it, but this tiny bi-weekly conversation acted as a dog-ear in the story of his life, a sort of oiling-of-the-engine that kept him going for days between seeing you.
MARCH In the dim light of his apartment, surrounded by half-finished canvases and scattered sketches, Henry found his hand moving across the page without permission: your profile on the fire escape, the way your fingers curled around a mug, the quiet set of your shoulders when you were holding your own. Something about drawing what was around Henry gave him control over it— that's what he told himself.
He also told himself that he despised your behaviour, and that's why he couldn't stop thinking about it: the way you refused to flinch at his oddities, or run from his awkwardness, or— even worse— fill the silence with empty optimism. You just took everything in stride. It unsettled him more than any fake cheer ever could because it felt real, and it wasn't safe to get attached to real.
APRIL The day things shifted, you had locked yourself out of your flat at 1am. You sank to the floor with your back against the wall, eyes closed, breathing measured, enduring the fact you'd done something really stupid. Fuck. You'd never thought to buy a mobile phone, so you'd have to wait hours until you could ask a neighbour to use their phone and call a locksmith.
Henry, ever the night owl, came up the stairs an hour afterward, and stopped short at the sight of you crumpled by your own doorway in your pyjamas, looking rather pitiful with your head in your hands, asleep. You didn’t realise someone was there and he suddenly felt quite protective, then irritated: who the fuck falls asleep in a hallway in New York? You're just asking to get mugged.
Henry stood frozen for a few minutes, fists clenching and unclenching, unsure whether to wake you up and tell you to move, or to invite you into his apartment and offer you his bed. The sharp retort of his thoughts died on his tongue as he opened his mouth to speak, and something like a friendly quip came through instead. “What's with the endurance act?” Your eyes shot open, surprised you'd managed to fall asleep in such an uncomfortable place. You blinked up at him: he towered over you, so you once again craned your head up to see him. You really weren't in the mood to deal with Henry, tonight. “Locked myself out,” you sighed sleepily, letting your head drop back onto the door behind you. "Need me to move so you can get past?"
Henry hummed, stalling, then slid down the wall beside you. You tensed up: he was closer than he’d ever been to you before. Your shoulders brushed but you didn’t pull away, and the contact sent something odd through his chest— fear, maybe relief. He wasn't sure anymore. He hadn't felt anything but anger in a while. "That blows."
You opened one eye and peered at him out of your peripheral vision. Was this actually Henry? Keeping you company? Empathising with you? You turned your head fully to look at him, unsure whether he was being serious or not. You couldn't help but smile when you saw that he was soaking wet, hair dripping into his eyes. "Jesus, where've you been?" you scoffed. Henry completely ignored your question and swiped the hair out of his eyes, pushing it back over his scalp. “I’ve been a dick to you,” he muttered, charcoal-stained fingers flexing at his sides as he looked down at his knees. “On purpose. Every time you came around. I hate being pitied, and I know I don't help myself." You kept your gaze on his side profile, wishing he'd meet your eyes. "I don't pity you, Henry," you smiled, turning away. "I actually kind of think you're an asshole."
You swore you could see a grin tugging at Henry's mouth, so often down-turned or pulled straight in anger that you barely recognised it. "Yeah, well," he began, "I'd still rather that than pity."
You sat together chatting about your lives for the first time ever until you fell back asleep. Your head lolled onto Henry's shoulder, and he wasn't sure what to do. Henry didn't want you to see his depressive flat, covered in dirty dishes and take out bags, so he didn't invite you back. Instead, he stayed with you until the sun came up, disappearing at 5am when light came through the hallway windows and he was sure you wouldn't get mugged.
MAY After that, the walls came down quickly. He started painting on the fire escape instead of just smoking and wondering whether he'd die if he jumped. You’d sit below him, on your fire escape with your book as he sketched, no expectation of conversation there. Henry would glance over and feel the knot in his chest loosen just a little.
One afternoon, Henry got brave. You'd been doing this little routine for a few weeks now, and he found himself craving the contact of your shoulder that he'd felt that one night. "Can you... come up here and tell me if this line is straight?" he called down, so quietly you weren't sure if you'd really heard it. You smiled up at him, dog eared your book, and made your way up the half-flight of stairs to his fire escape: you'd still never been up here, yet, let alone into his apartment to see his art.
Henry stepped back, fiddling in his pockets for a cigarette and a lighter as you peered at the canvas facing the street: a beautiful charcoal sketch of the landscape before you— tall buildings, taxis, people below all effortlessly on paper. You couldn't help but gasp. "Henry.... that's— that's fucking fantastic!" Henry preened quietly next to you, practically purring with the attention. He hid it well, smiling to himself into his cigarette as you leaned forward to view every detail of the canvas. "Is it— is it straight?" "Oh, right, sorry. Which line?" you squinted at the page.
As you admired his work, he admired you; he absorbed the profile he'd drawn so many times, the downstairs neighbour he found himself drawn to without explanation. As you turned back toward Henry to give him your feedback, he felt like time had slowed down: your lips were moving but he couldn't hear you speaking. "I think it looks fine, but maybe I'm—" Before you could finish your sentence, Henry had plucked the barely-smoked cigarette from his lips with a pop, flicked it over the fire escape, and strode forward toward you to grasp your face between his charcoal-smudged palms. He kissed you with something like a fury, a passion driven by confusion and curiosity for why he felt this way.
Before you could even begin to lean into the kiss, to part your lips to make way for his tongue, Henry pulled away, resting his forehead against yours. "Henry—" you began, chest heaving as you gripped his jumper. He stayed close, thumbs still brushing over your cheeks, charcoal smudges streaking your skin. His eyes were almost frantic as they searched your face. “I don’t know why I did that,” he said, “I just… fuck. I needed to try.” He swallowed hard. “Don’t ask me to explain it because I can’t. I just know that when you come around, I feel a little less like eating a bullet.” Henry’s breath trembled against your lips as he leaned in again, slower this time, giving you the chance to pull away. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered, “and I will.”
You didn't dignify that with an answer.
JUNE Weeks blurred together, but losing time with Henry was always welcome. Henry sought you out on the bad nights, and so you learned all about his near-fatal car crash, his survivor's guilt, and the therapy he'd been trying to make work.
He never seemed to use the front door, perhaps worried that it'd throw your routine off balance. He'd jump down the fire escape, cigarette hanging between his lips, and knock softly at your window, worried that he was bothering you. Every time, he would end up with his head in your lap on the worn couch in your apartment, your fingers threading gently through his hair while the static in his mind quieted. He’d close his eyes and whisper things he’d never told anyone. “You scare me,” he admitted one night, voice muffled against your thigh. "Yeah?" you whispered back in the darkness. "Yeah. I think it's easier to want to die for someone than want to live for them."
As you mulled it over, your fingers stopped tracing in his hair. He peered up at you, snapping you out of his trance when he softly took your hand and placed it to his chest, instead. "You're a good guy, Henry. You're really good." You leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to his temple.
Nowadays, he’s completely undone; he’s putty in your hands, soft in ways he never thought he could be. He takes your suggestions to eat more, to take his medication, to cool it on the smoking, and he runs with them; his apartment isn't a shithole, most of the time— not in the way it used to be, anyway. He feels like you freed up some space inside of him, and now he's got the bandwidth to care about something bigger than his past: his future.
When your own issues come knocking, he doesn’t hesitate to pull you into his apartment and wrap his arms around you from behind, burying his face in your neck. “We’ll sit with it,” he murmurs, breath warm against your skin. "Hmm? We'll just sit with it."
His art changed, too. The shadows are still there, of course, but light creeps in more often than not, now: water colours capture the way he feels about you better than charcoals do, he finds.