Chapter Text
When Henry Hidgens woke up, head spinning and dizzy, still sore and achy from the night before, he didn’t remember anything.
That is, until he realized that he was laying with his nose pressed against someone else’s neck, his arms around their waist.
And, well, he could feel his bare body against the other person’s. His hands resting low, pressing their ass against him. The bruises on his neck, on both of their necks. The light scratches down the other person’s back.
It didn’t take a genius to realize what had happened last night.
“What the fuck?”
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
“Ted.” Henry stammered, pulling away from him, immediately regretting the lack of warmth as a blast of cold air hit his bare chest. He pulled the blanket up to cover his chest, breathing quickly. “Fuck. Fuck, what did we…?”
Ted turned around, and Henry saw a dark bruise blossoming just below his Adam’s apple, which, he realized with a start, that he had done that.
...which really, shouldn’t have made heat begin to pool in his stomach, but it did.
“I,” Ted sighed, reaching up to brush his fingers against the bruise, “I think that’s exactly what we did.”
“Fuck.” Henry ran a hand through his hair, which was tangled and completely and utterly fucked up. Like him, he supposed. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I… I wasn’t thinking, and---”
Ted laughed. “Bro, don’t worry about it. I think we just needed to blow off some steam, am I right?”
Sure. Sure, that’s totally what it was. It wasn’t just that Henry had been longing for any contact with the other man, or that he was more than a little in love with Ted.
Instead, he grimaced. “You just fucked me. Please, for the love of god, do not call me “bro”.”
***
It had been a little over an hour since the two of them woke up. A little over an hour of pure, after-sex awkwardness.
A little over an hour of Ted wondering how he felt about the whole experience.
He’d been applying a piece of ice to the hickies on his neck, the most visible ones, trying to get the swelling and color to go down at least a little bit, and laying in his room, thinking.
Just… thinking.
***
“Ted, I don’t know… how to go from here.” Henry admitted, his hair falling over his eyes as he glanced down, now somewhat dressed in a pair of boxers and a huge T-shirt with a stupid science pun on it. “We weren’t in the right headspace.”
Ted found himself nodding, looking anywhere but at the other man. He could still feel that tension, like a rubber band bound to snap, with the pure potential to hurt someone.
Knowing his history, Ted figured he would be the one getting hurt. It was practically inevitable, all his flings and relationships and hell, even just hookups had ended badly.
“Can we…” Ted asked, but paused. Holding his breath, like something was going to happen and shut him up for real. “Can we just. Pretend this never happened?”
***
Ted didn’t regret it. He didn’t regret any of it, which, if he was honest, scared the shit out of him. This wasn’t any of his usual hookups, he knew that.
Shit, there was bound to be some deep, repressed longing somewhere, right? After all, no one drunkenly hooks up with someone who they’ve been dreaming about for days now.
He shifted, and winced, almost immediately. His hips ached--he wasn’t as young as he used to be, his joints sure as fuck told him that, but dammit.
...dammit.
***
Henry pulled on a sweater.
That was how he started his days, typically, with a shower, then a sweater.
But this sweater wasn’t his. And he wasn’t going to shower.
Not just yet.
The sweater had been left on the floor of his bedroom sometime the previous night. It wasn’t one of his usual pullovers, or hell, even a buttoned cardigan. It was some shapeless, fuzzy, blanket-like… thing, that no one in their right mind would even consider wearing out of the house.
And it didn’t belong to Hidgens. Not that.
So why, once Ted had left the room, frantically pulling on his pajama pants and t-shirt and leaving a still-naked and groggy Henry laying in his bed, he’d gotten up to fetch the sweater and pull it on, Henry had absolutely no clue.
It smelled like Ted, Henry noted.
He remembered the smell, which normally wouldn’t be romantic and make something in his chest flutter, but he did. The smell of Ted’s shampoo mixed with the sweat still matting his hair to his head. The taste of his lips and his skin still lingered, which, again, should have been gross.
It really fucking wasn’t. In fact, it was perfect.
...he really was into this idiot, wasn’t he?