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“Stop staring, you creep”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Henry turned around, hiding his head between his bare shoulders, hands holding the Fredbear head just above the small table they had placed in the storage room once they had had enough of discarding their precious machines on the floor like garbage. “What if the dust triggers the springlocks?” “There has to be some piece of furniture able to fit here, for fuck’s sake.”
It had turned out that yes, there was. The room was even smaller, but it had to do.
Placing the mask on said table, Henry was now looking over his shoulder, sceptically eyeing William through his lashes. William, however, was facing the door, caught in the movement of taking off the Bonnie costume and only turning around when he was done undressing from his waist up.
He carefully laid the suit on the scarce wooden surface, wearing the most unnerving poker face Henry had ever seen. When William finally had the decency to acknowledge Henry’s demand of attention, he let his blue eyes bore into the other man, a concerned look taking over the shape of his eyebrows.
“You okay, Henry?”
Was Henry okay? That was a great question. Henry was, overall, quite contempt. The restaurant had been doing great so far, and the public had loved that last show they had just put on. They had managed to do… all of that, and was having a little trouble processing it still, at times. It was too good to be true.
But, was he okay, at the moment? He had frozen in place, piercing his accusatory gaze through William’s skull for a good minute now, and now that he had finally gotten his attention he had almost forgotten why he had been seeking it in the first place.
Oh, yeah – he had accused William of having been staring at him as he got changed. But then he had turned around to find he hadn’t. Had he had a wrong intuition, or was William tricking him into believing so?
Henry was prone to believe the latter, but William’s presumed stubbornness into playing the part of the unaware, innocent person was genuinely having him doubt the impression he was under. God, he’s impossible.
And he was still frozen in place now, after being asked that (fake?) concerned question, hands still gripping the rough sides of Fredbear’s head even though it was already safe on the table. Henry must have been looking real stupid, he realized, with his slightly parted lips and dumbfounded expression, pupils refusing to break eye contact with William so far as to keep him from blinking at all. Yup, either he looked stupid or really fucking creepy.
“Earth to Henry Emily, I think we lost all signal” William smiled through his furrowed eyebrows, forehead only slightly relaxing as one side of his lips curved upwards. His face got closer to Henry’s, which finally had the latter regain his ability to blink. Barely.
After a couple other seconds of radio silence, Henry finally pried himself out of it, suddenly shaking his head fervently while looking down.
“I’m fine. Forget it”, he muttered, stepping an inch away from the taller man’s inquisitive looks before his back met the cold wall.
William tilted his head to the right, still somewhat smiling as he raised both his hands at the sides of his shoulders in surrender. “If you say so, darling.”
He also stepped back soon after, Henry assumed, in order to get rid of the bottom of the costume too. He wasn’t going to check whether his assumption was correct, of course. After all, he needed to do so as well.
When Henry was done zipping the most formal pair of pants he had back up – and it wasn’t as formal as one thought it would be – he finally let himself raise his head at eye level, mostly because he was looking for his flannel shirt and gilet, but also because he felt, yet again, stared at.
Only, William wasn’t looking his way at all, again. He was facing the wall opposite to his, too busy buckling his belt to possibly be checking Henry out, obviously.
Henry thought that, and then slapped himself mentally. Was it… bothering him? Was he that attention starved?
He shook his head once more, shutting his eyes to get that thought out of his head. He was probably just tired, and mistaken, and overanalysing it. Also, he needed to get dressed.
Also, William was looking at him weird.
When had he turned his way?
“I’m – have you seen my clothes?” he muttered out, stupidly tripping over his words.
“I am not hiding them somewhere behind my back, if that’s what you were wondering.”
Oh. Oh fuck, he had frozen again.
“I wasn’t – ” Henry’s voice broke out of his throat higher than normal, and he cringed at how much it resembled a squeak. “I hadn’t been staring at you”, he defended himself. He hadn’t, really. He had gotten lost in his thoughts.
“Sure you hadn’t”, William replied, leaning against the wall and rolling his eyes to the ceiling, arms crossed in front of his chest.
“I had not! I was thinking about – ” Henry started, but then his pupils decided to make a fool of him and quickly scan over William’s bare torso before landing back on his smirking face.
“Go on”, he prompted him, a hint of a challenge in his warm voice. Henry was furious, and frustrated.
“If anything, you are the one that has been stealing looks at me the entire time! What, you think I don’t realize?” he replied, raising his voice and gesturing passionately.
“I think you are throwing accusations with no proof to help your case”, the taller man said, untangling his arms and dropping them at his sides. He stood back up, fixing his posture. “And I think what makes you do that is the need to believe said accusations are true.”
“What? I – ” Henry almost snarled, looking up at William as he stood straighter himself. “Why the hell would I do that?”
He felt his blood boiling in his veins, reaching his face and chest as he fervently defended his case. His cheeks felt so hot he had a feeling he was going to burst, and his intakes of air were uncharacteristically short and paced, especially when William took a step forward, casually strolling across the floor.
“Because”, the man replied, looking to the side as if he were thinking it over. “It makes you feel desired, obviously. Also, important. And attractive.” He moved his focus back onto Henry, his body basically cornering his short figure against the wall.
“It’s not – ” Henry tried, but was cut off.
“It is. It’s almost too obvious. You love the attention. Your mood improves if you feel validated by it. It’s not something to be ashamed of, darling, everyone does.”
And as he said so, he brought his left hand to the side of Henry’s face, caressing it with his knuckles.
“Do you?”, Henry found himself asking, face hot against the cold touch of William’s fingers.
William inhaled, taking in the view of Henry’s features.
“Very”, he replied.
Henry inspected his face carefully. He analysed the shape of his eyes and the tension of his mouth.
Then decided to believe it.
“I love the attention”, he finally said, stupidly nodding in sync with his words. “I am constantly insecure about what I do until someone acknowledges it. I love the validation.”
He tentatively raised an arm as he said so, slowly guiding it to one of William’s shoulders and keeping his hand there for leverage.
“And I always feel validated by you. Ever since that day you talked to me and stared at me for almost an hour before doing so – God that had made me uncomfortable, and don’t get me wrong, it was really fucking annoying. But I also felt interesting, I don’t know… I didn’t understand.”
He said so, and William brought his free hand to catch Henry’s free wrist and bring it to his own face, placing a tender, wet kiss on the vein that pulsed there. Henry was immediately mesmerised by the action, and looked at the spot on his arm for a couple of blinks before resuming his talking.
“And then… and then we became friends, and you kept on looking at me like you wanted to understand how I functioned every single time, and the more you did that the more you looked starved for it, and I really fucking loved it without even properly acknowledging it.”
William listened carefully, tangling his fingers into Henry’s and stepping a little closer to him.
“You told me to stop staring, earlier on”, he pointed out. “Yet you are telling me you like it, now?”
Henry shrugged, breathing heavily. “I was just… I don’t know, complaining for the sake of it.” He justified himself. “I like when you stare at me.”
“A little immature, if you ask me.”
Henry let out a stupid giggle, leaning against William’s hand on his cheek as he felt himself melting in its palm.
“Sweet”, William added, moving his thumb in circles over Henry’s freckles. “I was staring at you undress. Is that validating to you?”
The skin under William’s pad turned a delicious shade of red, Henry’s eyes fluttering at the sound of William’s words like the reality of them affected him more than he would have liked to admit.
“No, no, it’s,” he babbled, wanting to be honest with himself and his partner.
“…hot. It’s hot.”
William’s head leaned to the side, a smile stretching his glistening lips.
Henry wanted them on his.