Chapter Text
"It's so funny when you do something long enough to start having opinions on things, you get me?" Hans half-shouted into Henry's ear. He brushed his hair back for the millionth time with his free hand since they'd sat down, though it remained impeccably gelled in place. The gesture seemed almost compulsive. "Like, little opinions on little things."
"You seem like the type of person who has big opinions on everything," Henry contested, and tried to wriggle into a more comfortable position with Hans' arm wedged between his neck and the booth. The vinyl squeaked against his jacket. He'd worn the wrong jacket. He'd known it as soon as he'd walked in and seen Hans in what was probably a three-thousand-groschen blazer, unbuttoned, with a shirt underneath that had no business being that white.
"But this is different," Hans insisted, apparently oblivious to Henry's slight discomfort. "I speak of the little things, Henry. Little things like a preference for which pen I use to sign documents. Or which brand of tissues I use. Or, for god's sake, my mousepad. I'm properly one with the office itself at this point."
Henry considered this. "Well, sure," he offered. "Spending eight hours a day five days a week there will make you in tune with every aspect of office life."
"Exactly," Hans said emphatically, and took another clumsy sip from his tumbler, the amber bourbon glinting in the restaurant's dim lighting. Some of it caught on his lower lip and he licked it away without breaking stride. "So… you must understand, right? Perhaps you might empathise- do you have a favourite wrench? Or… motor oil brand?" It almost seemed as though he’d once driven past a garage and the experience left him with the impression that he was an expert in the field.
Henry had to chuckle at this. It was funny, the way Hans tried. There was something almost endearing about the attempt, the way he reached across the vast gulf between whatever his life was and a garage in Rattay with grease stains on the floor and a radio that only picked up two stations. Almost endearing, and almost condescending, and Henry couldn't quite work out which one it was more of. He finally caught Pavlena's eye from across the room as she returned from the washroom. "Yeah. I do, actually."
"Exactly," Hans repeated, looking thoroughly pleased with their apparent connection. "You have your wrenches, and I have my pens and so on. We might be worlds apart in some ways, but I'm just a regular fellah just like you."
Henry glanced at the watch on Hans' wrist. He didn't know what brand it was, but it caught the light in a way that suggested it cost more than Henry's car. "Right," he concurred absently, and tried once more to adjust his position in his seat.
Pavlena was nearly back to the table by now, weaving through the modest crowd with a prim, tight smile on her face. She slid back into her seat across from them and set her phone face-down on the table with a deliberateness that Henry found vaguely unsettling. She looked between them- Henry pinned against the booth, Hans draped over him like an expensive blanket- and her expression settled into something careful and measured.
"You two look cosy," she noted.
Hans smiled, silky and coy, and tugged Henry even closer into his side. He nuzzled the side of Henry's neck, never breaking eye contact with Pavlena. "I'd say we are, aren't we, Henry?"
Henry's neck was very warm where Hans' breath hit it. He was suddenly and acutely aware of the family of four at the table diagonal to theirs, the mother cutting a child's chicken into small pieces. "Perhaps more than I'd prefer," he replied, trying to keep his voice light, though it was the truth. Hans was warm, scorchingly so, and his breath ghosting over Henry's jaw and neck did little to help.
"Oh, come off it, Henry," Hans groaned, but put some distance between them at last. Henry's shoulder immediately felt cooler. "We're just getting to know one another."
"Perhaps too well," Pavlena said, her eyes narrowing a fraction. "In public. There are children here, for god's sake, Hans."
"They're not paying us any mind," Hans grumbled back. He glanced towards the nearest table of kids. "I'd wager they're far more interested in shoving crayons up their noses and screaming… numbers. Six seven? Is that supposed to be funny?"
"Perhaps you're just a little out of touch with the internet," Pavlena said. There was no warmth in it. "Don't know how that's possible since you spend all your free time with your nose shoved in your phone."
"Excellent observation, darling," Hans sneered back, though it seemed almost playful. "Feels wonderful to know you and I are so in tune with one another."
"Against my will," Pavlena sighed. Henry picked up his glass of Coke and took a long sip. The ice had mostly melted. "Enough about that, though. Henry, how are things at work? I hear you're up for a promotion," she said, turning to him with what felt like a deliberate reintroduction into a conversation he'd been technically present for the entire time.
"Ah, yes," Henry said, a little unsettled by the full force of Hans Capon's attention being returned to him. Hans had a way of looking at people- at Henry, specifically- that made him feel like he was being appraised. Not unkindly, but thoroughly. "It's a pretty sure thing. Radovan's a decent fellah and a better boss, and I think he's finally noticed all my overtime."
"Theresa's told me how you're always burning the candle at both ends," Pavlena said, and something in Hans' posture went rigid. It was subtle. If Henry hadn't been pressed against him, he might not have noticed it at all.
"Who's Theresa?" Hans asked.
Henry inwardly sighed in relief that the spotlight had shifted back to Pavlena. He took another sip of his watered-down Coke and let Pavlena handle it.
"Henry's best friend," Pavlena said. There was a dangerous edge returning to her voice, something that sounded almost rehearsed in its casualness. "Very close friend, despite them being exes."
Henry looked at Pavlena. She looked back at him with a pleasant, open expression, as though she'd said nothing of consequence. He wasn't sure why she'd phrased it like that. He wasn't sure why it needed to be phrased at all.
Hans hummed in acknowledgment, his arm snaking back behind Henry's neck. Henry tried not to sigh.
"And are you two on the path to reconciliation?" Hans asked in a manner a lot less casual than he might have thought.
"No," Henry replied, almost a little defensive. "We broke up close to ten years ago now. We're just friends."
Hans seemed to relax, his arm going limp around Henry's shoulders. "Ah. I see."
"Yeah."
The table fell into silence. Henry could hear the muzak now- something vaguely jazzy, piped through speakers that were slightly too loud for the size of the room. Pavlena kept looking at Hans, her eyes darting between his face and the arm slung around Henry's shoulders. Hans inspected a perfectly manicured fingernail with intense scrutiny. Henry tracked the path of a water droplet as it slid down the side of his glass.
It occurred to him that this was, in all likelihood, the strangest dinner he'd been to in years. Possibly ever. Pavlena had described it as a casual thing- "just drinks and a bite, you'll like him, he's funny"- which, in retrospect, should have been a warning. People you'd actually like were never preemptively described as funny.
Henry coughed. "Ah. Well. Pavlena says you're dating one of our mutual acquaintances. What was her name again?" He looked to Pavlena for help.
"I think it was Enneleyn, wasn't it?" she said. There was a glint in her eye that Henry couldn't quite read, something bright and pointed. "You know her from that party we went to a few weeks back, don't you, Henry?"
"Enneleyn is old news," Hans said briskly, waving his hand. "I was seeing Karolina recently, but things fell through."
"Ah, I know her," Henry said vaguely, though he wasn't all that sure he did. "Nice girl."
"I could have sworn you were seeing Agnes," Pavlena said slowly, as though she were only just remembering. Henry doubted this. Pavlena didn't forget things.
"Oh, god, no," Hans said hotly, his face twisting in distaste. "That was only a rumour. She's been engaged to Olda for ages now."
"Ah, my mistake," Pavlena said. She folded her hands on the table. "You've so many conquests under your belt it's hard to parse which ones you've bedded and which ones you've not."
Henry frowned. He looked down at the remains of his Coke- flat now, the ice fully dissolved into a pale brown nothing- and tried to work out the maths. Enneleyn, Karolina, Agnes who apparently didn't count, and whoever else was implied by the word conquests, plural, used in a sentence that also contained the phrase hard to parse. That was a lot of names for someone who was currently sitting in a mid-range Italian restaurant with his arm around a man he'd met two hours ago.
Pavlena seemed to notice his expression, and her smile turned faintly satisfied, though she masked it quickly by reaching for her water.
"The tales of my escapades are vast," Hans replied blandly. Henry could detect an undercurrent of pride in there, however- something pleased and self-regarding, like a cat who'd knocked a vase off a shelf and was still thinking about it. "But they are also vastly false, Pavlena. And, anyway, how rude of you to bring up such dirty business in front of my new friend."
"What's it matter to you?" Pavlena countered, one eyebrow cocked. "It shouldn't, unless you intend on adding Henry to your long list of jilted lovers."
Henry's stomach did something uncomfortable. He reached for his glass out of habit, remembered it was empty, and put it back down.
"The night is still young," Hans said airily, not taking the bait. "God only knows where dear Henry and I might end up."
"Hopefully alone, in your respective beds," Pavlena said flatly, and downed the last of her martini. She set the glass down with a definitive click. "Speaking of which, let's get going. Henry has work tomorrow, and I have plans with my mother. I shan't shirk them waxing poetic with you about your sordid past."
Hans sighed, his fingers tapping a lazy pattern into Henry's shoulder. The rhythm was oddly soothing, which irritated Henry in a way he couldn't entirely account for. "Well, you'd best get going, then. Henry and I have more catching up to do."
Henry looked at Pavlena. Pavlena looked at Henry. There was a brief, silent negotiation.
"Why don't you ask Henry what he thinks, then?" she said, her voice low and sharp.
Hans chuckled, returning his focus to Henry at last. "Dear Henry, what do you say? Would you care to share a few more drinks with me?"
"Think I'm good on that," Henry said, and chugged the last lukewarm dregs of his Coke. "Pavlena's right. I've got an early shift in the morning, and I would rather be well-rested for tomorrow."
Hans' easy grin faltered, his eyebrows raising a fraction. "Ah."
"If you'll excuse me," Henry said, and stood. Hans' arm dropped from his shoulders and landed on the booth with a faint thud. The immediate absence of warmth along his right side was noticeable, and he chose not to think about that. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Hans," he tacked on, and meant it, mostly, in the way that you could mean something and also be relieved it was over. He gestured at Pavlena. "Shall we?"
"I thought you'd never ask," she sighed, and stood.
Now out in the brisk autumn air, Pavlena kept in step with Henry's pace, her heels clicking a steady rhythm against the pavement. The temperature had dropped since they'd gone in. Henry could see his breath, just barely, in thin wisps that dissolved under the streetlights. It was the kind of cold that felt good after being too warm for too long.
"So," Pavlena said, and rounded the street corner in tandem with him, her face a perfect mask of neutrality, "what did you think of him?"
Henry didn't answer immediately. He looked at the pavement ahead of them, at the damp patches where someone had hosed down the kerb outside the kebab shop next door, at the crooked A-frame sign advertising half-price drinks on Tuesdays. He really did consider the question.
"I think," he said slowly, "he's a bit of a prick, but in a way that almost makes you pity the poor fellah."
Pavlena tittered, clearly delighted. It was the most genuine sound she'd made all evening. "I'd say that about sums it up. I'm telling you, Hal, he's bad news. I'd rather you steer clear from him." She paused, and when she spoke again, the delight had gone and something quieter had taken its place. "I truly don't want you getting your heart broken."
Henry glanced at her. She was looking straight ahead, her jaw set in a way that reminded him of his mother when she'd made up her mind about something and was simply waiting for the rest of the world to fall in line. He wondered how long she'd been carrying that particular sentence around- whether she'd planned to say it before they'd even sat down, or whether Hans' performance had forced her hand.
"Can't say I intend on seeing him again," Henry replied, and could have wept in relief once he finally spotted his 4Runner at the far end of the row. Still there. Still ugly. Still his. "I had reason to believe he'd try and give me a handy under the table if I stayed a moment longer."
"Exactly my point," Pavlena said sagely. They stopped in front of Henry's car. Pavlena's was a few spaces down- a sensible little Volkswagen, recently washed, a parking permit sticker in the corner of the windscreen that she renewed with religious punctuality. "I'm sorry, by the way," she continued, and a bit of genuine remorse crossed her features. "He stopped by my mum's shop for this herbal tea he likes, and I let it slip that I'd be meeting with you this evening. He practically invited himself along, saying he wanted to see the kinds of fellahs I spend time with other than Roman."
Henry tried to picture Hans in Pavlena's mum's shop- the cramped little place with the wind chimes over the door and the jars of loose-leaf everything on the shelves. It was like imagining a greyhound in a hamster cage. "It's fine," he said, brushing it off with a light chuckle. "He really wasn't all that bad. Just… a lot."
"A lot of horseshit," Pavlena sighed, and checked her watch. The gesture had a finality to it, the universal signal that the post-mortem was over and normal life could resume. "Well, Hal, I'd say it's about time for me to- oh, shit."
Henry glanced in the direction she was looking, and his stomach dropped.
Hans was approaching them from further down the pavement with a cocky, casual stride, keys dangling from one hand, the other tucked into the pocket of that absurd blazer. Henry belatedly noticed the BMW parked next to his 4Runner. It was black, and polished to the point of being reflective, and it made his car look like it had been retrieved from a lake.
"Well, fancy seeing you again so soon," Hans called as he closed the distance between them. "Couldn't get enough, could you?"
"You ran into us," Pavlena sighed, though the venom in her tone had considerably diminished. She sounded tired. Henry sympathised. It had been a long evening, and Hans Capon had a way of being exhausting in a manner that was difficult to articulate- not unpleasant, exactly, but relentless, like a song stuck in your head that you didn't remember hearing in the first place.
"And fate decreed that we met once more," Hans said, with a little bow that shouldn't have worked but somehow did. He straightened up and turned. "Now, Henry," he continued, and Henry braced for impact. "I was hoping I could get your number."
The request landed with a strange, heavy simplicity. Henry had expected something more elaborate- a bit, a joke, a three-act play with intermission. But Hans just stood there, hands at his sides now, his keys still, his expression open and oddly earnest for someone who'd spent the last two hours performing.
"Hans," Pavlena interjected, irritation spiking once more. "Shove off. He doesn't owe you a thing."
"On the contrary," Hans said smoothly, "I think he owes me a dinner. I paid for the table, you know, since the two of you left in such a hurry." He looked at Henry, and there it was again- that appraising quality, except this time there was something almost hopeful mixed in with it, which was worse, somehow. "Won't you grant me at least that much, Henry?"
Henry shifted in place. The car park was very quiet. He could hear the distant hum of the dual carriageway, the faint bass thud of music from somewhere down the road, the soft ticking of a neighbouring engine cooling in the night air. He wished the ground would swallow him up. He wished Pavlena would intervene again. He wished Hans would stop looking at him like that- like whatever Henry said next was going to matter.
"I suppose I will," he heard himself say.
It came out before he'd fully decided to say it. The words just left, the way words sometimes do when your mouth has assessed the situation and concluded that your brain is taking too long. Pavlena made a small sound beside him- not quite a protest, not quite a sigh, something caught in the no man's land between the two. Henry didn't look at her.
"Excellent," Hans said, and his smile could have chased away a tornado. He produced his phone from somewhere- Henry hadn't seen him reach for it- and held it out, the screen bright and expectant in the dark.
"Sure, Hans," Henry said, and took the phone, and typed in his number, and handed it back. His fingers were cold. Hans' were warm when they brushed against his, briefly, taking the phone.
He would say those two words countless times in the years to come- sure, Hans- to questions he should have thought harder about, to requests he should have denied, at hours he should have been asleep. But he didn't know that yet. Standing in a car park on a Tuesday night in October, he didn't know much of anything, except that he was tired, and that his shift started at seven, and that Hans Capon's smile was still there when he glanced in the rear-view mirror on his way out.