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Anonymous’ dancing experience was limited to square dancing in the school gym as a child. From that, they only remembered sweat rolling down their neck, shoes squeaking on the vinyl floors, and being forced to hold hands with Wattpad. It had been an altogether unpleasant experience, made worse by the clammy heat that pervaded the room, sinking down through the metal roof.
Waltzing with Orphan_Account was different.
“Just remember, stay on a count of three,” he said. “I’ll guide you.”
He swayed them back and forth for several moments, letting Anonymous get a feel for the music. Then he led them in a couple steps, forward and back, his hand heavy on Anonymous’ back. The steps sped up, his feet moving expertly over the floor.
Anonymous couldn’t even come close to matching his elegance, but they moved where he put them, trying to follow the three-beat rhythm.
“Loosen up a bit,” Orphan_Account murmured. “I’ve got you.”
They sighed, and relaxed, their grip on him softening. He took them by the hand and led them in almost a run across the floor of the apartment, spinning them at the end. Then he pulled them right back up and into the dance. It was instinct, almost, guided by Orphan_Account’s expert hand. A spin away so that they were only connected by their fingertips, then stepping back in, leaning backwards and trusting Orphan_Account to catch them.
By the time the music ended, they were breathless and giggling, pieces of their hair sticking to their forehead with sweat. They were dipped one last time, unexpectedly, and they let out a laugh that was almost a scream, grabbing onto his shoulders for stability.
“I think that’s the loudest laugh I’ve ever heard from you,” Orphan_Account said.
He had somehow managed to keep his perfectly coiffed hairstyle through the dance, and Anonymous gave in to the urge to mess it up, sinking their hands into it until it matched their own rat’s nest of hair.
“I guess I’m just happy,” they said.
Anonymous had always been shy. Quiet. It came from their childhood, maybe, branded into them with the glint of Papa’s belt buckle and the creaking of the stairs when he came home drunk out of his good sense. Or maybe it had always been a part of them, the silence wrapped through every cell, like fishing line around the neck of a turtle.
Some days, Orphan_Account’s anger hung thick around him, so heavy that Anonymous could practically smell it, and they wondered how he could stand without buckling under the weight. On those days, he went down to the gym in the basement, or to the type of back-alley boxing matches that were only legal because they hadn’t been discovered yet. Anger was in him like silence was in Anonymous, and in that way, they fit together.
Anonymous had joined the knitting club at their school because it met two days a week after school, and they did not want to go home. It became a respite, though, a place where they could sit down and knit, with no other expectations, feeling their steady improvement as the months passed. They’d kept it up when they left school, knitting cardigans and sweaters and little stuffed animals and hats and every other type of textile that they could manage.
They spent several hours trying to teach Orphan_Account, hoping that perhaps he could be calmed by it in the same way that they were. He managed to pick it up a little bit, making a wonky washcloth over the course of a week, but he had no real interest in pursuing it further. It frustrated him, and his balls of yarn often ended up as tangled messes instead of anything useful.
Even though he didn’t understand it himself, he was supportive of Anonymous, clearing out a closet for them to keep their supplies and buying a yarn bowl from the flea market. Anonymous decided that he deserved a reward, and started planning out the sweater that they wanted to make for him. They went to three different stores, looking for the exact color and texture of yarn that they needed, and finally found the perfect shades stuffed in a corner.
Mostly, they did it because they wanted to see Orphan_Account wearing something that they made, but there was a tiny slice of them, deep down, that did it for a different reason. Anonymous had been raised deeply superstitious, to the degree that they still avoided walking under ladders and broke mirrors and tossed salt over their shoulder to ward off bad luck. That tiny voice raved about the sweater curse, where every textile artist seemed to break up with their partner as soon as a big gift for them was finished. It was ridiculous, but Anonymous wanted to prove, to themself at least, that he would still be there when they were done.
Of course, when it was finished, Orphan_Account loved the sweater, and wore it everywhere, even inside where the temperature was comfortably warm, and he did not leave.
Some days, Anonymous’ Papa would spend the whole night sitting in front of the TV in the living room, and drink until that black look in his eyes was smothered by the alcohol. Anonymous tried to be in the room when that happened, reading quietly or playing with their toys. He could turn cruel in an instant when he was drunk, but that happened when he was sober, too, and Anonymous was used to navigating his moods. But sometimes, he would relax fuzzily into his armchair, his eyes barely open, and talk to Anonymous for the whole night. He’d dispense advice, talk about life, and even occasionally tell them that he loved them. It was the only time when they felt like they had a real father.
“You gotta find yourself a good girl to settle down with,” their Papa said, in one of those kinder moments.
Orphan_Account was not a girl, and he was not good, but Anonymous made a life with him nonetheless. It happened right in front of them, but almost out of sight, like a picture taken too close to the lens, made blurry by proximity. It happened in the recipe books that Anonymous got from the library because Orphan_Account wanted to learn to cook. In the bouquet of yarns for their knitting that Anonymous received for Valentine’s Day because they were allergic to flowers. In soup pressed into their hands when they’re sick. In the slow intermingling of both of their possessions. In the way that Orphan_Account stroked their shoulder, in small circles, when the two of them were naked in bed.
“People should write odes about you,” Anonymous murmured sleepily, during one lazy night.
He grinned, mischief in his eyes. “Yeah? You could do it, then.”
“Hmm, alright then,” they said, opening their eyes. They may have been tired, but they had just been issued a challenge.
Orphan_Account leaned back against the headboard, flexing his bare biceps in a way that was probably intentional.
“My beloved is like a raging river, passionate and dirty,” Anonymous began. “He knows that without me, he’d die before he turned thirty.”
He made a vaguely outraged noise.
Anonymous put a hand over his mouth and continued. “Strong and broad, he’s damn good stock. Oh, and have I mentioned his great thick cock–”
Orphan_Account tackled them, pressing them down into the pillows so that he could press kisses against their neck, their jaw, their mouth.
“He loves me well in every way, that’s a fact,” Anonymous gasped. “But I think he does it best when I’m on my back.”
There wasn’t any more talking after that.
Anonymous and Orphan_Account shared a love for reading. The first thing they did, when the two of them moved out of the tiny apartment and bought the house together, was set up a library. They put it in the sunniest room, the one with the skylight set into the ceiling, illuminating the collection during the daytime. At night, the lamps along the walls clicked on, filling the library with their softer glow. There were rows of shelves filling the back of the room, and more covering every wall, leaving the front for two overstuffed armchairs, a sofa, and a variety of gaming systems that Orphan_Account hoarded the same way that he hoarded books.
Orphan_Account hadn’t been able to read until he was ten years old. English was not his first language, and his teachers hadn’t bothered to communicate with him, leaving him to learn mostly on his own. He’d taught himself with the help of the librarian at his local public library and picture books. As an adult, he always seemed to have a book at his side. Anonymous rarely saw him without one close at hand.
Bars were more Orphan_Account’s style than theirs, but Anonymous went with him sometimes, lurking at the back with a drink and watching him play pool or get in arm wrestling matches with the other patrons.
People came up to them occasionally, trying to strike up a conversation or ask to buy them a drink, and they always refused politely. Almost everyone respected that. Almost everyone, but there were always the assholes.
“Come on, baby boy, I can show you a good time,” said the man in front of them, in a whiny drawl.
“I’m not a boy,” Anonymous said softly, starting to get seriously annoyed, but their anger was kept in check by an instinctual fear.
The man–he had said his name was Censorship–sneered. “You got a dick, dontcha? That’s man enough for me.”
Anonymous shook their hair so that it was in front of their eyes and stood up from their seat, ready to walk away. Censorship was boxing them in, using his size to block them off from the rest of the room, so they had to slide past him to escape. Their thigh brushed against his hip, and he laughed.
They were almost free when Censorship reached out and firmly grasped their ass, really digging his fingers in.
“Mmm, yeah, that’s nice,” Censorship said.
Anonymous was frozen in place, their breath coming in pants. They couldn’t think about anything except the place where they were being touched; everything else in their mind was wiped away.
Censorship shifted his grip, tightening his fingers, and opened his mouth to say something else. Before he could, he was gone, ripped away. Anonymous gasped in relief when his hand was gone.
They looked up to find Censorship on the ground, and Orphan_Account standing over him.
“You will never touch them again,” Orphan_Account growled.
He probably had some other threatening things to say, but he was cut off by Anonymous staggering into him, burying their face into his chest and trembling.
“Why didn’t you punch him?” Anonymous asked idly, once they’d had time to recover, wrapped up in blankets at home. “I could tell that you were close to doing it.”
“I would, if you wanted,” he said, cold as the permafrost. “I would bite his fucking face off if that’s what you need.”
“Yes, but why did you hold back? I know that you have no problems with beating people up, and you were so angry. You’re still angry,” they said. The Gentle Beats playlist that they’d found on spotify was still running, and it did not seem to be having the desired calming effect.
“I will not be another violent man in your life, Anon,” he said, tilting their chin up so that they could meet his eyes and see the seriousness in them. “I will not break your trust in that way. I refuse.”
“I believe you,” Anonymous whispered.
Orphan_Account crushed them tight to his chest, holding them like he never wanted to let go. The music was still playing softly in the background. Maybe they could waltz again tomorrow.