#antonak

it's one of those days, the harder ones, and grognak leaves him with troy to run across the street. anto spies a colourful wig in the distance and faintly hears a distinctively high-pitched, accented voice, so he pulls his cigarette from his lips long enough to half-assedly cross himself and send up a grateful prayer that it won't just be the three of them soon. the relief sours when he catches troy giving him a weird look and anto sneers, "the fuck are you looking at?"

troy's hands come up placatingly and all it does is put anto's teeth on edge. "nothin', nothin'. just, y'know..." troy casts a look across the street and smiles to himself for a moment. when his attention turns back to anto he's wearing a different expression. he looks irritated. if he were a meaner person he'd almost look spiteful. "why do you keep coming back? i won. both times, actually."

he's delighted and infuriated in equal measures. it's not often he gets to see this side of troy, the pettier, more passive-aggressive side. he's better at behaving than anto by a mile. and while he'd love to push and prod the other man to see how far he can take it, they're working with a time limit. he rounds on troy to stand in front of him, blocking his view across the street, and drops his cigarette to grind it out under his heel in the same movement, using the momentum to loom closer until he feels the brim of troy's hat brush against his forehead. to his credit, troy doesn't step back, but he does flinch the slightest bit, enough to put a smug smile on anto's face.

"you keep telling yourself that, but i'm still here, still alive, aren't i, troy. you really think i'd go off with my tail between my legs while you're cuttin' about with groggers on your arm?"

troy opens his mouth to reply but anto catches the flick of his eyes over his shoulder in time to be prepared when he hears grognak's apprehensively curious "anto? you two alright? troy?"

slapping on a grin, anto twists to face grognak, and posy who's just behind her, and slings an arm around troy's shoulders, pointedly leaning his weight on him as a warning. "we're grand, groggers. just havin' a chat, weren't we, sweetheart?"

he doesn't know where that came from.

something lurches unpleasantly in his stomach, but anto ignores it for the moment in favour of watching the chain reaction he's elicited.

troy blanches beside him and sputters out a bewildered, "y-yeah. me and anto were just- just chatting, grog."

"sweetheart?" posy echoes skeptically, looking between the two of them like she's missed something important.

but best of all is grognak. she stares at them for a beat or two then focuses on him (on him!) and breaks into her brightest grin yet.

she steps close and anto straightens, the arm around troy going lax as his attention narrows to the tall figure in front of him. he barely feels troy shift uneasily against his side because his world abruptly narrows to the hand that grognak places on his other arm, squeezing lightly and setting his skin on fire even through the layers of fabric and leather.

"don't go running off on me now, boys," grognak warns, and though her tone is playful, anto knows instinctively that she's entirely serious. "you two aren't having a romantic getaway without me."

he doesn't even have it in him to correct her with her hand is still curled around his bicep.

so now, somehow, he calls troy sweetheart. there's no affection to it, it's a means to an end, and what an end it is. it's an accidental jackpot. anto gets to see troy flounder, to see the bastard either squirm and turn red or glare at him from over grognak's shoulder. there's nothing troy can do about it. they're both in the same boat, pretending to tolerate each other for grognak's sake.

but much more importantly, he gets to bask in the new levels of grognak's attention that he's won himself. for every offhand "sweetheart" anto throws at troy he's rewarded with more frequent genuine smiles and brushes of a gloved hand along his arm.