Work Text:
2021, seven months after inauguration
It’s half past eleven in the evening, there are moving boxes scattered throughout his bedroom at his brownstone in New York, and Henry is browsing an internet forum in determined search of the carb count to a quiche recipe he’s found online.
He’d not have felt confident enough before—still doesn’t entirely —but now that he has his own kitchen, he owns the right to accidentally burn it if he’d like to. He bookmarks the recipe along with the growing folder of things he’d like to attempt to make, then moves on to the next.
He should settle in and get some rest soon but it’s been difficult since the move. Not for his insomnia, for once, and all thanks to the fact that Alex is tucked away in his own second-story rental just two blocks over. Excitement is a taste he’s still growing accustomed to, but it’s unavoidable, these days.
The boundary of having their own places hadn’t been taken lightly, though Henry isn’t sure how necessary it is. He still flies out of Brooklyn to London just as often as Alex overnights back to Washington, and the nights they do spend in the same city are often spent together regardless. Still, it feels nice, normal, at least, to have their own spaces first, even if they’re both operating under the assumption that it won’t always be that way.
David nudges at his hip, all of the travel and movement having increased his anxiety as it often does Henry’s. Henry hasn’t had the heart to make him go back to his own bed on the carpet by the door. He sniffs at Henry and then at the empty slice of the bed beside them.
“I know,” Henry whispers, curling a palm over his head to scratch behind his ears. “I miss him too, boy.”
But, unlike all the months before, he won’t have to for long.
Reaching over to the nightstand, Henry locks his phone and tables the recipes for tomorrow, then pulls the string on the lamp. He’s still smiling at the framed photo of the two of them from Hyde Park when the lights go out.
Summer, 2022
“You know,” Alex says thoughtfully, leaned over the counter in Henry’s bathroom, “I’m beginning to see your point about the glitter being maybe slightly too much.”
There’s a towel down, at least, to catch what’s falling off of the blue heart Henry had helped him paint onto his cheek earlier, now doused in a thorough covering of pearly, translucent glitter.
As are his hands, his chest, and most of the rest of Henry’s bathroom.
“Now you’re realizing this?” Henry asks from the doorway.
Alex turns to shoot him a firm look. “I never said it was a good idea.”
“Actually, I recall you saying it was a very good—”
“Anyway. There’s no time to fix it now, so just—does the rest of me…look okay?”
With a final pat to the heart to rid it of any excess, Alex dusts his hands off over the sink and turns to him, arms out for inspection.
He looks as handsome as always, Henry thinks. His hair is a bit longer now and the glitter actually does seem to make his eyes sparkle. There’s a matching blue tank hanging off of his shoulders that’s got the Breakthrough logo across the chest—Alex’s first official event after partnering with the organization.
His arms are bared, his devices on full display on his bicep, complete with decorative stickers he’d picked out for the occasion. Henry still has to fight back a smile sometimes at the pride he feels about it all, having seen Alex through just about every phase of his diagnosis thus far. It’s nice to see him this way, undoubtedly nervous, but proud.
“I think you look amazing,” Henry murmurs, stepping forward to slip arms around his waist.
“I think you’re biased,” Alex teases.
“You asked, love.”
“I know. Thank you.” Alex leans up to press their mouths together for a moment, the glitter surely spreading from his cheeks to Henry’s. Alex swipes a speck of it away with his thumb when he pulls back. “Come on. They’re probably waiting on us.”
As much as Henry would like to take David with them, he’ll be staying home this afternoon. He enjoys a walk around the neighborhood but Henry thinks perhaps a few miles might be a different story. Today, it’s about Alex.
“There you are,” Percy says when they make it downstairs, openly enjoying Henry’s leftovers from the fridge while he smirks at them. “We were beginning to think you’d gotten distracted.”
“Distracted?” Alex parrots sarcastically. “Us? Never.”
June leaves the small group of Nora and Percy near the island as she crosses to Alex’s side, squeezing his shoulder with a smile.
“You look great. Ready to do this?”
“I’m all for the finding a cure part of it,” Alex nods, taking a sip of the water bottle Henry hands him. “The walking part I could maybe do without, but. It’ll be fine.”
It’s something they’ve been working on lately; exercise has proven to be quite difficult to manage with blood sugar. Any sort of resistance work makes it skyrocket, while any other physical activity drops it obscenely fast. Alex has been working with a trainer to nail down a fitness routine, but he still gets nervous about the highs and lows, especially with walking.
And also especially when that walking will be heavily photographed and monetized. They’ve practiced, though.
“It will be fine,” June reinforces, squeezing his arm. “I think literally all of us have glucose on us, so.”
As if to prove it, Percy, Nora, and June all pull some of the packets out of their pockets. Alex laughs. He doesn’t even ask Henry—they’d packed a shoulder bag earlier with plenty of it, as well as glucagon in case of emergencies. If he had to guess, he’d assume Cameron and Mateo will have some as well. He reaches over to tangle their fingers together.
“Let’s do this, then.”
Henry smiles, pulling them toward the door. “Let’s.”
.
.
.
The first year of living in Brooklyn rolls around quickly. Henry finds that it only continues to get better, in his opinion.
Alex still doesn’t live here officially but he might as well; he has multiple drawers in Henry’s armoir, clothes in the closet, his own nightstand, toothbrush, and side of the bed. Occasionally, if Henry’s tired, he’ll accidentally grab one of Alex’s coffee mixes instead of his tea. He typically continues making it anyway, just for the smell and the comfort. It means he has to replenish Alex’s stash twice over, but Henry knows it’s worth it.
It’s been quite a long time, if ever, that Henry’s gotten to know someone aside from his own family at such a deep level. Either they haven’t had the interest or Henry hadn’t had the capacity or the circumstances hadn’t lined up. The hopeless romantic in him still assumes that there had been a reason for all of that—a reason that takes up over half the sofa and steals his food and demands more physical contact than Henry had been entirely prepared for. He wouldn’t change it.
Their schedules still don’t align as perfectly as he’d like them to. Most times, Henry’s returning from traveling just as Alex is leaving for or heading home from his classes at NYU. But it helps to have the reminders, the evidence that their lives are undeniably intertwined.
“Hey, have you seen my kit anywhere?”
As if aware that Henry had been thinking of him, Alex descends the stairs from where he’s been cooped up in Henry’s study for most of the afternoon, his glasses crooked on his nose and his shoulders swimming in one of Henry’s old sweatshirts. In his shorts and socks he crosses through to the living room, glancing around the coffee table with a furrowed brow.
“The dining room, I believe,” Henry says from the kitchen. He turns off the sink and dries his hands as Alex walks by, pausing quickly to press a kiss to his cheek in thanks. “Is everything alright?”
“Think so,” Alex mutters. “Just feel shaky again.”
With a frown, Henry leaves the rag on the counter and follows a short distance behind him to the dining table. His kit’s still there, open from when he’d checked it only a handful hours prior.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Henry tells him as he pulls out his supplies. “I’m just about to heat up dinner, if you’d like to dose for it.”
Leaving him some privacy, Henry steps back toward the kitchen and to the fridge, a bit famished himself. He’d only returned home a bit ago from the shelters. They’ve broken ground on the third and he and Percy have been needed in a good bit of the negotiations as of late, keeping Henry in the city for longer than he’d usually be otherwise.
From the dining room, Henry hears the beep of Alex’s meter signal that it’s finished reading. From the muttered curse that follows, he can guess that the low reading from Alex’s CGM on their phones is correct yet again.
“Damn. This is like, the third one today,” Alex says aloud. He removes the used strip and brings it to the kitchen to throw out, reaching past Henry into the fridge to grab the orange juice.
“I’m sorry, love. Do you know what it could be?”
He grabs a glass from the cupboard and pours while Henry pulls out the food they’d made earlier.
“No idea.”
On the days when they’re both working it’s easier to meal prep, the shelves filled with little light blue containers of recipes they try. Or, rather, recipes Henry scouts for and Alex cooks, mostly.
Scanning his eyes over what’s left after the previous four days, Henry does some quick math and frowns. There’s far more left than there should be, and he’s eaten all of his own already.
“Did you eat lunch?” he asks Alex, pulling out his serving.
Alex downs his juice and wipes the back of his mouth, rinsing the glass in the sink.
“I ate earlier, yeah.”
Shutting the doors, Henry uncaps his food and attempts to figure out what to say as he heats it up in the microwave. He knows Alex wouldn’t lie to him, but he also isn’t sure how much earlier ‘ earlier’ was.
“Are you hungry? I can heat yours as well,” Henry offers.
“Nah, I’m good. Still got some work to finish up upstairs.”
Before he can turn to leave Henry reaches out for him, fingers catching loosely on his wrist. Alex doesn’t fight it, going easily into his space when Henry tugs him forward so they’re face to face.
This close to him it’s impossible not to notice even the littlest details, the freckles and sun spots across his nose and the spot he’d missed shaving in the mirror that morning. Henry lifts his hands to ease his glasses up into his hair for a moment, swiping both of his thumbs under Alex’s eyes where the skin is a little more sunken. Alex sighs and sways into it headfirst, obviously tired from having been to classes and then spent the rest of his free time studying.
“Say it,” he mumbles into Henry’s chest.
“Say what?” Henry asks.
“Whatever it is you’re not saying,” Alex nudges him. “You know I can always tell.”
Rubbing a palm down the sides of his arms, Henry inhales. “Have you been skipping meals again?”
Alex’s shoulders tense slightly under his touch. He stays quiet for a moment.
“Yeah,” he says eventually.
“Love,” Henry says.
Untangling himself from Henry’s chest, Alex glances away. “I know. I know I need to call the nutritionist again. I’m just—” he cuts himself off, leaning against the island opposite Henry. “It’s so much easier to control when I eat less. It’s not just a constant roller coaster all the time.”
Henry nods despite the clench in his chest. “I know.”
“Eating means carb counting and portioning and dosing math and timing and stress,” he continues, his shoulder lifting into a small shrug. “Sometimes it just feels like it’s easier to eat nothing at all and just correct the lows when they happen.”
Henry finds himself once again at a crossroads that he still has yet to perfect how to traverse, caught between his own concern and his mindfulness of saying anything that might make Alex feel like he doesn’t empathize with him about this.
The first time he’d noticed it had been by chance. Henry had assumed it was a scheduling issue; they both often forget things during hectic times, and he trusts Alex to be able to handle himself without Henry adding himself to the list of people who attempt to micromanage his health. When Alex had nearly passed out on him though, it’d been more than a bit scary for them both.
“If the meal prepping isn’t working for you, we can try something else,” Henry offers gently. “Maybe it’s a bit too overwhelming, to have all of that staring at us all the time when we come to get a drink or a snack.”
“It’s not overwhelming for you. And this is your house, so.” Alex crosses his arms, glancing down at his feet. “You shouldn’t have to change all of that for me.”
“I want to. If there are things I can do to make this easier, I want to do them. It doesn’t make it more difficult for me. Not if it helps you.”
Taking his lower lip into his mouth, Alex seems to be lost in his own head as he stares hard at Henry’s chest. When he looks up again he still looks exceptionally tired, but softer around the edges as he pushes off the counter and wriggles back under Henry’s arms once more.
“I’ll call the nutritionist again,” he mumbles.
“Thank you.” Henry grazes lips to the top of his head, squeezing him gently. “I mean it. Whatever we need to try, we’ll do it.”
His own food sitting idly in the microwave, Henry leaves it as they slowly sway back and forth on the kitchen tile until Alex’s shoulders relax again.
“It’s just so frustrating when it feels like I have to do it over and over again,” he says quietly. “I get so tired of it. That I can’t just eat like everybody else.”
Henry sifts a hand through the back of his hair. “I know. And yet you still do.”
He gives a lazy snort. “‘Cause I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice, Alex. And you make the one that’s more difficult of the two because that’s who you are, and you deserve to celebrate the victories.”
Alex says nothing, as he usually does when Henry tries to remind him of his worth and accomplishments. It’s a process—for them both. Neither of them have really had someone willing to point those things out before.
The microwave beeps again over their shoulders and Henry pulls back with a kiss to his temple, removing the tupperware and setting it aside.
“I can cook for you,” he suggests.
Alex’s eyes widen. He gives Henry a sheepish smile. “Or we could order in…?”
“I am never going to get better at it if you don’t let me practice,” Henry sighs.
“No, it’s not you, baby. Swear,” Alex loops a hand around his bicep, stroking comfortingly. “I’d just—you know. I’d like to not have to deal with any other surprises from my body tonight.”
Bracing his hands on the counter, Henry groans but ultimately relents, fishing his phone from his pocket. “Fine. Italian?”
“Chinese,” Alex amends. “Extra sauce, please.”
“Of course. Find us something to watch?”
They part ways for a bit as Henry cleans up the kitchen and places their order, Alex shutting down his laptop upstairs and flicking through the television channels on the couch until they find something suitable. They gather together again once the food arrives, Alex’s legs unfolded over his lap and Henry feeding him bits of chicken and rice while David attempts to catch any droppings.
Later, when the takeout boxes are empty and Alex has given a second dose for the prolonged effects of the rice and sugary sauce, they share a fortune cookie and settle in under the throw blanket, sides pressed together.
“Thank you,” Alex tells him.
Henry kisses him, slow and indulgent and every bit as sweet as their food had been. “I love you.”
The fortune itself sits between them half-wrinkled inside of Alex’s palm, a reminder for them both.
Everything will be okay.
Christmas, 2022
The holidays are an entire production at the brownstone. It can’t be hidden, now that Alex has fully moved in. Henry would have never guessed that a good quarter of the boxes would be random Christmas paraphernalia, but the evidence is still scattered in his attic to the contrary.
It reminds him of his father, the way that Alex practically glows when he has something to look forward to, something else to pour himself inside of and make better. And, stuffed into a scratchy, size-too-small sweater with actual jingle bells adhered to the front, Henry dares to think that the joy is infectious.
It is also the first time they’re hosting their families, however, which adds a bit of healthy stress to the occasion. They see Alex’s family fairly frequently but Bea has only been out twice, briefly, since he moved in, and the rest of Henry’s family not at all. Philip and Martha will be coming this time, and though Henry shouldn’t feel as if he has anything to prove, he does.
The holiday season is notoriously difficult. Henry knows it to be true for Alex, as well. Just as Henry dreads the light fading earlier and the weight of grief as thick as a blanket of snow, Alex dreads the meshing of a family that doesn’t quite know how to fit together anymore, an attempt that typically ends in fights and disappointment again.
But Henry doesn’t live alone anymore, not in mind or body. It’s ignited something unexpected in him this year to try to make this one extra special. If not for himself, then for Alex.
“For us both,” Alex reminds him yet again as they set the table, savoring their last moments alone before everyone starts arriving. He grazes Henry’s knuckles from across the table. “We deserve to have a good Christmas.”
Henry can't argue with that.
“And, even if it sucks anyway,” Alex prefaces, pointing a folded napkin in his direction, “we still get to hole ourselves up with the leftovers afterward and talk shit about everybody else for the rest of the weekend.”
Shaking his head, Henry smiles and beats him to the end of the table, rounding it to press him back against the wood.
“That we do,” he hums. “That doesn’t sound so bad. Though I’m fairly certain we’ll be doing that regardless of if it’s awful or not.”
Alex hooks a leg around his and tugs him closer, nudging his nose with his own. “You know me so well.”
His nerves dissipate the longer they linger in each other, nothing left of their preparation. Henry doesn’t pull away until there’s a knock at the door, David’s gruff bark signaling them to someone’s arrival.
The bells on his sweater tinkle when Alex flicks one on his way past. “These really bring out your eyes, you know.”
Henry rolls them and pulls him toward the door, jingling all the way.
Summer, 2023
It rains the day that his mother is scheduled to come and visit them for the first time, but the cancellation call Henry braces himself to receive never comes.
Things have been better over the last year with all she’s done to help him transition slowly away from the seemingly never ending pull of his lingering duties. Henry finds her presence to be a fine line, one that Alex can and does empathize with. As readily as he’ll admit that he’s missed her terribly, it doesn’t change the fact that she wasn’t there when he’d needed her. Henry tries to tell himself that making a deliberate choice about it is still progress, regardless. Her taking time away from her own growing responsibilities to come and visit him means something.
He’s bundling up the remains of their lunch from the table to put away—a meal he’d actually mostly made himself this time, sans incident—while Alex and his mother make their way to the chairs in the living room.
It’s gone well, just the three of them. Alex is wonderful with parents and also at knowing when Henry’s overwhelmed, holding his hand under the table and swooping in to fill the silences where he can. It makes Henry smile, hearing them now—Alex’s familiar drawl and his mother’s less familiar laugh, a bit more frayed than Henry recalls it but no less genuine.
“Have you seen the one of him in the tub?” Catherine asks Alex in the other room, dredging up Henry’s old baby pictures. Henry rolls his eyes and wipes down the counter. “It was atrocious, but he was so adorable. He’d wanted a bath so badly and hadn’t wanted to wait for us.”
“So he flooded the whole bathroom?” Alex asks through his laughter.
“Bubbles and all,” Catherine confirms. The memory is so far away Henry can’t even picture it, but he can hear the warmth in her voice. “And Henry’s little pink bum right there in the middle of it, having the time of his life. Arthur nearly tripped over himself in his rush to photograph it.”
That’s something new, too. It’s been years since his mother’s been able to talk about him. With Alex, it just seems to come naturally.
“So that’s where all of our bubble bath has gone,” Alex says teasingly.
“That’s the best part of it—someone at our wedding had gifted us this gaudy set of bath supplies that neither of us used. It had been untouched for years in the bottom of our bathroom closet up until Henry drug it out.”
Alex laughs again, the sound lingering through the hallways.
“When Henry and I get married—”
Henry narrowly manages to catch the plate he’s holding before it falls.
It isn’t as if they’ve not talked about it before. It would be irresponsible not to, with the dozens of implications their potential marriage might cause for Alex’s parents and his budding law career, Henry’s future in London and with the crown, with their own baggage and specific flavors of trauma.
But hearing Alex say it to someone else, so casual, so certain, is enough to make him pause. Enough for hope to bloom in his chest all over again, for moisture to gather at the corners of his eyes.
He lingers in the kitchen for several more minutes, warm and emotional as the conversation moves on to other things in the living room. When he’s sure that his voice won’t shake when he speaks, Henry finishes cleaning and joins them, a spot already reserved for him at Alex’s side.
Whoever you end up with, Henry’s father had said, make sure your mother approves. She’s got a knack for seeing right through to the heart.
Alex takes his hand down by their laps when he settles in without once breaking his conversation with Catherine, his thumb stroking over Henry’s knuckles. It isn’t until he glances away to pull up yet another embarrassing photo of Henry on his phone to show her that Catherine catches Henry’s eye, her chin dipping briefly in a private nod.
“Are you quite finished?” Henry asks him after he’s been through half an album full, his voice still thick with lingering emotion.
Alex only grins at him, all teeth and no shame, and says, “Never.”
.
.
.
Henry wakes to loud, incessant beeping from the nightstand.
“Sorry, shit— sorry,” Alex curses. He silences it, already sitting up against the headboard to Henry’s left with his phone in his hand and a half-empty glucose packet hanging out of his mouth.
“It’s alright,” Henry murmurs, knuckling at his eyes. He turns to face him, squinting at the Sugar Pixel display screen that’s showing a steady 71→ +3 on the front. “I slept through the first one?”
“It’s gone off several times. I just didn’t catch that one before the alarm went off again. It’s coming back up, though. I think. Just—slow.”
Dropping his head back against the wood, Alex’s eyes flutter closed and he eases in a breath through his nose, a sleepy frown on his lips. Henry sniffs and reaches over to turn on his lamp, sitting up with him. The clock reads only a couple of hours since they got into bed, both of them exhausted and Henry coming off of a late flight home.
“Do your legs hurt?” Henry asks.
It’s become habit to wonder. During the day it isn’t as noticeable, but Alex says the lows during the night are the worst because of the way his legs ache during them. Something or other about the nerve endings and blood flow, Henry recalls from an article he’d read.
“Every time,” Alex hums.
Pulling his arms from underneath the sheets, Henry carefully relocates Alex’s legs from his own side of the bed to lay across his lap. He covers them up so they won’t be cold—another effect of the lows—and sets to work smoothing his palms against the spots that Alex complains about most often.
“You’re the best,” he exhales.
With his regular nutrition appointments, Henry doesn’t have to worry as much about the eating anymore. But the summers are difficult regardless because the unrelenting heat during the day drives Alex’s sugar stubbornly high, only to crash at night once the temperature relents and his body relaxes for sleep. Cameron helps with adjusting some settings, but assures both of them that sometimes it’s just one of the things that’s out of their hands.
It makes him happy in some roundabout way to think that he gets to be here for this part of it all now. He’d only ever seen it in glimpses or in hotel rooms before, and hadn’t truly known the extent. Getting to run his hands over Alex’s skin is the absolute least he can do, but knowing that it helps has begun to soothe the ache of not being able to be there before.
“I don’t think I want to go back to London anymore,” Henry admits eventually, curling his hand against the underside of Alex’s knee.
Alex shifts against the headboard, a furrowed brow in his direction.
“Baby…”
“No, not just for this, I mean—I don’t want to anymore. Everything that I could ever want now is already here,” Henry clarifies. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I don’t want to miss anything that I don’t have to anymore.”
Drawing his knees closer to his chest so that he can press into Henry’s side, Alex lays his cheek on his shoulder and nods, hooking an arm around his waist.
“Okay. You want me there when you tell ‘em?”
“I think I’ll be alright. Bea will have already seen it coming. Pip will throw a fit. Mum will understand. Eventually.” Henry bends to bury his nose in Alex’s hair. “My home isn’t there.”
Slipping a hand up his chest and over Henry’s face, Alex tilts his head back and drags strawberry-scented lips over his jaw.
“I love you, you know that?”
Henry smiles. “Did you know I love you as well?”
“Had a feeling, yeah,” Alex chuckles.
He mutters contentedly as Henry flexes his fingers on the outside of his thigh, rubbing at the muscles beneath the tender skin. Henry tries for a soothing pattern, dipping all the way down to his ankles and feet before moving back up again while Alex stifles a yawn into his neck, shifting under the blankets.
“Get some more sleep, love,” Henry tells him. “I’ll make sure it comes up.”
Whatever comes out of Alex’s mouth sounds like it was intended to be an argument, but before Henry can ask for clarification he’s snoring lightly, passed out on his shoulder. With a grin, Henry props them a bit more comfortably, angling them so he can watch the reading.
It’s nights like these that Henry is struck by the weight of all that he’d do for Alex without question. He isn’t even sure Alex is aware of it, but he never intends to stop proving it to him.
When the Sugar Pixel finally reads 125↑ +15, Henry gingerly reaches over to turn off the lamp and readjusts them so Alex won’t be lying on his devices on his stomach and thigh when he wakes up.
He curves an arm around Alex’s stomach, a leg slipped in between his own, and vows to never miss a night he doesn’t have to again.
Spring, 2024
It’s 2024, and nobody knows they’re engaged.
They will, soon enough. But for now, wide grins painting their faces and the weight of two new sterling bands around their fingers, it feels exhilarating to have something that’s only theirs.
The hardwood creaks under their feet as they spin themselves around the room to the tune of one of their old records, bathed in the glow of the fireplace off to the side. There’s grease from the pizza they’d ordered earlier on Alex’s cheek that Henry takes care of with his mouth and washes down with Alex’s tongue in between sips of the dessert wine from the cellar. None of it’s particularly good but Alex is, and they are, and Henry can’t recall a time in his life he’s ever been this singularly happy.
He feels at once like he could accomplish everything he’s ever wanted, more shelters, the novel he’s always saying he’s going to write, the future he always dreamed of and never thought himself capable of having. He tucks his grin into the crease of Alex’s neck and lets himself be held.
So much of themselves has been given to the rest of the world. They have the rest of their lives. Tonight will be no one else’s but their own.
New Years Eve, 2024
There’s cool granite under his thighs and whipped cream smeared across his chest, and Henry is overwhelmingly grateful that they’d decided to stay in tonight.
They’d been invited to countless celebrations, teased relentlessly by their friends for being overly codependent and never leaving the house since the engagement when they hadn’t RSVP’d. Henry doesn’t argue with them. The truth of the matter is that he would much prefer to spend his evenings planning seating charts and flower arrangements over the kitchen table with the love of his life than shoved into a corner at a party with too much alcohol and not enough light to even see each other properly.
Perhaps they are outgrowing their past selves, just a little. Henry doesn’t think either of them mind it too much.
How could he, when Alex makes such a convincing argument?
“Fuck, you taste good,” he presses into Henry’s chest, his tongue sweeping up another tendril of fluffy whipped cream. He raises enough to feed it to Henry with his mouth, his hips heavy and warm between the spread of Henry’s thighs.
“So do you,” Henry agrees. He slips a hand into Alex’s hair and tugs, feels the moan reverberate down the base of his throat.
Dipping into the sticky mess they’ve already made of themselves and the counter, Henry scoops up more and parts Alex’s lips with it. He watches his lashes flutter as he swallows around two of Henry’s fingers, his own wrapped securely around Henry’s wrist until every trace of the sweetness is gone.
His grip doesn’t stray farther than Alex’s neck for leverage, just enough to push him to his knees on the tile.
“Always so sweet for me, hm?”
Alex follows a dripping trail of the cream, down his abdomen, in between his thighs, and answers Henry’s question with his mouth full.
2025, five years since the leak
“Feels longer.”
They’re on the floor in the study, Henry’s back up against the wood of his desk with his legs, crossed at the ankles, extended in front of him. Alex is lying sideways across the rug just inches from his feet, a half-drunk bottle of wine they’re sharing back and forth gripped loosely in his fist as he stares at the ceiling.
“Feels like yesterday,” Henry admits.
Alex rolls his head sideways to look at him. “Really?”
“No,” Henry says.
They don’t often make a habit of feeling sorry for themselves. And if they do, there’s always the other one of them to pull each other out of it. But this particular day never fails to hit them both hard, and sometimes, Henry’s found, sitting with the heaviness is easier than attempting to hide it away or pretend it doesn’t exist.
In a fucked up, wish-it-hadn’t-happened-but-it-did kind of way, he’s glad this is a pain they can both relate to.
“You remember any of that day?”
Alex has told him that he has, but he’s never asked Henry in return.
“No. Just parts. Shaan. Bea. Pez. You.”
“That’s probably good,” Alex reasons.
Henry opens his hand for the bottle. “Really?”
“No.”
It burns on the way down, a little too sharp for his enjoyment. It fits the mood, Henry supposes. “We should get up. Do something. Get our minds off of it.”
“Yeah,” Alex says idly. He blinks. “I think I’m gonna quit my job.”
“Alright.”
He’s been talking about how draining it is for weeks. Henry wouldn’t go as far as to say he’d known this would happen, but he’s attuned to anything that drains Alex’s light. He’s always shined brighter in places he could be hands-on.
Heaving himself off the ground, Henry sets the wine on his desk and uses the hand to offer to Alex instead. After a moment Alex’s palm reaches up to meet his, their rings side by side, and Henry pulls him up too.
They lean on each other in equal amounts, Alex’s arms wide enough to wrap completely around Henry’s middle, Henry’s mouth the perfect height to press his lips to Alex’s forehead.
What happened five years ago wasn’t fun. Henry wants nothing more than to never have their privacy invaded in that way ever again.
But they’re still here, at least. It hadn’t broken them. They still have each other, and much more to look forward to than to look back at.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Henry proposes.
“Where?”
Somewhere in the open, probably. Fresh air, sunlight. It’s been far too long since he’s seen Alex against the backdrop of a horizon.
Henry loves being here, being home. But he forgets, sometimes, that that isn’t so much a place anymore as it is a person.
They’ll figure it out on the way.
Fall, 2025
He’s been bundled up in the seat by the window in their bedroom for hours when Alex finds him, fresh home from a job he’s leaving before the new year. Henry adores him like this, loosened tie and smudged glasses and folded collar, but he doesn’t even have the energy to turn and admire the sight.
“What are you doing?” Alex asks.
“Looking for Orion,” Henry murmurs, blinking at the fuzzy lights in the brownstone that faces theirs.
A code, part of a language few speak and fewer understand, but Alex does. He always does.
For all his therapy and medication and the sheer depth of which he loves this life they’ve built together, there remains a few stubborn feelings that seem to persist, unpredictable and unpleasant, despite his best efforts. Alex has them too, in his own way. But Henry always feels far guiltier about his own, even years down the line.
Abandoning his briefcase by the door, Alex drops his shoes by the closet and leaves his tie strewn across the bottom of their bed, adding to the pile of clothes Henry’d already left there earlier. He doesn’t attempt to turn on any more lights, just steps around the furniture to get to him and drops to the ground.
Alex knows how to take up space when he’d like to, but he can also make himself small. Enough to fit between Henry’s shins, to rest his cheek on Henry’s knee and look out at the view with him. Henry’s hand gravitates to him without much coherent thought about it, his fingers lost in a nest of soft, overgrown curls. Alex’s eyes close behind the frames of his glasses.
This spot, this entire room, is Henry’s favorite in the house. He and Alex have shared many milestones right here in front of the bay window, pressed together underneath Alex’s patchwork quilt that followed him here all the way from Austin. Sometimes, Henry wonders what it might be like to return there too.
This house holds countless memories. It’s where both of them had gotten to know themselves and each other better, nostalgia tucked into corners and lining the rugs, solidified in picture frames hanging on the walls. Henry’s glad that they’d ended up here when they had, for all of the things that have happened to them over the last handful of years. The city had been a perfect backdrop.
Lately, though, he’s been thinking it might be nice to settle in somewhere where he can see the stars. Just them and David and the freedom to take up as much—or as little—space as they’d like.
Alex’s lips brush the curve of his wedding band on his finger and, for the first time all day, Henry feels his mouth move to take a similar trajectory.
Winter, 2026
Henry stifles a cough into the crease of his elbow, wincing at the resounding ache in his sinuses. They’d managed to somehow evade sickness of any kind for far too long. It was bound to catch up with them at some unfortunate point.
He hasn’t had the flu since uni, but it isn’t something easily forgettable. Both he and Alex had gotten their vaccines and yet even that hadn’t been enough to except them from the seasonal wave that had overtaken their neighborhood. It was the farmer’s market that’d done it, Henry thinks.
Both of their antibiotics are separated out in the kitchen, and Henry nearly gags as he takes his prescribed dose. He’s farther along than Alex is but certainly not well, his chest still tight and his nose bright red. He can’t walk a handful of feet without encountering a pile of used tissues somewhere.
He grabs another cup of water to refill the humidifier in the living room and also two more water bottles with electrolytes mixed in, leaving them on the coffee table while Alex paces restlessly behind the sofa and into the foyer and back, the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers and his phone pressed to his ear.
“No, I can’t wait another month. I can’t even wait a couple of days. I’ve already gone through all of my backups. The only thing I have left is my emergency pen,” he rattles off, hoarse and congested. “There’s no way around the insurance? Seriously? ‘Cause I kinda can’t go without this.”
One of their laptops is open on the coffee table, emails back and forth with Cameron trying to work with his insurance. The antibiotic and the infection have caused highs since the day Alex first came down with it, and he’s gone through double the supplies trying to keep it in range.
Henry dumps the water into the machine and replaces the lid, breathing in the cool mist it spits out into the room while he waits for Alex to finish up.
“No. I don’t know. I can try Nat. She runs a non-profit that helps people with this. I just didn’t wanna have to bother her. Give me five, I’ll call you back.”
Hanging up the phone, Alex sighs and runs a hand through his hair for the tenth time since he’d woken up this morning. He rounds the sofa and collapses onto the couch, scrolling through his contacts as Henry sits beside him and tries to give some exhausted but genuine moral support.
“Hey, Nat. How are you?” Alex says into the phone. Henry can hear the tone of her voice on the other line. “That’s good. No, I’m—not great, at the moment actually. Henry and I both have the flu so my sugar’s have been crazy, and I’ve gone through all of my insulin, and insurance won’t cover it for another month. So I was wondering… yeah, yeah. For sure. If somebody else needs it instead that’s totally fine—” Alex pauses, blinking at their mantle. “Oh. Really?”
Turning away to muffle a sneeze, Henry steals another handful of tissues and watches Alex’s shoulders relax beside him.
“Nat, that’s—shit. Thank you. I don’t even—I had no idea what I was gonna do,” he breathes. “Thank you.”
He’s quiet even after he hangs up, and Henry knows that the moisture in his eyes isn’t just the allergies this time.
“She has some?” Henry checks tentatively.
“She has extra, someone donated more just yesterday. She’s gonna overnight them to me.” Alex’s head drops over the back of the couch, his hand covering his eyes to wipe at the tears. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Henry smiles, his own tension easing as well. They’re fortunate enough that this sort of thing hasn’t happened before, but it’d been a humbling experience to realize that even someone like Alex could be helpless when it comes to the healthcare system. It’s the most anxious either of them have been in a good while now.
“I’m so glad, love.”
“I really didn’t think—” Alex shakes his head, his throat bobbing. “I’m so glad she had some. I only needed two vials. She’s gonna send three or four, just in case.”
Henry reaches over to grab his hand. “And you have enough for tonight?”
“Yeah. I’ll have to do low carb for dinner, but the only thing I can keep down is soup anyway, so. That’s fine.”
After a short coughing fit and Henry shoving a water bottle at his face, Alex collapses sideways into him again. He sniffs and tangles their fingers together, his cheek still wet against Henry’s shoulder. They’ve still got a ways to go until the illness runs its course, but it helps to have this piece safely handled. Henry can feel the relieved exhaustion in both of them.
“I don’t know how to thank her enough,” Alex rasps.
“You’ve donated to her countless times,” Henry reminds him. He presses his lips to the outside of Alex’s temple. “I’m glad the kindness is coming back around. You deserve it, love.”
Alex would have fought him on it, before. Perhaps he still would, if he felt better. But for now he sniffles into his sleeve and lets Henry run fingers through his hair, content to let themselves be taken care of in a way they’ve scarcely ever let anyone else.
“In sickness and in health,” he murmurs, half delusional at this point.
Alex laughs, crackling and wheezy, sunlight poking through the clouds. “S’that what that means?”
Henry’s mind drifts back to the fortune they still have sitting on the mantlepiece: Everything will be okay.
“Of course it is,” he insists. “Who else is going to let you get your germs all over them?”
“I’m pretty sure it was you who got sick first and then gave it to me, so—”
Henry kisses him despite every single one of the reasons he likely shouldn’t, tasting every bit like menthol and homemade chicken soup as he suspected. It only lasts a couple of seconds without being able to breathe through their noses, fever-flushed and warm. Henry’s a little dizzy with it. It’s perfect.
“Gross,” Alex complains through a grin. “Get offa me.”
Henry will do no such thing. Alex doesn’t ask him to again.
Texas
It’s half past eleven in the morning, there are moving boxes scattered throughout the house in Austin, Texas, and Henry is not above throwing a fit if people don’t start appreciating the product of years of careful practice.
“Alex, tell them about my quiches.”
Henry stares unflinching down at the FaceTime call, Alex’s sun-drenched face filling up the screen. It isn’t often Henry needs his honor defended, but he trusts Alex to do it.
“Your quiches?” Alex asks. Bea and Pez snicker over his shoulder.
“Yes,” Henry says, “my quiches. You like them, don’t you?”
“Oh,” Alex says as soon as he can see the company. “Oh, yeah. Henry makes the best quiches, you guys. Seriously. I hardly ever find any shells in them.”
Everyone laughs—Bea and Pez here with Henry in Texas, June and Nora with Alex in Brooklyn while he gathers the last of their things from the brownstone. Henry huffs and adjusts the tie on the apron Alex had given him for the holidays the year before, setting the phone down so he can retrieve the food from the oven.
“How is it going?”
“Good, good,” Alex says. “Our flight’s in like, three hours? I think? It’s all ready to go.”
“And the florist went well this morning?”
“Yep. All good.”
Wedding preparation has been an ongoing discussion for far too long, in Henry’s opinion. He’s glad they’ve opted to have it here in the backyard of their new home, with the trees and the lake in the background, an open sky above them and only their family and close friends in attendance.
The flowers, however, will come from a shop in New York where they frequently stopped to surprise each other with arrangements. It’s worth the extra effort.
“Everything’s sorted here as well,” Henry tells him, having just unloaded the shipment of Alex’s medications into their new cabinet this morning after changing their address officially. “Except for my quiche, apparently.”
“Don’t listen to them,” Alex croons placatingly into the phone. “Save the whole thing for me, baby. Their loss.”
Henry sighs, pinching off a bit of the crust to toss to David hovering by his feet. They’ve only been apart for under a week. As Bea and Pez relocate to the living room to continue unpacking, Henry leans over the screen.
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” He can hear June’s aw-ing in the background as Alex shoves Nora off of him and steps away, a crooked grin on his face. “But you won’t have to for long. Gonna have the rest of our lives, here in a few more days.”
Henry tucks a smile into his palm. “I can’t wait.”
He’s only been here a few days but already Henry adores the space they picked out, blank in a way that’s less empty and more so makes him excited to fill it up. There’s room for more than just a few family photos, guest bedrooms for their friends to stay in, an office for Alex to work in and a study for Henry to finally finish up the last of his novel. David has free reign of the sprawling backyard and they can see the stars from the patio at night, and the room down the hall from theirs, Henry thinks, would make a lovely children’s room one day.
There’s room to grow here. To plant roots. The beginning of a new chapter all over again.
There’s a wreath hanging on the door and a pair of matching Stetson’s on the wall and laughter echoes from the living room. Alex’s picture shifts on the screen on the counter in front of him.
“You and me,” Alex says.
“You and me,” Henry agrees.