Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Henry, I—”

The water. It’s his only feasible escape. He dives into it with his breath held and head spinning. When he resurfaces, he starts talking. About what, he can hardly register, something about bugs and a weak joke about malaria that Alex pretends lands. He continues urgently filling the silence as he wades towards the wooden ladder.

It’s only when he’s back on the pier, frantically pulling on clothes and wrapping himself in excuses that all the weight of what he’s leaving behind starts ramming down on him. Henry wants to sink beneath it, let it pull him down back into the water, back into Alex’s arms: the safest, most terrifying place Henry has ever had the privilege of occupying.

He can’t, though.

Henry’s always been a runner.

In school, before university, he was on the track team. His coach always told him if he couldn’t keep running, to start walking until he could. Perhaps if this weren’t the second most devastating moment of Henry’s life, he would find it comical that the surly old woman’s lecture still found its way around the intricate tunnels of Henry’s ever burdened mind. It couldn’t have been less funny, but it was decent advice, and decent was undoubtedly better than anything he could come up with presently.

So he walks. He can’t run, not from Alex, not really. Not when he stands up beneath the weight and lets it find a home atop his sagging shoulders, leaving his heart discarded somewhere in the black water behind him. 

The logistics don’t really matter— he gets out: creeping out of their room four hours later. But because he’s hopeless, and because his heart has already begun splintering itself into hundreds of irreparable pieces, he turns from the hallway, signet ring clinking against the doorknob. Henry had fled the lake as quickly as possible, but not quite quickly enough to miss the look on Alex’s face: hurt and frantic and afraid. He knows what he’s doing to Alex, but he doesn’t show it in his sleep: he looks as peaceful and as lovely as ever in the white moonlight. Two thoughts occur simultaneously, each heartbreaking in their own right: The first, Alex is without question the most beautiful person he has ever seen; the second, (perhaps more fitting given the circumstances) Henry won’t ever see him like this again.

There aren’t words to describe what it does to him— leaving Alex— so he doesn’t bother searching for them. (He suspects he’ll have more than enough time for that later, anyway.) He doesn’t let himself think about it on the way back to London— or do anything else: eat, sleep, walk around the cabin— he merely resigns himself to staring out the window, finding his own crestfallen face reflected in the plastic.

Soothing Alex Claremont-Diaz heartache is an art form Henry is well versed in, but a self pitying call to Pez or composing a sorrowful song at the piano won’t remedy something like this. For fuck’s sake, what could remedy something like this? He tries to read Persuasion before promptly realizing how terrible of an idea it is to read a book about reuniting with the love of your life years after an old lady has convinced you to give him up.

Alcohol proves to be the closest thing to an escape. Gin, mainly, sometimes brandy.

He throws his bourbon in the waste paper basket because it tastes the way Alex tasted that night before the DNC.

Alex starts texting. He’s worried. He’s hurt. He’s getting the short end of the stick because Henry wasn’t strong enough to be honest. Because if Alex told him he loved him, he really didn’t know if he’d be able to stop himself from ruining his life. From ruining more than just his life: from ruining everything.

it’s the last text on the second day that does it: H, can you please just let me know if you’re alright? I’m worried about you. Whatever’s going on, we’ll face it together. Please Henry. Please.

He stops bothering to shut the liquor cabinet after that.

_______________

Alex is here.

Not in the way he always is, in nightstand newspapers and tormenting memories, but all of him, passionate determination and dark desperate eyes confronting him in the August rain.

Alex is here and Henry’s heart isn’t racing for the reasons it should be— the way it should be because he came after him. He just wants this to be over. For Christ’s sake, when will this be over? Alex, who makes him like feel anything is possible, like he could reach out and cradle the moon with his bare hands if he ever wanted to pull them off Alex’s skin, is standing in his too big bedroom with rain water dripping from his curls, staring at him with red eyes, and the walls are closing in around him and the moon’s so far away. How could he ever let himself believe otherwise? It’s always been out of his reach.

They’re seething with emotion, both of them. Alex’s manifests in yelling, Henry’s in silence. Then Alex is accusing him of not caring about him— which is honestly the most preposterous thing Henry’s ever heard and—

He’s fidgeting with his ring and Alex tells him that he loves him in a hoarse voice.

Henry’s still reeling when Alex throws a wad of paper at him, and he unravels it to find that stupid note he left in LA. The pain is so acute, it seemed designed for him. It’s so fucking idiotic, like he spent his months of self indulgence curating the perfect kind of misery to drown in.

It’s all happening too quickly. Henry can’t keep up.

One completely moronic accusation from Alex brings him right back to speed: “Was this all never going to be anything real to you?”

Is he truly that blind? This love is the realest thing Henry has ever known. He already knows it’s going to haunt him for the rest of his life. Longer than that. Well after he’s let Alex go, when he finds someone nice and they start a family, Henry will love him from the sidelines as wholly, as unbearably as he does now. He knows exactly what he’s giving up. He knows it’s going to break him apart and he’s going to spend the rest of his life desperately trying to mend the pieces. “You really are a complete idiot if you believe that,” Henry spits out.

“When have I ever, since the first instant I touched you, pretended to be anything less than in love with you?”

Alex looks stunned, like he honestly wasn’t sure it was true until then. Maybe he just wasn’t sure Henry would admit it.

Henry’s love for Alex is cataclysmic in nature. He knows it’s the kind of love behind mountain moving and ocean crossing; he’s already charred at the edges, and it’s imperative he puts out the fire before it burns him completely. Alex seems to be doing all the ocean crossing, anyway.

And then—

“Tell me,” a pause, just enough time for a sadistic smirk to curl on his perfect lips, “to leave.”

For half a moment, Henry lets himself imagine a world where he pushes Alex into the wall, where he kisses him senseless and takes him to bed, where they can finally make love for once, because Alex is standing here with bloodshot eyes telling him in no uncertain terms that his love is as strong as Henry’s is. Alex loves him enough to come here to fight for him. (And when has anyone done that? Fought for him? Henry can’t even do it for himself.) In that world, he’d hold Alex’s shuddering body through the night, and the next night, and every night after.

He can’t.

Alex might not have called him a coward, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Once a runner, always a runner, right?

“Alex, please I—” A desperate gasp. His voice drops low, he can barely hear himself over the rain pouring outside, he’s sure Alex wouldn’t be able to if their faces weren’t mere centimeters apart. “Please. I can’t say it, but I need you to go all the same.”

“And I need you to say it.”

“Alex—”

“Leaving looked pretty easy. Why should sending me away be any different?”

It is, in fact, the hardest thing Henry has ever done.

“It’ll kill me,” Henry admits in a breathless whisper. “Please, Alex, please don’t make me say I’m done with you, that I’ll find a way to stop loving you, when I don’t know if that will ever be true. Please, for the love of God, just go.”

Something shifts in Alex’s expression after that earnest entreaty. Maybe he didn’t actually consider being turned down. Seeing that doing so has taken every morsel of strength in Henry’s malnourished body, it isn’t an unreasonable assumption.

“Okay,” Alex says, stepping back, pushing himself against the wall while Henry’s hands remain dutifully at his sides. “Guess you’ll be writing those poems after all.” He swallows, shakes his head. A bitter huff. “They’ll probably be good poems. Of course they will, you’re—” 

Every crack of Alex's voice pierces through Henry's skin, each squeezing tighter around his heart than the last.

“Sorry I just— I have so much more to say to you, if this is it, I can’t think of any of it now that we’re here.”

Henry exists, in this moment, in two parts. The first, desperate for every word Alex has left for him. The second is in such deep, unbearable misery he needs Alex gone immediately. 

When it comes to Alex, the more painful path is usually the one he ends up taking, so he stays silent long enough for Alex to say:

“Can I—” his eyes are brimming with tears. “Can I hug you? One more time?”

That simple, desolate request has Henry’s own eyes following suit as he wraps his arms around Alex. Alex, who’s holding him so tightly, running his hands up and down Henry’s back like he’s trying to imprint the feeling into his fingertips. He lets out a shuddering breath and Henry feels tears seeping into the fabric at his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Henry chokes out, because it’s all he has left. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Alex sobs into his chest while Henry’s tears stream down his cheeks into Alex’s hair. Minutes pass with their shaking bodies clinging to each other. It’s nowhere near enough.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“I’m not,” Alex says, and he’s pushing himself off Henry’s chest for the last time. “For loving you, for any of it. I’d do it all again even if it just ended me back here.”

Henry clenches his jaw, the rest of his body gone completely rigid. It’s all too much. But he stays silent, because he suspects this is what Alex was trying to say earlier, this is the thing he can’t get into words. 

“I’d do it over and over again. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met. This doesn’t change that. Fuck, Henry, I’d—” He cuts himself off, pressing his hands against the wall and taking a deep breath with his eyes closed, reorienting.

“I should go.”

Henry’s mind— every part of him, really— his heart, his body, his fucking soul— is screaming at him to take it all back. To hell with the monarchy, the American presidency, damn it all. This is the man he’s spent his entire life loving and he’s throwing it away for a legacy he doesn’t give a single fuck about. He forces out a rough “I think so,” but he can’t hear it over the ringing in his ears.

“I love you.”

For the first time in his life, everything he’s ever wanted is his for the taking. He wishes he was younger, more reckless, shortsighted enough to be blind to all the ruin this would cause. It’s more than painful to hear, and it’s such a painfully Alex thing to do. His beautiful, defiant Alex, looking him square in the eye to confess the very thing that’s torn them apart from the inside out.

“Alex—”

“I know,” Alex says. “I just had to say it.”

Henry’s stomach is twisting into sailor’s knots. “Me saying it back would only make this harder,” he whispers.

“Can you anyway?” Alex pleads. “Just once? When we’re not fighting?”

And maybe he should say it because he owes it to Alex, or because he owes it to himself. Maybe he should say it purely because of how desperately he wants to, but he doesn’t. He answers because, years from now, when Alex looks back on them, he’s going to remember Henry’s cowardice, but Henry wants him to also remember that it was real. Gut-wrenching, earth-shattering, heart-stopping, real. 

“I love you,” he says, throat tight. “So much, Alex.”

Alex nods, tears running down his cheeks in a relentless stream.

They stare at each other for a moment, nothing left between them but wet eyes and broken hearts— and he’s gone. This time, Henry knows, irreversibly.

Chapter Text

When it comes to Alex, June’s always known what to do. She cheered the loudest at his lacrosse games when their parents couldn’t make it; she helped him apply to colleges and taught him how to pump gas. He’s her little brother: it comes naturally.

But Alex came back from London with red eyes and a half hearted shrug, and for once in her life, June has no idea how to make this better. 

Alex might be the cook of the family, but she’s the baker between the two of them. She’s been making Alex’s birthday cakes since she was twelve. Which leads her here: over a decade later, standing outside Alex’s door with fresh palmeras piled on a plate. She knocks before opening the door to Alex curled up in his armchair staring at the dark clouds outside.

He doesn’t so much as glance in her direction, but acknowledges her entrance with a weak “Hey, Bug.” 

She sets the plate beside a bottle of scotch that’s opened on the table next to him. “I made you cookies.”

“I’m not really hungry,” he says, turning towards her. “But thanks.”

“You’ll have to eat eventually,” she tells him tentatively. He answers with a noncommittal hum.

Now that he’s facing her, she can see the damage of the last three days clearly: the deep browns coloring his sunken eyes, which she can tell are red and puffy, even beneath his glasses. “Alex—”

“Please, June.” It’s so earnest, so different from his earlier placid responses, she falters, another entreaty for him to take care of himself dying in her throat as she waits for Alex to continue.

He doesn’t for several long minutes, biting his thumb and watching rain drops pelt against the window sill, but he doesn’t send her away, either, so she stays, absently studying her nails.

“It always feels like this, right?”

“Like what?”

“I don't know.” A dry huff. “Like there’s no point in anything anymore. Like I’ll never feel this way about anyone else.”

She knows he isn’t really asking her, he’s just letting her in on his musings, so she doesn't conjure up any answers, she just listens. 

“I don’t know how to do this,” Alex finally admits. “I’ve never let anything break my heart before, but this is— this is Henry.” 

He doesn’t have to explain it. June understands. She’d seen her brother biting back smiles at his phone for months; saw the adoration in his eyes, glued to Henry while he sang in LA; watched him transform into someone softer, gentler, more thoughtful. 

“Now that I know what it’s like to have him… I don’t know how to do any of this on my own anymore.” He lets out a bitter chuckle. “I just feel so fucking stupid for thinking it’d work out— thinking he’d pick me— like this is a fairytale and not the literal fucking British monarchy.”

“Love makes everyone feel stupid, Alex.” She pauses for a second, wondering if he’ll deny it— that it’s love they’re dealing with here, but he only chews his lip and shrugs. “And you’re not a fool for loving him,” she adds, “or because he couldn’t choose you in the end.”

“That’s the thing I—” He cuts himself off abruptly, whatever he was about to say discarded and quickly replaced with: “I mean, I’m so angry, but I can’t even blame him for it. I get why he did it, but I can’t— I can’t move past it.” A sip of the whiskey. One more. “I can’t stop checking my phone hoping he changed his mind.”

June sees him bite the inside of his cheek, and his eyes stay dry, but there’s anguish twisting over his face as he looks back at her. His heart is layed out between them, and it makes her own feel heavier, because Alex is torn in half and she knows Henry has to be the same. 

It’s more than that, though: she can’t protect her little brother from this. 

She kisses the top of his head, wraps an arm around his shoulder and stays silent beside him through the rest of the storm.

_____________

“Bea?” 

They’re lying next to each other on top of Henry’s fluffy hotel duvet — in Paris, of all godforsaken places, a mere two blocks from the place he first slept in Alex’s arms. (There’s apparently some very important global warming decision they’ll be eating escargot in support of. Henry could barely get himself to board the plane, let alone listen to Shaan’s debrief.) 

She places her phone on the nightstand, rolling over to face him. “Yeah?”

“Did I do the right thing?” He asks. “Leaving, I mean.” He needs someone to tell him this isn’t all for nothing. That his suffering is worth something, means something bigger than him. That this is the noble sacrifice he’s trying to convince himself it is and not the most grave mistake of his life.

She’s quiet for a moment, considering. “I don’t know,” she admits.

“Because I—” He digs his fingernails into his palm, a fruitless attempt at remaining collected. “It’s getting harder to see how this is all worth it when I know I—” His throat is tight. “When I know I’m going to love him for the rest of my life.”

Being open about his feelings typically doesn’t come naturally to him, but now that he’s started, he doesn’t seem to be able to stop. “He’s going to move on, and I want him to.” Not wholly true. “God knows I don’t want him to feel the way I’m damning myself to feel for the rest of my miserable life. I want him to escape all this, but I—”

The thought of Alex finding a home in anyone else’s arms, of him giving himself to another as freely as he was willing to do with Henry makes him feel that he’s going to vomit. He clamps his jaw shut, taking a deep, steadying breath.

“He’s going to find someone else, and— and I’ll have to watch, knowing I could’ve had him, knowing he wanted me, too, and I gave it up.”

Because Alex loves him now, but Henry loves him forever. Henry has loved him from the first day they met and every hour thereafter. Moving on simply isn’t in the cards for him, partly because his life won’t allow it, mainly, because his heart won’t.

“Bea, he—”

He’s horrified at the anguished sob that rips its way out of his throat. It’s followed by another, and another, and his eyes are wet, and Bea’s pulling him into her chest, and he’s crying into her shoulder, just like Alex did to him, five nights ago.

All he can think to say is: “I hurt him” again and again between sobs. Alex is too optimistic to have foreseen any of this, but Henry knew, all along Henry knew. And now Alex is across an ocean in as many pieces as he is, and it’s his doing, and there’s no remedy for any of it. Alex with all his fervor, ready to give it and everything else to Henry, ready to fly to London and scream at him in the rain to beg Henry to let him. He didn’t deserve it.

Bea’s telling him he did his best, what he thought was right, but did he? Did he really? Alex— so open and lovely and strong— Henry had refused to let himself imagine a person like that harboring a love as wretched as his own, but it was there, wasn’t it? In his emails and the way he kissed him: revenant, like Henry was something to be cherished, something sacred. It was there and Henry looked past it all because he didn’t want to see, he didn’t want to hope. Now Alex is suffering the aftershocks Henry directed his way in some stupid, hedonistic fit of oblivion. Their hearts are broken in the same places and it’s his doing. Henry and his stupid, selfish ignorance.

Now Bea’s rocking him against her like he’s a child, and Henry thinks that the earth must’ve stopped spinning, probably because he doesn’t know where he is if he’s not orbiting around Alex. He’s plunged himself into a blackhole, and thinks rather darkly that maybe it’s best he stays there, mummified by his grief, lest the memory of Alex grow any less bright with the passage of time. He won’t have the luxury of growing old with Alex, of seeing his warm skin wrinkle at his eyes or stark black curls soften to grey, so he’ll take the next best thing: preserving Alex exactly as he was— exactly as he loved him— a beacon to guide his weak, battered heart. 

He sobs into his sister’s arms until the sleeve of her T-shirt is soaked through, until he’s sure there isn’t a single tear left in his eyes, until his throat is sore from hiccuping gasps and eyes ache swollen.

Miraculously, the tears don’t stop, but his breathing evens and his blurry eyes find their way closed. Bea switches the lights off and he finally falls asleep in her protective hold.

_____________

The call connects on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Bea.”

It’s been eight days since Alex landed back in Dulles. Eight days of watching him skip meals and grow paler; eight days of having absolutely no clue what to do. “I’m sure Henry’s told you everything.”

“Well, not everything, but the gist, I think.”

June taps her fingernails on her closed laptop. “How are things? On your end?” 

“Honestly?” Her voice going low and serious at the question. “He’s… not been this way since dad.”

June felt her heart twist at that. Alex was destroyed, but Henry, it’d only take five minutes with the pair of them to see how much he loves Alex. He’d been so carefree— so open with his smiles and his touches at the lake, so different from the rigid politeness they’d always seen from him in years prior.

Bea goes on. “But he’s— convinced he did the right thing, I think he’s finding some solace in that. How’s Alex?”

“He’s… not great. I’ve never seen him like this,” she admits, voice hushed. “I’m scared.”

Bea sighs across the line. “Henry asked me if I thought he made the right choice, and I— I hardly know. The way he was, with Alex, in all our years I’ve never seen him like that. I’m not sure that version of him can exist again without him.”

June knows what she means. It’s the fear they’ll be lost to this indefinitely. Because that’s what grief does: takes you and molds you into something new; sometimes someone stronger, sometimes, someone damaged.

“Alex is…” June pauses, searching for the words. “Everything’s earth-shattering to him, you know? I think he can move past it, eventually, but now that we’re in the middle of it, I don’t know what to do.” 

Bea hums. “I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait it out and let time heal the things we can’t.”

Neither of them want to accept it, June knows, but she also knows Bea’s right: they can’t lift their brothers out of their pain, they can only be by their sides as they crawl out themselves. So she agrees, and they go quiet again. 

June’s about to end the call when Bea adds, “June? For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “Yeah. Me, too.”

Chapter Text

Alex Claremont-Diaz is completely fine.

He lives in an apartment two stories down from Nora that he’s covered with stray papers and empty coffee mugs where he spends his days not being lonely or exhausted or regretful.

Three months from his Georgetown law degree, he’s spending tonight how he spends most of his free time: in his apartment, reading up on a case. (Which, as previously stated, is very pointedly not lonely or exhausting or regretful.)

June’s visiting after a months-long book tour, citing missing him and Nora as her excuse for stopping by, but however subtle she thinks she’s being, she’s pulled this move on Alex before: he knows exactly what she’s doing as she innocently lifts a steaming tray of apple turnovers out of his oven.

Her intentions reached indisputable status yesterday, when she accused him of "possibly being depressed"— which is ridiculous (and wrong), considering he has it in him to brush his teeth and take regular showers. His place might not be as clean as it could be, but he still manages to get his assignments in on time and do appearances for his mom despite the ever present dish pile in his sink. He’s pretty sure people with depression can’t function in day to day life and Alex is, decidedly, functional.

Sure, he might not be particularly happy, but really, he’s alright. People in law school don’t typically have time for friends or relationships or whatever else it is that would signal happiness to June. He knows she means well, but she’s also hundreds of miles away in New York and hasn’t touched a textbook in at least six years. She wouldn’t get it.

He’d thought she’d at least give the older sister speeches a rest for the remainder of her visit, but one unfortunate glance in her direction tells him he isn’t out of the woods yet. She’s leaning against the counter, eyes fixed on him. Alex braces himself.

“It’s just, since Henry…” she hedges.

“Bug. Stop.”

It’s the same dance they’ve been doing since the worst August of his life: perilously avoiding the subject or eggshell mentions of it. Alex faithfully despises both.

“We need to have this conversation eventually.”

He wants to ask why exactly but a pointed glance around the room proves he’s not fooling her with his patched-together alright-ness.

“It’s been years, Alex,” she adds gently.

“I know it has, and no, we do not. How many times do I have to tell you I’m over it before you believe me?”

Until he means it, probably.

“Until you mean it.”

Okay. It’s not that he’s not over Henry. He isn't still tearing up when the person in front of him orders Earl Grey or skipping Return of the Jedi when he’s on a Star Wars binge— both pitiable realities for him in the months following their break up. Alex learned pretty quickly that pathetic heartbreak clichés get old fast.

And if he still enters half his mornings fresh from a dream of Henry coming back, of falling asleep next to him and holding him through the night, if he murmurs a “morning, Baby” into the empty space next to him or reaches an expectant hand that’s only ever greeted with the cold disappointment of a vacant pillow, well, no one is privy to that information but himself, even if June’s scrutinizing gaze does occasionally have him wondering if she can read his mind.

I do mean it,” Alex insists. “This isn’t one of your novels where the scorned main character spends the rest of his life mourning a seven month relationship.”

He’s always doing that. Reminding himself (and others— mainly his nosy, suffocatingly concerned sister) that their time together was short. That they would sometimes go weeks or longer without seeing each other. He rips it all down, reworking his memories brick by brick until he honestly starts believing he rose-colored everything in his head: they were so young, and it’s been so long, maybe it wasn’t really love at all. Maybe he just wanted it to be, etc. etc.

The method’s nearly foolproof, and would be flawless if it weren’t for the very real emails he still has saved on his phone. He doesn’t read them… that often, but often enough to throw a wrench in his progress every time. That and the one memory that never seems to fade: the feeling of Henry holding his trembling body their last night, the raw intensity in his voice as he told Alex for the second time— for the last time— that he loved him. The desperate so much, Alex tacked on the end.

He’s dedicated more than a few late nights to wondering if asking Henry to tell him he loved him then was the right choice. He thinks this probably would’ve been easier if he didn’t have that broken voice broadcasted through his brain every day of the last three years.

“Look, June, I know I— I know things changed for me after that—”

“You remember how I was worried about you turning into Mom and Dad?”

Alex thinks he knows where this is going, but her subject change reminds him of something else. His parents’ love was never one Alex wanted emulated in his own life. But the way his dad had told him his mom was the love of his life with a wistful sigh and a shake of the head… that’s how Alex is about Henry. He’s never believed in soulmates, or “the one”, they’re too impractical conceptually, but Alex gets closer to believing in them the more people he meets, the way them never being Henry always seems to be the deciding factor on why they’re never good enough, never right enough.

Alex knows that, if there is one person in the world who’s meant for him, one who fits better than any of the others possibly could, his is Henry. It’ll always be Henry.

It’s fine, though. Seriously. Alex came to terms with that a long time ago. Romance (especially one involving another country’s royals) would only fuck with his goals and the future that he’s spent his life planning out so meticulously in front of him. Maybe, if Henry had chosen him, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. Maybe he would’ve been okay with his dreams changing, if that shift meant folding Henry permanently into his life. But there’s no point wasting time in ‘what if’s. These ambitions are all he has— he’s going to get the life he wants, he’s going to be the person he wants, and he doesn’t need Henry's or anyone else’s help to do it. He can do it on his own. He’s gotten this far, hasn’t he?

“After Henry, it’s like you stopped seeing the point in anything except your work,” June goes on. “It’s still true, Alex. You don’t have to be our parents to be good enough.”

Alex knows she’s right, which is exactly why he’s tuning her out. Arguing with her will only make this last longer anyway.

She’s going on about how happy he was, how carefree he became with Henry’s hand resting on his knee and—

Nora comes flying through his front door, sans knock (normal), sans shirt (not uncommon), sans breath (concerning).

“You’re early,” June says, an eyebrow raised.

Nora’s clutching her stomach, eyes wild. “Check your fucking phones.”

Alex’s eyes scour the kitchen table before spotting his phone peeking out from under a stack of papers. He scrambles for it, Nora’s crazed display enough to have him frantically unlocking it. And there it is.

A Google alert. Six minutes ago.

Henry abdicated.

Alex Claremont-Diaz has, historically, been a hell of a lot better.

Chapter Text

“Alex.”

He doesn’t even remember how they got here. Everything between Henry abdicating and Henry standing right in front of him— the last three years— drift languidly into the past, at last left to rest, never to be dug up again: matters of total unimportance. God, hearing his name in Henry’s voice after all these years… Forgetting, forgiving: could there be anything easier?

Alex can’t explain it, but the air is different here, and it’s not the open windows or the gentle breeze dancing through the room, the one that kisses his skin and tickles his hair. It’s not the warm sunlight streaming in alongside it, so characteristicly un-London, but so perfectly emulating how Alex feels beneath its rays: warm and bright and safe, like the impossible is something he’s about to have cupped in his hands, the very thing pulled from his reach the last time they stood in Henry’s room being offered up again, his if only he agrees to take it. As if Alex could do anything else— his left hand clasped in Henry’s right illuminated in the golden light: he knows it’s a promise, even if it's one they haven’t made out loud yet. It’s as exhilarating as the afternoon light is enchanting. 

A soft stroke of his cheek pulls his gaze up the curve of Henry’s neck and the sharp angles of his jaw, past his flush lips and straight nose to meet eyes so familiar, so lovely, so determined. Eyes focused intently on his.

“Thank you for loving me this whole time.”

Had Alex told him that? Everything before this moment is growing hazier the longer Alex stands this fucking close to Henry without kissing him. He isn’t anxious for it, though: there’s a promise in Henry’s expression Alex doesn’t need to question. It’s more than intoxicating.

“I love you, Alex.” The tender caresses to his face leaving Alex helpless to do anything but stare up at Henry, totally, utterly mesmerized. “Just the same. Just as you love me.”

And, God, how long had he waited to hear those words? How long has it been since he’d given up on ever hearing them again?

He shakes his head in disbelief, feeling Henry's excited smile mirrored on his own face. “I love you,” Alex whispers, finally, finally, against Henry’s lips. 

“It’s not enough, though.” It sounds like shattering glass.

“What?”

“I love you now, but I loved you before. It’s not enough.”

And the rain’s back, even stronger than the last time, the wind thrusting it through the gaping windows, ripping down the curtains. There’s so much water stinging his eyes Alex can’t tell if the thunder that shakes the building is coming from inside the room. 

“It’s a fucking fantasy, Alex. Just a dream. When are you going to wake up?”

Now, apparently.

He’s lurching upright, panting hard, motion sick, in two places at once. But he isn’t: he’s not at Kensington.

He’s not at Kensington.

He’s in his bed in DC. Sweating. Heart racing. Mind erratic. 

He gropes around his bed for his phone in the dark, squinting when the harsh light— unnatural, so unlike the sunbeams he’d just been washed in— grates against his tired eyes. It’s almost five. No one texted him in the night. His eyes flick to the date. 

September 30, 2023.

It’s been sixteen days.

Sixteen days of checking his phone under meeting tables and deranged messages sent to the trio’s group chat.

Would it be weird if I called him??

Maybe he changed his number

It’s weird that he’s not calling me right? That’s weird?

He probably moved on

What if he thinks I moved on?????

I mean, I did. But lakfdlfkjsd

And so on and so forth.

You’d think he’s still that heart broken twenty-two year old by the way he’s acting. 

Sometimes he thinks he still is. Stuck replaying the same scenes, reliving the same memories; touching others only to close his eyes and conjure the same face every time. He thinks part of him went stagnant after that August. Alex vibrates constantly between there and here: a life in the present as well as the past.

Henry abdicating has brought out the worst in him, unearthing parts of himself he thought were long buried, something Nora and June have borne with varying levels of grace over the last three weeks.

It’s like all the hope he’s spent the last three years dutifully repressing is a geyser, exploding through the surface and he’s powerless beneath it, not strong enough to withstand the drumbeat of maybe maybe maybe that’s fallen in rhythm with his heartbeat. If Henry calls, he’ll answer. Hell, if Henry calls, he’ll do anything. Whatever he asks.

But something that feels very much like disappointment has been making increasingly frequent appearances in the pit of his stomach.

No ex-princes make any appearances on the screen of his phone. 

_____________

30 September 2023.

It’s been sixteen days. 

Henry has spent them all going absolutely nowhere near his cellphone. 

This was a decision he needed to make for himself. Not with any elaborate getting-back-together fantasies clouding his judgment. He won’t let himself open his contacts and find the one he could never bring himself to delete.

Alex, he means. The person he isn’t calling is Alex.

If he’s honest, though, if Alex had called at any time in the last year and asked him to reconsider, asked him to step down from his role, it would’ve been incentive enough.

Henry doesn’t regret his decision in sending Alex away, or, rather, he knows he can’t blame himself. At the time, it was the only thing he could do. He couldn’t give Alex the things he deserved and owed it to him to stop wasting his time. Had Henry not made that choice, Alex would’ve undoubtedly soon realized he needed to make it for himself.

Everything between them left him in shreds, and though Henry won’t flatter himself by imagining Alex is still wrecked the way he is, he knows he’s broken Alex’s heart once. Alex has of course seen he’s abdicated, that the barrier between them’s at last been removed. If Alex wants to welcome that opportune heartbreak back into his life, Henry is only a phone call away, more than ready to give it, to offer a new ending for the two of them, if he’s allowed. It’s how he arrived at his very difficult conclusion:

If Alex calls, he’ll answer. If not, Henry has to let him live. 

He can’t expect Alex to’ve spent the three years between them in the same dull waiting room he has. Alex had school to attend, campaigns to work on, while Henry was shoved into a military uniform and a life of perfectly miserable figurehead-ery. His official retirement had been in July, effectively substituting his days of contributing nothing to the air force for days of contributing nothing to his country from his rooms in Kensington.

And when faced with the road’s fork his entire life had built up to: give in, maybe marry someone he didn’t love, certainly continue leading a life he detested— a life that was an utter sham, or cut his losses and run, the decision was, for the first time, blindingly obvious.

After spending everything he had— everything that mattered— on this family, this monstrous institution, it seemed increasingly imperative that he stayed. But then he was free from the service, and his life remained empty and meaningless, and he saw, finally, that it’d always look that way. That’d he’d never get the things he wanted by pouring what he had into his role. He’d given everything he had and it still wasn’t enough. 

He’d told Bea first, then his mother. Philip and Gran last. The process was long and arduous, the work of several months, but he’s at last out, on the other side, and what with the paperwork out of the way he’s overwhelmed with a sense of peace that his decision was the right one.

All that to say, Henry’s made his move, effectively placing the proverbial ball in Alex’s court, and he’s no right to shake the boat now— he will be subject to Alex’s choices, whatever those may be.

______________

February 2, 2024.

Accepting that Henry was never going to call took Alex months longer than he’d expected.

“Please, Alex,” he’d begged. Begged Alex to not force him to say he’s done with it all. “Don’t make me say I’ll find a way to stop loving you,” he’d pleaded before admitting he didn’t know if he ever would.

Alex told himself he didn’t want Henry’s words to be true, didn’t want him to mourn what they had forever. But when faced with evidence that he’d followed his professed wishes to a T, Alex thinks he might stop breathing.

Because Henry’s the star of  the article open on his laptop, wearing a navy suit with his hand on someone else’s waist, someone who isn’t him, and it’s a man this time. A man. God, he’s going to be fucking sick.

Henry’s words had led him to believe, if one of them moved on, it’d be him. At least he had the choice. Now Alex isn’t the only one who gets to choose, and it should be wonderful, but the despair sinking into his bones, the jealousy raging in his chest, in his clenched fists, is anything but.

And some dejected part of him wondered: Was he enough? Was this man the reason Henry abdicated, did Henry love him enough to do the thing he couldn’t for Alex?

This must be why they call it the last nail in the coffin. Alex has been living in three years ago for so long he’d failed to realize that that’s all it is now: the past. He’s been clinging to Henry and their memories like a lifeline, completely disregarding the very likely— now, very real— possibility that Henry has moved on. 

All the hope he’s been clinging to so desperately, in one moment, slips through his fingers, never to be his again. 

_____________

18 February 2024.

Henry has been living in his apartment for five months and his resolve is hopelessly slipping.

He runs his hands across a crease in the waxy paper. 

It’d been a stupid game the two were playing, imagining their lives’ fantastical futures from some German bar in London the night after Wimbledon. Henry'd predicted Alex would become president, before retiring for a life of floristry. (“Floristry? ” “You’re due for a change of pace.”) Alex’s future for Henry had entailed a lot of anarchy and more than one assassination.

Alex had slipped their receipt into Henry’s wallet sometime that night, a note scribbled on the back: When I picture you happy, I see with your own apartment somewhere outside of the palace and a desk where you can write anthologies of queer history.

He still has the receipt, a drop of the glühwein they’d been drinking smeared pink on the back. 

And I’m there, he’d written.

Alex doesn’t know it— didn’t know it then, either— but he is here. Now, Henry means. Christ, he’s everywhere. in magazine pages and Instagram posts, but also in dreams that wake him in the dead of night. In the things he writes.

Alex might not sleep alongside him every night, but that didn’t stop Henry from sewing him into the sheets, from nailing him to the door and painting him into the walls. 

Using up your shampoo.

When the two of them were together— physically, geographically together, that is— Alex was always finding ways to get his hands on Henry: a squeeze of his thigh under a table or a shove of his arm. Behind closed doors, the touching never relented (not that Henry minded, of course); he’d press purposeful kisses to Henry’s neck, trail his hands from his chest down lower and lower, push their hips together before pulling him into the bathroom.

But, surprisingly, they'd never had sex in the shower. Alex never wanted to. 

Every time they stepped under the warm spray together Alex pulled their bodies flush, arms tightening around his waist, pressing light kisses to his collarbone or his shoulder blades, nuzzling his face into Henry's neck.

They never got out before the water turned cold. 

And making you come to the grocery store with me.

Henry actually does that now, goes out with a paper list to shove produce into plastic bags and look confused in the dairy aisle. The first time he stepped foot in a supermarket was when he was twenty one, and he only began frequenting the one down the road from his flat after moving in last autumn. 

He’s made more than one mistake while learning to navigate the world of the grocery shopping, and every time he finds himself thinking back to that note, wishing Alex was there to laugh at him or roll his eyes before standing on his tiptoes to kiss his cheek, just like they would in that watercolor world Alex painted them so long ago.

Waking up in the same damn time zone. 

If there were other universes (and Henry doesn't believe that there are) he’d like to believe there was one where that was true. 

Because Something changed in him that Paris morning, after a night of frantic kisses and purposeful touches, his cheek pressed against Alex’s warm skin.

Before, waking up was what it always had been. Now, waking up was knowing what it was like to greet the new day in Alex’s warm eyes, for the touch of his skin to be the very sensation drawing him into the waking world. Now, waking up alone was waking up without Alex. To put it eloquently: it’s a fucking torment.

Perhaps it’d sound pathetic that Henry still has mementos from his time with Alex, perhaps he seems tragic for living in the past as he is, but to Henry, it’s all terribly simple:

It’s not a choice he had to make— moving on— Henry knew it’d be a fruitless endeavor, so he never bothered trying. It’s Alex, when they were together and when they weren’t: Henry was always going to love him. Is always going to. 

It’s really alright. His mental health has never been more stable, he’s content. He and Alex’s ghost live together in perfect harmony in his Amsterdam flat.

He’s working on the shelter there, which is his primary reason for being in the city. He couldn’t stay in England. He isn’t planning on being gone indefinitely, necessarily, but long enough for his  news to grow old, for him to fade into as much obscurity as it’s possible for someone like him to have. 

Alex is never going to call. Henry’s going to be okay with that.

Chapter Text

8:09 a.m. January 11, 2025.

Alex stumbles into the hotel breakfast room at an unholy hour (eight) mildly hungover and in desperate need of acquainting himself with the coffee machine on the corner of the counter.

It’s colder here than anything he’s ever experienced in his life, a chill his Texan blood isn’t accustomed to. 

Mercifully, he’s the only one stacking his plate with dubiously fresh bread and draining the drip coffee supply into his travel mug. He’s spent the week in Stockholm for a healthcare convention which, in Alex’s opinion, droned on four days longer than necessary. He celebrated its end by getting more than tipsy on overpriced minibar whiskey last night and is currently suffering the consequences. 

The hotel he stayed in through week was always busy, important people running this way and that, but there’s a quiet peace here that he gratefully settles into. It’s still dark outside, and he nurses his uneasy stomach with his cup of steaming coffee: a feeble attempt to wake himself up before he leaves for the airport in an hour.

He blinks blearily towards the TV, eyes tired and unfocused. A Swedish woman is narrating what is apparently a particularly riveting opening ceremony. From what Alex can tell, the gray building behind a cluster of very excited Dutch people is a big fucking deal. They’re even cutting a ribbon, how cute. A bite of his croissant— yeah, definitely not fresh— And some guy’s walking onto the stage with way more pep than anyone could possibly need before nine a.m. He taps the mic, wincing when it sends a ringing sound directly from the Netherlands to Alex’s oversensitive eardrums—

Oh God.

Oh God.  

It’s Henry, his Henry, on the TV, on the podium, on the microphone.

Alex’s mind kicks into overdrive and he’s scrambling closer to the TV while Henry starts talking about how important this shelter is to him, how important it is for young LGBT people to have safe places to express themselves…

Did Henry come out? Did he miss that?

“Like many queer people, I know what it means to live in fear of telling the world the truth about who I am.” He doesn’t stutter or hesitate. He’s so sure, a confidence Alex has never seen on him before. It looks good. More than good. It looks right. “Like many others, I didn’t believe I had a choice. I’ve made sacrifices, given up…” A heavy pause. “Loved ones.”

Given up loved ones? Alex can’t help the incredulous laugh falling from his lips, because it’s funny how six minutes in a room of empty tables is all it takes to unfurl nearly five years of determination.

“I’ve spent so much of my life dwelling on what nearly happened, what could’ve been if I’d just made one choice differently.”

Seriously, fuck this guy’s thoughtful pauses. Alex can’t process it, doesn’t want to— there’s no time— just stands with eyes locked on the TV, waiting for Henry to continue.

“It’s all a waste though, isn’t it? What a waste of time. What matters is the time I do have. The decisions I’m making now. And now what I want more than anything is to do my best to prevent anyone from feeling the things I felt when I was too young to realize I had a choice.” He glances back towards the shelter with a proud smile. “I want to make sure kids who are scared and alone have a place to go that is safe and where they can be loved.”

What. The. Fuck.

There’s that hope: unbidden and relentless and always, always, sure to follow where Henry is concerned. 

He's still reeling as Henry glides through the Q and A segment like he didn’t just send Alex into cardiac arrest in a hotel breakfast room at eight in the morning. 

Some kid asks Henry if he’s in love and he chuckles— the bastard. Alex honest to God thinks he’s going to pass out— before dropping the bomb that is: “You know, I think some people are meant to love multiple people in their lifetime, while others are only meant to love one person.” A twist of his lips, a sorrow his practiced smile can’t mask. “I think I met the love of my life a long time ago, if that answers your question.”

It absolutely does fucking not.

What in the vaguely pointed bullshit of Alex’s wildest fantasies was that?

It could be him, right? Okay. Henry didn’t say he was in love at the moment, necessarily. He also didn’t specify whether he was the kind of person who only loves one person a lifetime and maybe it isn’t about him at all, maybe Henry’s moved on and forgotten them—

But if he hasn’t… If he’s spent the years separating them in the same kind of misery as Alex. Fuck, then they’ve wasted so much time. So much time thinking the other didn’t want to call. Could Henry have been waiting for Alex, the way he was waiting for him? 

Then Henry’s walking off the stage, disappearing off the screen and Alex can’t stand not seeing him anymore, the need to talk to him overwhelming every other sense in his body.

Because his heart has been dormant since that night Henry sent him away, but Henry’s speech is pumping spring into his bloodstream, vibrant colors electrifying his body, from his bones to his fingertips and, God, could he be blamed for hoping maybe Henry is that way, too? Maybe all it’d take to release his heart from that barren five year winter would be some fucking honesty. 

He’s terrified. Goddamn, he’s terrified. But he has to try. He’ll hate himself forever if he doesn’t.

So: two impulse decisions. The first: canceling his ticket home, not bothering to book a new one. The second:

Henry

8:21 a.m.

I saw your speech

could we talk?

8:22 a.m.

Where are you?

8:26 a.m.

what?

8:26 a.m.

Where in the world are you?

8:27 a.m. 

oh

Stockholm

8:27 a.m.

I’ll be there tonight.

Chapter Text

Amsterdam, 8:34 a.m. 11 January 2025.

“Good God, Haz, are you alright?” Pez squawks as Henry hauls him into his office. 

He isn’t actually involved with this particular shelter, but he flew in last week to help Henry and support him on the opening day. 

“Are you nervous about the speech? Because I really thought it was splendid, Henry. Even with—”

“Alex just texted me.”

“What?”

“Alex saw my speech, and he texted me.”

His best friend, ever accoutered with quips and comments, stands slack-jawed before him: utterly speechless. 

“He asked me if we could talk,” Henry can hardly believe the words, even as they fall out of his mouth. “And I told him I’d meet him in Stockholm tonight.”

Pez, having regained himself, is beyond delighted. “Stockholm? As in, Sweden?” 

A single nod. 

“And you’re going today?” A meaningful glance around the office. “What about the shelter?”

“I— I thought of that. But most of the work is done and they don’t really need me here.” Henry’s job is essentially completed. He’d planned to stay and help out, but now… Well, he’s needed elsewhere. “And, if he wants to see me…” A pause. A long exhale. “I’m not going to give him time to change his mind.”

Pez laughs at that. “Believe me, the man is not changing his mind. You practically confess your undying love for him on live television and he texts you immediately after,” he points out. “If we’re going off of that this is probably the best day of his life.”

“Have you forgotten the part of his life where I let him fall in love with me, then promptly kicked him out of mine?”

“Yes, and perhaps after you pushed him away, he didn’t feel he was at liberty to send you an olive branch?” Not a bad line of reasoning. Not one Henry wants to take into consideration. “Until you started waxing poetry about him in front of the whole world, that is.”

This is acutely not what Henry needs to hear right now. “Do not give me hope, Percy.”

“I don’t need to.” Pez smirks. “You’re already oozing with it.”

Stockholm, 11:56 a.m. January 11, 2025.

Alex is, to put it delicately, freaking the fuck out. 

He’s spent most of the last four hours sweating, pacing, leaving June and Nora frantic voicemails, and trying not to puke from the anticipation. 

Henry, who, as far as he knows, is in Amsterdam right now, is going to be in Sweden tonight. Alex isn’t even supposed to be in Sweden tonight. He doesn’t know what he was expecting when he asked Henry to talk this morning, but it certainly wasn’t this.

He texted Henry again an hour ago:

Henry

10:38 a.m.

where are we meeting?

10:49 a.m.

Ideally somewhere private?

You could meet me at my

hotel, if you don’t mind.

10:54 a.m.

that works

10:55 a.m.

Alright.

I’ll send you the details in a 

moment.

So, an hour later, he has Henry’s hotel name, room number and approximately nine hours to figure out what the hell he’s going to say tonight.

He's been spending most of his increasingly limited time rewatching Henry's speech on his laptop, I think I met the love of my life a long time ago replaying over and over on the screen.

Alex wishes he was sure it was him, but he can’t be. Not when the time they spent together spanned less than a year. He doesn’t even know how long into their arrangement it took Henry to start having feelings for him. Or thinking he did. Alex has thought he was in love before only to come out on the other side realizing he wasn’t. How can he be sure that’s not how it was for Henry, with him? 

Because they never even had an honest conversation about their relationship, only one honest fight. 

This time, more than ever, he wants to tell Henry he loves him between slow kisses, wants to tell him he loves him in cool breezes under the moon’s iridescent light. Not in a fit of desperation, rage and confusion pumping through his bloodstream. 

Henry’s giving him that chance— or something like one. He has to take it. He thinks it should be easy, he shouldn’t have anything to lose, but the desperate hope that Henry’s finally changed his mind is a constant he might be giving up tonight for good. Still, the hope of what could be gained is swift and forceful; it’s already become a lump in his throat and a tremble in his hands.

He’s terrified things will be different almost as much as he’s terrified they’ll be the same.

AMS, 5:19 p.m. 11 January 2025.

Pez

5:19 p.m.

I don’t believe I have ever been 

this terrified in my entire life. 

5:19 p.m.

You’re going to be fine

5:21 p.m.

I called him the love of 

my life on international 

television. 

5:22 p.m.

And he’s going to return the 

favor. Preferably in a more 

private setting

Oh my god, Haz you’re probably

 getting laid tonight

5:22 p.m. 

Again with the giving me hope.

5:23 p.m.

Listen. I really believe everything 

is going to work out

But if it doesn’t, we’ll buy a plot

 of land in the south of France and

 never speak to or of men again

5:24 p.m.

Thanks, Pez.

About to take off.

5:24 p.m.

Love you, babes 

NOW GO GET YOUR MAN

Stockholm, 9:00 p.m. January 11, 2025.

1.  Running for student council Junior year.
2. Coming out to his parents.
3. Begging Henry to not give up on them.
4. Letting go of his political aspirations.

He’s had twenty six years to do some pretty scary things.

But frozen, poised to knock, Alex is facing room 1109 and the single most terrifying moment of his life.

He’s moving his hand before he has more time to think about it, and he’s doing it, and the door’s opening, and Alex finds rapping his hand against the dark wood only held first place on his list for a record six seconds, forcing himself to look into those soft blue eyes quickly taking its spot. 

And, Goddamn, he’s nervous, but he and Henry are at least civil— he thinks— and he feels something like a bashful smile creeping onto his face as he says, “Hey.”

Henry looks— honestly? Way, way too collected right now. “Hello.”

They stand there for a moment, looking at each other, before Henry seems to realize Alex doesn’t have anything else hallway appropriate to say. “Come in.”

Alex nods, suddenly self conscious when he catches Henry eyeing his suitcase. “Sorry, I—” He glances down at the bag. “I didn’t have anywhere to leave it, so…”

“It’s fine, Alex.”

He hasn’t heard his name in that voice since he was twenty two, and he’s helpless against the memory of the last time he did. I love you. So much, Alex. And fuck, if he hasn’t clung onto those words. Believing he was moving on, giving up, only for them to creep back into the forefront of his mind, demanding to be heard, demanding rumination. He’s hopeful and desperate and petrified and not one of those things is what he needs to be right now. He needs to be focused.

“Okay.”

His steps are too loud against the glossy wooden floor, the door clicking shut echoes too loud through the space between them.

He leaves his luggage by the door and follows Henry into the room, towards the bed. It feels too intimate, somehow— he used to know every curve of Henry’s body, used to tumble beneath cold sheets with him, and now he can’t even stand next to a made bed with him without feeling completely out of place. Helplessly, he wonders if Henry’s thoughts are running a similar course.

“How is Bea doing? Pez?” God, what the hell was wrong with him? How can he stand here and ask how Bea and Pez are doing before checking up on Henry himself? The only person he wants to hear about is Henry. 

Henry’s answering, but none of it actually registers— Alex needs to think — they fall into silence again soon after.

“I saw your speech, I, uh.” What is he saying? Obviously he saw it, that’s why they're here right now. “I mean, you seemed so… what you’re doing, it’s really impressive.” And for fuck’s sake isn’t he here to be vulnerable? He forces out words that should flow naturally: “I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, Alex.” An unreadable smile. “That means a lot. Truly”

“Are you living there? In Amsterdam, I mean.”

“Yes, I—” Henry shrugs, a barely-there shake of his head. “I had to get out of England. I didn’t exactly have anywhere else to go, and with the shelter there, it just… made more sense than anything else.”

Alex can most definitely think of a place Henry had to go, but he’s trying to ease into that conversation. 

“And you came out?” 

Alex hadn’t seen it. After Henry abdicated, after he didn’t call, after Alex saw him put the same hands that have squeezed his hips on another man’s waist, he forced Henry out as much as he could. Stopped searching up his interviews and watching them on repeat just to hear his voice, to scrutinize his practiced composure for any signs of his Henry slipping through. Filtered his name out of his Google alerts. He’s missed out on more than four years of Henry’s private life, but nearly a year of his public one, too.

“I did,” Henry answers. “About the same time as the shelter was announced.”

Alex nods, biting the inside of his cheek. He had a plan, he was going to do this right, but he’s standing in front of Henry for the first time in five years and he can’t stop himself from asking the question he’s needed an answer to since he was staring bleary-eyed at the TV this morning: “Is it me?” 

It catches Henry off guard, his practiced composure finally faltering. “Sorry?”

This is how he’s doing this? The conversation that’s woven its way through his dreams for a thousand and more nights and he can’t even stick to his own script. There’s no going back now, though. “I— in your speech, you said this dodgy thing about only loving one person in your life.” 

Henry’s standing in perfect stillness, face neutral save the slight widening of his eyes. Jesus Christ, he’s beautiful. 

“Henry, if you were talking about me, or if you weren’t but I still have a chance—” He takes a breath, deep and steadying. He fixes unmoving eyes on Henry: this is it. “I just— I need to know— do you think you could love me again?”

And Henry scoffs. “Again?”

Alex’s heart drops. It’s sinking further and further, his gut roaring with dread. With horror. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Henry hadn’t even loved him the first time? Is that what he’s about to tell him? That incredulous tone, like it was absurd, like it was comical, Has Alex been alone in this misery the whole time? It’s a loneliness he isn’t ready for, and he takes it like a slap across the face. God, why did Henry even come here?

But Henry’s reaching towards him, taking one of his hands in both of his own. Henry’s stepping closer, tilting his chin up, looking into his eyes like they’re hiding a sunset or a supernova— Henry’s smiling. Small, but with a confidence that’s new to the night.

“Alex, I’ve been planning on spending the rest of my life loving you for a very long time.”

Alex can’t think, can’t breathe, staring dumbstruck at Henry, mind running continually into the same wall.

“You love me?” He asks hoarsely. “Still? After everything?”

“I told you I wasn’t going to be able to stop,” Henry tells him gently, moving a stray curl from his face.

Alex stares down at their hands, jaw set, nodding. Because that was it. Henry didn’t love someone else, didn’t abdicate for someone else. He loved Alex. The whole time he loved Alex. 

He swallows down the lump in his throat. “You meant it.”

“Of course I meant it.”

Maybe it’s the years between them, layers and layers built up over time: all the hurt, all the uncertainty, but the dam breaks, and it’s rushing rushing rushing, and his heart is speeding up again, and—

Alex is tumbling into Henry’s chest, arms clutching his back, tighter and tighter. Instantly, Henry’s arms are around him: it’s all it takes for the sobs to start retching their way out of his throat—ugly, hiccuping sounds— and he thinks Henry is shaking against him, too.

They cling to each other, in the middle of the hotel room, in the middle of the night, and when Alex inhales it’s Henry he’s breathing in: that same cologne, that same fresh linen smell. There’s a reassuring hand rubbing his back as he weeps into Henry’s neck.

The tears don’t stop, but the sobs do, and he’s finally able to do the thing he’s wanted to do since his last tearful night with the man he loves: “I love you.” He says it and knows it isn’t a goodbye or a last ditch effort.

Henry’s hold around his shoulders gets impossibly tighter, one shaking hand clutching the back of his neck, like Alex is going to pull away if he doesn’t keep holding him against his body.

“Still,” Alex whispers. “Always.”

Then Henry’s the unsteady one, and Alex holds him up, just the way he always wanted to, the way he always will. 

Eventually he pulls back to look at Henry, finding his face as wretched as his own probably is. He lifts a tentative hand to his cheek, brushing away a fresh tear, rubbing it softly into his skin.

Henry smiles weakly, eyes so heartsick, so heartfelt as he asks: “What now?”

9:19 p.m. 11 January 2025.

“What now?” 

“I want to shower.”

“Okay.” 

“With you.” A hand resting on his forearm, a thumb running lightly back and forth across his skin. “I want to shower with you, Henry.”

Henry is helpless but to comply. He pulls Alex to the bathroom, turning on the light and twisting the water on. 

He holds the bottom of Alex’s sweater between his fingertips, rubbing the fabric lightly, eyebrows raised in question. At Alex’s nod he lifts it up, sliding it off while Alex raises his arm in assistance.

Alex stands before him, chest bare, save the key that still rests on his sternum. Henry reaches out to touch it and notices Alex trembling. “You still have it?”

Alex nods, wordlessly reaching two unsteady hands out, smoothing the collar of Henry’s shirt before reaching for the top button. He frees it from its loop, painstakingly slow. Moving down, freeing each button with the same reverent care. 

“Taking your time,” Henry notes.

“That isn’t complaining I hear, is it, Wales?” An awe-laced whisper. A teasing smile.

He doesn’t attempt to hide the sneaking grin at Alex’s retort. “We’re going to run out of hot water if you don’t hasten things along.”

“We always did that.”

“I remember.”

The thing that’s so wonderful, the thing that’s making his heart stumble, is that Alex remembers.

The rest of their clothes are peeled off in the same careful manner. Then Alex is taking him by the hand, and they’re stepping into the steaming water together. 

The water is hot; Alex’s smile is warm. 

Once his hair is sufficiently wet, Alex directs his head back, scrubbing a handful of hotel shampoo into his coarse blond hair. Henry sighs at the sensation: warm water beating against his chest, Alex’s thumbs massaging his temples. A kiss pressed to his shoulder. It feels like stepping into a dream. It feels like waking up on the other side of one.

Alex chuckles at the hitch in Henry’s breath when he scratches the back of his scalp. “Feels good?”

He admits quietly that no one's washed his hair since the last time Alex did.

“Guess we have a lot of lost time to make up for,” Alex says as he rinses out Henry’s hair, rubbing conditioner in with the same tender, practiced touch. 

Once his hair’s clean, Henry squeezes the soap into his palm, rubbing it between his hands before placing them on Alex’s chest. He doesn’t miss the way Alex’s muscles tense under his hands, the thud as he surrenders his head against the tile wall, eyes closed and jaw clenched. The tremor beneath his hands as Henry runs them over his abdomen. 

“Relax, Love,” Henry murmurs, tracing a raised vein down his forearm, rubbing the soap into his palm and between his fingers. “It’s just me.” 

“ Just you,” Alex huffs, eyes opening to burn into Henry’s. “I know it’s you, that’s why I— God, Henry, it’s you.”

Henry understands. Of course he understands. So he lets it drop, simply telling Alex what he’s thinking instead of prying at his half finished statement: “You’re gorgeous.”

“Thanks.” Alex says, mischief morphing his content smile into something playful. “You’ve aged.”

“You cheeky—” 

“Baby,” Alex soothes, and all Henry’s protests follow the water down the drain at the name. “You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you.” 

Henry thinks this feeling has existed before, in poems and oil paintings. In dreams. He never knew it could exist in him, buoyant and unafraid, rising in his chest, zipping up his spine.

Alex’s eyes flick towards his mouth and Henry doesn’t ask permission, doesn’t waste any more time, angling Alex’s jaw upwards and pressing their lips together.

The kiss is soft, gentle and slow, but neither of them can mask the desperation they bring into it: years of pent up desire crashing into each other in a dimly lit hotel shower. They don’t have to hide from each other anymore, anyway. 

Alex’s lips move over his and it’s an ending: a key locking a box shut for the final time. Five years of grief— of anguished separation— already thrown overboard, sinking into darkness. Five years of waiting blotted out by a single moment of having: a single kiss to dispel it all.

They pull back and Alex stares up at him, eyes huge and transfixed. 

It feels sacred, sanctified. And it is, Henry thinks—it must be— because this is more hallowed, more holy than anything he’s ever known in wooden pews or beneath stained glass. 

Henry’s throat goes tight at the thought, and he knows he can’t get words out unless they’re accompanied with more tears. Instead he pulls him in, back into the water, back into his body, wrapping himself around Alex, lips pressed against his forehead, a hand cradling the back of his head, lost in the black curls. Alex doesn’t return his hold in the same fashion, doesn’t squeeze Henry like a lifeline, like he might disappear. He’s almost limp in Henry’s arms, finally relaxed beneath the hot water and safely nestled in Henry’s arms. 

A few minutes pass before Alex turns in his arms, pressing his back against Henry’s chest, head resting back on his shoulder. He takes one of Henry’s hands in his, bringing it to his lips to leave a kiss to the back of it before pressing the palm to his chest. Henry can feel Alex’s heart thrumming beneath his hot skin, a torrent rhythm pounding against his hand.

Henry knows it’s more than jitters, it’s vulnerable. It’s trusting. After Henry dashed his hopes against the rocks all those years ago, Alex is showing him that he trusts him. 

“You still make me nervous,” he admits.

Henry holds him beneath the hot water, against the cold outside air. He holds him and he loves him and it’s peace. At last, at last, at last. 

They don’t move until the water turns cold. It’d be a shame to break tradition.

They do, though, in the end. Because, for the first time, after toweling each other off and pulling on Henry’s clothes, after crawling into the bed, they begin the night curled into one another.

For the first time, Alex whispers, “I love you” against his skin, lips pressed to the place where his warm breath tickled over as he breathed out the promise.

“Goodnight, Alex.” An answer to a question: “I love you.” A question that can finally be asked with certainty of the answer. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he adds.

Alex mumbles a sleepy “got a lot to talk about” in agreement.

They do. In the morning they’ll sort through the past five years and all the future ahead of them. But for right now, this is enough. It’s so, so much more than enough. 

Chapter Text

Something’s pressing down on his chest. Henry lurches forward, breath coming in shallow hiccups. Where is he? He squints at the light that’s seeping into the room from the windows. The room. His hotel room. In Sweden.

Then he’s being pulled back down by the shoulder, and Alex is contentedly reclaiming Henry’s chest as his pillow.

“What the hell are you doing, Babe?” He mumbles into his skin.

Alex’s warmth floods into his skin at every point of contact, a drowsy welcome to the waking world. 

“Didn’t know where I was,” Henry mumbles into the crown of his head, pressing a kiss into his tangled curls. 

“Wow.” Alex squints up at him against the light. “I fulfill your five-year fantasy knight-in-shining-armor style and you’ve already forgotten twelve hours later?” Alex relocates his head to the pillows so he can face Henry properly, his teasing smile now only inches away. 

He pecks a kiss to Henry’s lips, and it doesn’t make anxiety pool in his stomach, and it doesn’t send his mind racing with a million and more questions, and it’s not frightening anymore, not having the answers, because he knows they’ll be his because he wants them. It’s so remarkably simple: all he ever had to do was ask.

“Lifelong,” Henry corrects, combing the hair back from Alex’s face.

“What?”

“It was a lifelong fantasy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Henry traced feather-light fingers across the ridge of his brow, down his cheekbone. “Alex,” he whispers, cupping his face, because he has to touch him, has to feel the buzz of his skin against his palm. Suddenly he’s bubbling with the secret—a good secret, finally— needs to give it to Alex, for the two of them to share. “I always wanted you. Since Rio.”

“Rio?” Alex gasps, eyes wide and rapidly searching Henry’s face. “But you blew me off. We couldn’t stand each other—” 

“I—” Henry looks into Alex’s warm eyes, and even now he can see the yellow flower pinned to his shirt, feel the wind dancing through his hair and the skip of his pulse. “I was running away.”

He gets it. Henry can see the moment he does, the understanding settling into his features. Alex smirks. “So unlike you, though.” Henry shoots him a playful glare.

“I remember that moment I first saw you, all I could think was: ‘This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen’.” He smiles at Alex, who’s here: just as lovely, just as alive. “Still are,” he adds. “I was only trying to protect myself. I always loved you.” He prods at Alex’s ribs. “Though I suppose that’s closer to a decade than a lifetime, if we’re being technical.”

“The whole time?” Alex asks, voice thick, not at all dissuaded by Henry’s attempt at teasing.

“Every day,” Henry confirms.

“Even when I threatened to drown you in the Thames?”

Henry chuckles. “Even then. I couldn’t stop thinking about that for weeks—” 

Alex crashes into him. He kisses him into the bed, pressing him down into a mountain of downy pillows. He kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. 

Touching Alex is familiar— an old ritual— but everything about it feels new. it’s a blazing torrent crashing down and he’s in the middle of it all, with Alex there to steady him, even now. Still. Always. Alex’s words from the night before haven’t forfeited their place at his mind’s forefront since they were uttered last night. He might be persuaded to give it up, he thinks as he meets Alex’s heated gaze, if those dark brown eyes stay locked on him.

Later, Henry remembers his first time back with Alex in stark, brilliant sensations. Teeth against his shoulder and hot skin against his. Alex gasping into his neck. A bruise being sucked into his collarbone. A laugh—His own— light and breathless and carefree in a way he hasn’t been since— well, since ever, probably.

__________

The morning is ordinary in all the ways that don’t matter.. Henry drags him back into the shower before ordering breakfast and warm beverages.

They’re curled up against the headboard, blankets pooled around them, hands wrapped around steaming mugs.

“I, uh, don’t really know where to start this conversation,” Alex admits. The last twenty four hours have been nothing short of a whirlwind and he’s pretty sure the coherent sentences and the arm Henry has wrapped around him aren’t things that can coexist. As far as solutions go, Alex is very much disinclined to getting rid of the former. 

“Anywhere you’d like is fine by me.”

“Well, I’m not in politics, obviously.” It’s as good an opening as any, he supposes. “Everything that happened with us… I guess it made me rethink what I wanted. I mean, at the time, I didn’t want any of it. Not the cheating and the favors and the lying.” A thoughtful sip of his coffee. “I— honestly, I didn’t want anything that wasn’t you. But I couldn’t have you and it forced me to reevaluate everything I’d thought I wanted for my life. That ended up being law school. I still want to help people just— in a more hands-on way.”

Alex pauses to take another sip. “You abdicated.”

“I did.”

Henry’s silent for a long while, Alex can see him searching for the right words, in the furrow of his brown and the pursing lips. “Giving you up was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Truly.” He presses a kiss to Alex’s temple. “But, even now, I can’t say if I did it again I’d change my mind. I… I don’t think I was ready at the time. Because of you, I began believing I could make choices for myself, and it terrified me. It was so contrary to everything I’ve ever known to be true, I couldn’t reconcile with any of it.”

“But, maybe if things had gone differently, if I decided to try my hand at being brave for the first time back then instead of four years later, maybe it would’ve been easier. If I were doing it with you, it would’ve been immeasurably easier, I’m sure. I just wasn’t prepared to take it on.”

“Abdicating didn’t just change things for me, it upheaved everything within the family. It was the wake up call my mother needed, I suppose.” He reaches across Alex to leave his cup on the nightstand.“She was the first one I told, after Bea and Pez. I think her finally seeing what it’d done to me— that it was enough for me to leave— she realized she needed to get back in the race.”

Henry is so strong and beautiful and brave. Alex always knew it, but the way Henry’s talking… he can tell he’s figured it out for himself. Alex is going to spend, like, an hour making out with him when this conversation is over.

 “I thought I was giving up my family, but I… I got my mum back, we all did. And it wasn’t just that, it was Philip, too, in a way. I can’t say I forgive him, or that everything’s mended between us, but—” he does that thing with his chin Alex loves so much— “he’s been more of a brother to me in the last year than he has been since Dad. He apologized to me, even, which I have to admit caught me entirely off guard. It’s been hard but there’s— there’s really not a change that’s come of it that isn’t for the better. I mean, you’re here, which is the best imaginable change.”

Alex smiles to himself, ready to get on with the making-out scheme when a thought hits him.

“I slept with other people since you,” he blurts out.

“Alright,” Henry replies, unfazed. 

“That’s it?” Alex prods. “You don’t have anything else to say?”

“What else is there? I don’t recall asking celibacy of you.”

“Well, yeah.” But this is important. Alex needs to tell him. Needs him to know everything. “I could never go through with anything seriously. I didn’t even try to. I’d— God, it’s awful to say out loud— but I’d close my eyes and wouldn’t be able to stop myself from picturing you. It wasn’t fair to them or to me. But now— I mean, I regretted it then, but especially now, and now that we’re here — I’m… sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s what I wanted for you.” A small, sad smile. “It’s what I told myself I wanted for you.”

I am sorry, though,” he insists. “It felt so wrong. After you, no one else was their own person, they were all not you.”

“We weren’t together. It wasn’t as if you were cheating, Alex.”

A frustrated huff. “It felt like I was.”

“It wasn’t,” Henry says firmly, hand under Alex’s chin, forcing him to hold his gaze. “Just because I never got involved with anyone else doesn’t mean I expected you to do the same.”

“I— I knew there wasn’t going to be any real moving on for me. I’ll admit there were moments where I almost did, but it never seemed worth it. It was never worth it. I didn’t need to taint my memories of you with other people.”

Alex is really, really in love with this man.

“Frankly, Darling, after the topics covered in the rest of this conversation this one is almost laughable, but I meant what I said. About always planning to love you. If we were together or we weren’t, if I was married off to a woman or allowed to remain a bachelor it wouldn’t matter. After I knew what it was like to have you— nearly, anyway— I was ruined for anyone else.”

It hurts. Physically, in his chest it hurts. He fumbles with his cup, abandoning it on the nightstand. His voice is gone when he tries to speak. He feels himself tense in Henry’s hold, feels the pressure behind his eyes even as they start to well up. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying.” Except he does. It’s overwhelming, how much Henry loves him, despite everything. He thinks he might be acting irrationally, because Henry looks pretty composed through his blurred vision, but he can’t help it. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“It’s fine, Darling, it’s been an emotional few days.”

Henry’s being so calm and Alex has had the composure of a toddler since, and his throat’s tightening again because Henry’s grown since they’ve been separated and Alex knows that’s not true of himself. 

He wipes at his eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath. “I just need you to understand, before we… start this again, I’ve changed in a lot of ways, not all for the better.” Henry’s listening intently, and it makes Alex’s fears lessen, just a little. It’s enough. “Losing you took a bigger toll on me than I even realized at the time. I didn’t really start working through any of it till last year. I got through law school and everything, but I wasn’t really living. I have all this self image shit and fear of abandonment I didn’t have last time. My mental health was the worst it’s ever been until about a year ago, when I finally decided to let you go and get my act together.”

“What changed?” 

“Honestly?” Alex bites his cheek. “It’s kind of pathetic. I figured you had a lot going on but eventually everything would settle down and you would call me.” He can’t help letting out a long, aching sigh at the memory. “You never did, obviously, and then there was this article of you with your hand around this other guy’s waist— someone working on the Israel shelter— and I just— I guess I finally got it. You weren’t going to call me later, you were already moving on.” He picks at his nails, avoiding Henry’s eyes. “And I couldn’t keep going to the office and working on cases just to keep existing, in the hopes that you’d come back and get me living again. I didn’t even know how bad it was until I came out of it. I— it was really, really hard.”

“Alex,” Henry whispers as he brings hands to cup cradle his face. “Alex, I love you and I want you. Whatever changes, for better or worse, that won’t.”

Alex’s stares at him, eyes stinging. He wants to protest, wants to bury Henry beneath a mountain of what if s, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t have to. It’s never been hard, trusting Henry. “Okay,” He manages through the tightness in his throat.

Henry smiles at him, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Did you really think I was going to change my mind after this?” And he asks it like him doing anything else is preposterous to even consider.

It does nothing to quell the pressure in his throat or his chest, but he’s looking at Henry now and it feels like the first time he looked in those same gentle eyes and knew he was in love. He looks at Henry and knows he’s loved, knows he’s safe, so he admits the thing he’s never been able to out loud before: “It’s hard for me to believe I’m someone people actually want to keep around sometimes.”

“Then I’ll remind you,” Henry says simply, like it’s that easy. “I always wanted you, when we were together and when we weren’t. It’s always better when you’re here.” A lingering kiss against his forehead. “Always.”

He surrenders himself to Henry’s steady hold, lets Henry run a hand up and down his back and massage his scalp with the other; lets him whisper reassurances in his ear; lets himself believe them. 

“My mom asked me if I ‘felt forever’ about you, when she found out about us,” Alex says once the tears have stopped. “She told me if I wasn’t a thousand percent sure about you, I needed to end things. I… When I went to Kensington that night, I went to tell you that I did, that I was that sure.”

Henry’s quiet for a while at the confession. “I’m sorry for sending you away,” he says eventually. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.” 

“Don’t apologize. We— we both have things we’re sorry for, but I forgive you. Completely. And I think you forgive me, too.” Alex shoots him a tentative smile. “I don’t want to worry about the past anymore. I want to worry about the future, and all I’m really concerned about at this point is keeping you in mine.”

“That can be arranged.”

But arrangement making can wait, and Alex getting Henry’s mouth on his again really, really can’t. 

__________

“I don’t want to leave,” Alex groans. They spent the entire day lazing around in Henry’s hotel room. He’s pretty sure they haven’t gone more than two minutes without touching since Alex first tumbled into Henry’s arms last night.

“When’s the next time you have to be somewhere?”

“I… don’t know.” Alex is pretty sure he needs to be wherever Henry is for the rest of ever, but that’s a sweet-nothing answer and Alex is ready for some logistics. “Never, really. My last job was only a year long thing. It ended the week before Christmas.”

“Would you want to…” Henry starts, a sweet smile taking over his face, “come home with me? Back to Amsterdam?”

The relief is instant and total. He hadn’t realized the fear they’ll be separated again, just like they always were, had been coursing through him since the moment he met Henry’s eyes outside the door until it’s already been perfectly, utterly dissipated. Henry’s still looking at him, sheepish and hopeful, and Alex doesn’t have time to get an answer out before he’s pulling Henry into a forceful kiss.

“Would it be presumptive of me to take that as a yes?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

For the second time in his life, Alex doesn’t care about running towards the future anymore. Everything he’s ever wanted is wrapped within his arms. And this time, he knows, it’s all his to keep.

Chapter Text

Henry’s flat is the first place that’s felt like a home to him since years before his dad died. He picked the furniture and the artwork himself. The kitchen is filled with his food and his flatware, his bookshelf stacked with his favorite books. 

It’s never quite felt so much like a home as it does now, though, stepping over the threshold with Alex in hand. And, later, waking up next to him to clutch hot beverages next to the crackling fireplace.

Henry spends January knowing he is the happiest, luckiest man in the world, and savoring every second of it. His mornings are Alex, his afternoons and evenings and nights are Alex, his thoughts are Alex: his dreams, his plans are Alex. Henry is so perfectly happy he feels it spilling out of him in every corner of his life. He sends blinding smiles to baristas and cashiers, laughs harder, even when the joke’s not funny; finds himself completely indifferent to any and every thing the world’s saying about him. He loves being awake, asleep, alive in a way he isn’t sure he ever has before: completely preoccupied by bliss and entirely too content to care. It’s more than Henry could’ve ever dreamed of being his. 

As for Alex, he just… never leaves. Not that either of them want him to. He’s been living in the week’s worth of clothes he brought to Stockholm, and, primarily, Henry’s jumpers. He drank his way through Henry’s coffee supply in less than a week, but that’s the thing: they can just buy more. No more scrounging for fragments of the past, no more gentle moments punctured by Henry forcing himself to take note of everything, carve it all into the walls of his heart for later. It isn’t a hard habit to drop, tedious as it always was. More, more, more. There’s always more, now. Sometimes, Henry thinks, that’s all there is. 

_______________

A kiss pressed to his temple. The back of a hand, feather light, stroking the side of his face.

Henry forces his eyes open— a near impossible feat— to squint at Alex. He’s washed in the fluorescent blue of a street lamp outside. 

“Love?” He mumbles. “Everything alright?”

“Shit, sorry,” Alex whispers. “Didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep, Baby.”

He drags his eyes to the clock on the nightstand. 2:37. “What is it, Darling?”

“It’s just—” he starts, his voice a soft, sweet murmur. “Six years ago it could’ve been anybody, you know? Now it can only ever be you.” His knuckles resume their gentle caress on his cheek, and Henry’s eyes focus enough to see the earnestness on his face.  “Part of me still can’t believe you’re right here,” Alex whispers.

There’s a dopey smile tugging at his lips, and Henry can already feel himself being pulled back into sleep. “I love you,” he manages before he’s gone again, nuzzling his face into Alex’s neck. “Love you so much.” 

He’s fast asleep before Alex can say it back.

_______________

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Alex starts one rainy morning, plopping into Henry’s lap on the armchair. “The lease on my apartment renews at the end of the month.”

Ah, the real world. Henry knew they’d be facing it eventually. 

 “I can’t stay unemployed and using up your food and laundry detergent forever.”

Henry actually finds that to be a perfectly suitable way to spend forever. “Is that not exactly what you imagined me being happy to look like?”

“I had a job then. And more than four shirts.”

“Do you want to go back to DC?” Henry asks carefully. He’ll need to stay here through April, but the rest of his life is a blank page after that. 

“I want to be where you are.” Alex takes Henry’s hand in his, thumbing over the raised veins there. He studies them for a long time, eyes following his thumb’s trail, before finally pulling them up to meet Henry’s. “I guess what I’m asking is… If you’d want me to stay.”

Henry has to laugh at that. At Alex’s apprehensive tone, his nervous smile. “Of course I want you to stay.”

“We’ve been broken up for four years,” Alex points out. “I can’t just invite myself to move into your apartment!”

It’s funny, Henry thinks privately, hearing Alex call this place his apartment. It’s been theirs since the first night they stumbled their way through the front door with tired eyes and loopy smiles, Henry fumbling for the light switches as Alex heaved their suitcases inside. Alex doesn’t need to “invite” himself into Henry’s flat: it’s always, always been his. “I believe you just did,” he counters. “As for the years apart, I know it’s all rather sudden, but I’ve had enough of any arrangement involving an ocean between us.”

Alex nods solemnly. “So 2020.”

It’s a joke, but Henry really couldn’t be more in agreement on leaving it in the past. “Precisely.” 

Alex grins, pleased. “So ask me.”

Henry rolls his eyes, but he’s never been interested in denying Alex anything, and he has no intentions of starting now. “Alex, do you want to move in with me? Indefinitely, with your paper stacked everywhere and your coffee machine growing mold in the corner and—”

Alex cuts off the speech he forced Henry into with a blazing kiss. “I really, really do.”

“Good.” Good is a wholly inadequate assessment of the situation, but he has months and years and decades to conjure up better ones, so he supposes it’ll do for now. Good. “Because I never want you to leave again.”

“Don’t plan on it,” Alex murmurs before pulling him back in by the collar. 

Henry thinks his book is probably getting crushed somewhere beneath Alex’s legs, and he thinks he must have done something saint-like in a past life to deserve something like this, and he thinks he hears thunder drumming against the sky, and then— 

And then Alex keeps kissing him, and he’s really not thinking much of anything at all. 

_______________

It’s a sunny Thursday afternoon and Henry and Alex are spending it packing his apartment into cardboard boxes. Where exactly they’ll go is still to be decided, perhaps Amsterdam or England or somewhere else entirely. 

Alex has his shirt sleeves rolled up and his glasses perched on his nose, and Henry’s been made at least fifty percent less useful by it all day. Alex’s attention has been focused away from him for most of the day, but he really can’t say he minds; it’s left him a lot of time for unnoticed admiration. 

“Oh.” A furrowed brow and an uneasy laugh that has Henry raising his eyebrows: a wordless question. 

“It’s my Henry box,” Alex explains, jutting his chin towards the box in his hands. 

“Your what?” He asks, peering inside. A crumpled magazine, a silk kimono, balled up, printed out photos. The note he left in Paris. 

“Stuff I couldn’t get rid of even after I… thought you might have someone else,” Alex explains with a shrug. “I shoved everything under my bed and forgot about it.”

“Oh.”

Alex drops the box on his now bare bed. He makes a face at it before looking Henry up and down with a smirk. “What an upgrade.” And he’s wrapping arms around his neck and pressing their mouths together and, well, it certainly feels that way.

______________

“Is there anywhere in particular you want to live?” 

They’re halfway through steaming bowls of pho when he asks, and Alex squints at the table, pensive. 

“I had the next ten years of my life planned out a month ago, but…” A shrug. “None of it seems like it matters anymore.” 

Alex was so insistent he hadn’t grown since they were last together, but every day proves to Henry how wrong he was. He’s just as driven and passionate and Henry’s as completely in love with him for it as he always was, but he’s more sensible now, too. His passion is tempered with reason, his future is colored with a new plasticity Henry hadn’t seen before. It makes Henry feel like he’s falling in love all over again, giddy that there are still parts of Alex to uncover— and, inevitably— to love. 

“I liked Amsterdam,” Alex adds, chewing thoughtfully. “Did you want to stay there?”

Henry huffs. “What with the shelter finished, I don’t feel much reason to stay. But you— ” he smiles softly, reaching across the table to Alex’s hand “—are a very compelling reason to go. I never really saw myself living there longterm.”

“Somewhere else, then,” Alex says and Henry nods. 

“What do you think about… somewhere quieter?” Alex wonders aloud. “Just— getting away from everything for a while, a house in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska, or Missouri, or—”

“Texas.”

Alex’s whole face softens, and Henry thinks his eyes look a bit glossier. “Texas?”

“Why not?” Henry asks, and Alex’s smile grows.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, why not?”

_______________

“Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago... I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconsistent."  - Persuasion, Jane Austen.