Archive of Our Own ^beta

Something is bugging Alex. He can’t quite figure out what it is, but he feels restless and weird, and it’s not just being flown across an ocean again for another last-minute bros weekend with Henry. So Alex is pacing the guest kitchen in Kensington Palace after midnight, exhausted but awake, as he tries to sort out what his body is very poorly attempting to tell his brain.

He passes his glass of water from one hand to the other so he can pick up his phone, and he realises that, ordinarily, at this hour—if he were in DC, at least—he’d be talking with Henry; texting or calling—as is more likely these days—him to lament about his day or argue about something silly and inconsequential just for the fun of it, while listening to Henry sleepily make his tea and eat his breakfast until either Alex falls asleep on him or Henry has boring real-life responsibilities to attend to.

But Henry’s not only in the same timezone, he’s in the same building. They’d spent the whole day together. And it’d be weird to text him from just down the hall. Right?

There’s an abrupt noise behind him, and the glass slips out of Alex’s hand as he spins around. “Fuck,” he mutters. He peers down at the shattered glass around his bare feet before completing his aborted investigation of the noise, looking up in time to see Henry wince. “What is it with you and sneaking in here in the middle of the night?”

“Sorry,” Henry says. He shifts on his feet by the door, looking guilty and thoroughly self-conscious at the prospect of being caught seeking out the company just like Alex had been worried about himself.

“You’re fine. Chill. Hi.” Alex looks down, past the water droplets clinging to his leg hair and to the puddle at his feet, where his toes are starting to get cold. He twists his lip in thought.

“Don’t move,” Henry says quickly. “You might hurt yourself. Let me—” Henry—in his fuzzy grey slippers—walks carefully on his toes across the kitchen and assesses the predicament on the ground before looking up at Alex with a sheepish smile. “Hi,” he says, “Sorry.”

Alex rolls his eyes, fondly exasperated as has become the standard between them. “It’s fine, H. Just… help me with this?”

“Yes, of course.” Henry looks around, brows twitching into a frown like he’s sorting out some sort of plan, and he narrows his eyes at something behind Alex before slowly sliding his gaze back to his face. “I think the best strategy would be for me to lift you onto the counter behind you. Is that all right?”

“Lift me?” Alex says dubiously, eyeing Henry’s arms as if he might be able to gauge his muscles through his sweatshirt. Although… he certainly remembers the strength in those thighs when Alex was pinned by them in that closet in the hospital, so maybe he is strong all over.

“You’re too far away to do it by yourself, aren’t you? And I don’t want you moving your feet and stepping on glass.”

Alex blindly reaches back and braces his hands on the edge of the counter, but the angle is weird and it’s too far back. He sighs. “Yeah.”

“So, let me?” Henry steps in closer and brings his hands up to hover by Alex’s hips. He catches his eye, and Alex raises his eyebrows but nods. Henry’s warm hands curl around him, fingers flexing against his sides. “Ready?” He promptly hoists Alex up, and his landing on the countertop is surprisingly smooth and gentle.

Alex pokes Henry’s thigh with his wet toes—and god, could he get any more ridiculously adorable? His pyjamas have little beagles on them—and grins. “Look at you, Prince Charming,” he drawls, “Big blue eyes, adorable bedhead, strong enough to throw me around… You can sweep me off my feet any day, sweetheart.”  

“Flirt,” Henry accuses.

“Maybe,” Alex says. He softens his teasing grin into a sincere smile when Henry looks up in surprise.

“Oh,” he says quietly. The corners of his mouth tentatively turn upwards. “All right, then.”

Henry starts with the big pieces of glass first, carefully wrapping them in a few sheets of yesterday’s newspaper on the island before mopping up the water and the tiny, invisible slivers of glass with paper towels. He throws it all away, gives the floor another cursory sweep and returns to Alex.

“Are you hurt?”

Alex shakes his head, but Henry’s fingers curl around his ankle anyway, lifting until the ball of Alex’s foot rests on Henry’s thigh. Henry checks him over and carefully dries him off with a dish towel before swapping one foot for the other.

He makes a displeased noise. “Stay there.” He slips around the island and heads toward the bathroom, and Alex looks down to see a slowly bleeding cut on the outside of his foot. When Henry returns, he drops Alex’s slippers on the floor beneath his feet and slides the first aid kit onto the counter by his thigh.

Henry kneels on the tiles, and an attentive, focused frown causes his face to scrunch adorably, not once faltering while he quickly and carefully checks the wound for glass and cleans it. He gives Alex’s calf a squeeze when the antiseptic makes him wince, and then soon enough, he’s smoothing two gentle fingers over the band-aid once it’s in place.

“There you go,” he murmurs, frown finally making way for a satisfied smile as he rises to his feet.

“My hero,” Alex says, leaning forward to take a look. Then he shoves a hand into Henry’s chest as a laugh escapes him. “What the fuck, man?” He pulls his foot up onto the counter to inspect the dinosaur-patterned band-aid before turning his pout on Henry. “I’m not six, you asshole.”

“You’re never too old for silly plasters,” Henry says sagely.

Alex grins and lets his foot fall back down, and he watches as Henry tidies up and washes his hands in the sink before returning to lean against the island across from Alex.

“All right?” Henry says, one brow dipping back into a half-frown.

Alex nods, reaches out with grabby hands and says, “C’mere?”

Henry sighs and pushes off the island. He crosses the distance in a single step, and once he’s close enough, Alex grabs at him and tugs him in until he’s standing between Alex’s knees. His hands come up to Alex’s chest and Henry blinks at them like he’s not sure how they got there. Alex touches his knuckles to the underside of Henry’s chin to encourage his gaze upwards, and for a long, still moment, Alex simply takes in Henry’s open, sleepy expression.

“Kiss it better?”

Henry’s gaze strays down to watch Alex’s mouth curl into a smirk before flicking back up to meet his eyes. “I would ask if you’re concussed, but…” One of his hands leaves Alex’s chest to knock into his shin on the same side as his wounded foot, where it’s been idly swaying by Henry’s side.

Alex nods placatingly. “But I’m totally lucid, Hen. I just… I really want you to.” He twists his hands in his lap and startles when Henry delicately takes them in his own, a pair of joined hands resting on each of Alex’s thighs.

“You’re serious,” Henry says. He’s watching Alex carefully, assessing whatever he sees in Alex’s eyes before his gaze darts down to his throat when Alex swallows and then across to his shoulder when Alex tilts just slightly away.

“You don’t have to. Obviously. I just—”

“I want to,” Henry cuts in, quiet but unwavering.

“Yeah? Awesome. Cool. So…”

Henry’s soft eyes shift into a glare, but it looks less than half-hearted when paired with his surprised, awed smile. “Give me a moment, will you? Am I not allowed to want to do this properly?”

Alex’s chest physically, discernibly squeezes as a wave of giddiness passes through him, and Henry looks down in time to watch his chest rise with a shaky breath. “I hope you’re not expecting to take me to dinner first,” Alex says weakly.

Henry pulls back a little. “And if I am?”

Alex groans and tugs him back in, hooking his ankles around the backs of Henry’s thighs. “Then we’d wait, obviously. Doesn’t mean I won’t be impatient and annoying about it, but if you—”

Henry leans into him, bringing them almost chest to chest, and he slips his hands from Alex’s loose grip. He lifts one hand to fit around the curve of Alex’s jaw, his other sliding the whole way around his back to squeeze his waist. Alex smiles and drapes his arms over Henry’s shoulders, and he shifts toward the edge of the counter to bring them even closer.

Henry presses a kiss low on Alex’s cheek, down by the square cut of his jaw. “I don’t need dinner first,” he says, “But I do need to know that this means something to you.”

“Baby…”

And Henry’s lips, warm and supple, press against Alex’s for a lingering, chaste kiss before Henry tilts his head, knocking his temple gently against Alex’s with a quiet, breathless laugh. His hand falls away from Alex’s neck so he can brace himself on Alex’s thigh, fingertips slipped just under the hem of his cutoff sweats.

Alex pulls his hands back over Henry’s shoulders and brings them to his face, fingers light against his cheekbones before slipping down to cradle his jaw in both hands. Henry closes his eyes as a smile stretches across his face, and he leans blindly in for another kiss. Alex meets him eagerly, and he lets out a thrilled gasp when Henry’s fingers slide across the back of his head and grip a handful of his curls. Henry smirks against his mouth and Alex bites at Henry’s lip in lieu of a weak retort that he doesn’t even bother attempting to voice.

“Can we—Bed? Just to—” Alex steals another quick peck. “To cuddle and kiss a little bit?”

“Mm,” Henry says absently, leaving a trail of kisses along Alex’s jaw and down to his collarbone. “In a minute.” When he pushes up on his toes to meet his lips again, Alex giggles, and Henry pulls back with a dazed, weak glare. “What could possibly be funny right now?”

“I’m taller than you,” Alex whispers, ducking forward and sniggering into Henry’s hair by his temple.

Henry scoffs and sinks back down to flat feet, dropping his forehead heavily against Alex’s shoulder. “Only when you cheat, you cheeky little reprobate.” 

“Ooh, talk dirty to me, baby.” 

“I think I’ve changed my mind, actually,” Henry says drily, leaning back and wrinkling his nose.

Alex draws his hands into his lap and lets his legs fall away from Henry’s body, heels thunking into the cupboards below him. “I don’t fuck around with consent,” he says, grinning. “Oh, well.” 

Henry makes a needy noise in his throat. “You little—” He fumbles to grab Alex’s hands, and Alex abandons the act immediately, curling his arms over Henry’s shoulders again. Henry’s hands grasp at his hips, forearms warm along Alex’s thighs.

“Keep callin’ me little, Wales, I fuckin’ dare you.” 

Henry crowds in close. “You’re not,” he whispers, closing his eyes against Alex’s challenging gaze. “You… are bold and bright and such a fucking presence that I could never want to look anywhere else; to think about anything else but you.” He blinks his eyes open and lifts his chin. “Your courage is big and brash and beautiful, and you are strong and pertinacious in everything that you are.

“And yet you are impossibly soft and earnest and so loudly loving all the while. I… I don’t know how you do it. You are truly a pleasure to exist alongside; it’s truly an honour to have grown close enough to you to see all that you do with yourself, all the parts of you that not everyone is allowed to see. You’re important. You’re worthy. You’re enough. You take up so much space in my heart, and I’d never wish for it to be any other way.”

Alex blinks through his tears, desperate for his vision to clear so he might take in every small detail of Henry’s wholehearted, reverent expression. “You fucking asshole,” he says weakly, “I can’t make a big dick joke after all that.”

Henry rolls his eyes indulgently. “Your physical size, in any capacity, is not what draws me to you, and it doesn’t matter to me at all. What matters to me is your heart and your mind.” 

“Stop saying romantic shit to me,” Alex whines. “I’m an emotionally stunted reprobate, remember?”

The way Henry gazes up at him… It’s as if that’s something he’s somehow blissfully endeared by. But he keeps his mouth shut, and Alex already misses the sound of his voice and all the lovely things he’s been saying.

“What? What’s wrong? Did I use the word reprobate wrong or something?”

Henry lets out a soft snort. “You told me to stop voicing my romantic thoughts,” he says placidly. “I don’t joke about consent, dear.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, but you don’t have to shut up entirely,” Alex says, and Henry, infuriatingly, just lifts an eyebrow. “Oh. Oh my god. That—You—”

“I could try for an insult, if you like,” Henry muses, “but I don’t imagine it will have quite the same effect after I’ve all but told you that I… Well. I love you, Alex.”

“Oh my god,” he says softly, pulling Henry into a squeezing embrace. “Please never, ever stop being sappy and romantic with me.”

“You’re a plague,” Henry whispers into Alex’s neck.

Alex’s joy falls audibly from his mouth in a startled laugh and he feels Henry smile against his skin. “What else?”

“A disaster and a nightmare.”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.”

“You’re welcome. Anything else?”

“Your eyes… and your eyelashes… are the bane of my bloody existence.”

“Keep going.”

“I’ve loved you—” Henry says, with a lingering kiss to the underside of Alex’s jaw.

“Yeah?”

“—since the beginning.”

Alex pushes at Henry’s shoulders so he can look at him. “The beginning as in… bros weekend? The wedding?”

Henry shakes his head and wets his lip, steadily meeting Alex’s eyes with a nervous smile. “I was already gone on you long before you threw yourself into that cake and then into my life.”

“I didn’t—”

“The wedding,” Henry persists, “was when I knew I was sure about you. You drowned me in buttercream and yet somehow…” His mouth picks up in a puckish smile, exasperation on his face softened by the way he clings to Alex everywhere else. “I still wanted to love you.”

Tears slide down Alex’s face as he tightens his arms around Henry’s back. “You love me… on purpose?”

Henry tilts his head to one side. “Of course I do. God knows, if we’re going to do this, it isn’t going to be simple,” he says, “but it’ll be the easiest thing I ever decide to do.”

Alex grins and says, “I’m the easiest thing you’ll ever do?”

“That’s not quite as cute as you want it to be, considering that you’re crying, dear,” Henry says.

He winces. “Not sexy?”

Henry brings his hands up and brushes his thumbs over Alex’s damp cheeks. Alex turns his head to kiss the inside of Henry’s wrist, and Henry sucks in a shuddering breath. He swallows, finishes drying Alex’s tears and says, “That’s better.”

“Back to sexy again?”

Henry closes his eyes even as he smiles and says, “Yes, Alex. You always are.”

“H?”

“Mm?”

Alex squeezes Henry’s waist between his thighs and says, “Take me to bed?”

Henry pushes up to kiss him; a soft, sweet press of their lips that makes Alex feel pleasantly gooey and pliant. He sighs into the kiss and, even when they drift apart, stays close, holding onto the moment. Henry seems equally content to linger.

Until Alex feels long fingers curl behind his knees and he’s being tugged forward, Henry’s hands splaying across the backs of his thighs as Henry hoists him up off the counter and into his arms. Alex grins, crossing his ankles behind Henry and bracing his hands on strong shoulders. Henry watches him attentively as his hands inch slowly back along Alex’s thighs and toward his ass, and his careful hesitation clears when Alex nods enthusiastically.

“You can touch me,” he says, “I trust you.”

Henry grins impishly and slots his hands into the space where thighs meet ass. He squeezes gently, pulling Alex into him, and Alex swoops down for a kiss despite the slightly awkward angle.

“You’re so hot,” Alex says as Henry hitches him up a little higher and starts the walk to the bedroom. “You’re so not fair.”

“You like it,” Henry says.

“I like you,” Alex says. He frowns and flexes his fingers over Henry’s shoulder, fidgeting with the seam on Henry’s sweatshirt.

Henry slows to a stop just inside the bedroom doorway. “Are you all right?”

“Hm? Yeah.” Alex flashes a quick smile before starting to chew on his lip, self-conscious of the way Henry’s assessing gaze is focused so intently on him. Henry shifts as if to start lowering him to the ground, but Alex holds on tighter. Then he quickly releases his death grip and says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Am I getting too heavy?”

“No, you’re fine,” Henry says slowly, “You just seem… like you’re far away.”

“Just thinkin’,” he says. “Can you close your eyes for a minute?”

Henry’s mouth pinches like he’s still concerned, but he dutifully closes his eyes when Alex gives him a reassuring grin.

“Actually, wait,” Alex says, wriggling in Henry’s arms. “Maybe you should put me down for this.”

“What—” Henry sighs and gently lowers Alex down. He keeps his eyes closed but Alex sees them roll beneath his eyelids. “What is my life?” he mutters under his breath.

“You weren’t complainin’ ten seconds ago.”

“Ten seconds ago, I had a beautiful, mouthy man in my arms,” Henry complains.

Alex laughs and crowds in close so Henry knows exactly where he is, and he’s ridiculously warmed by the way Henry’s arms wrap around him immediately.

“I love you,” Alex says, watching Henry’s confusion make way for a smile. “I just wanted to—But your intense fucking eye contact was making me nervous. But I love you back. And you deserve to know that. I want you to know that I love you too.”

Henry swoops in to kiss him, aim landing almost perfectly on Alex’s lips despite his eyes still being closed. He shifts to the left a little to correct it, leaving a few short kisses in quick succession before he pulls back, pinning Alex with that deep, ardent look in his eyes. “You’re going to end me,” he says softly. Then, almost petulantly, he adds, “Why did I have to let you go for this? Did you think I was going to drop you?”

“Well,” Alex drawls lazily, with a salacious smirk, “it’s not every day that the gorgeous piece of ass who happens to be the love of your life tells you they love you back, now is it?”

Henry ducks down and Alex only has half a second to be confused before he’s being thrown over Henry’s shoulder with a yelp that turns into surprised laughter. He manages to land a weak smack against Henry’s hip before he’s tossed onto the bed, Henry quickly following to hover over him.

“I have a very important question for you,” Henry says solemnly, looking keenly into Alex’s eyes.

“Shoot, sweetheart.”

Henry’s serious expression morphs into a joyful, lopsided grin. “Wanna be my boyfriend?”

Despite the traitorous grin on his own face, Alex tilts his head to one side and says, “Hmm, y’know, I think you might have to convince me.”

Henry raises an eyebrow. Then, slowly, he pushes up from his elbows to his hands and starts pulling away. Alex makes an embarrassing noise and locks each of his limbs around Henry’s body, making him collapse on top of Alex with a punched-out breath.

“Yes. Yeah. Yes, Henry, please. God, I hate you. Yes.”

“That’s better,” Henry says smugly. “Now, I believe I was promised cuddles and more kisses?”