Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Pez I know I say it every week but it shouldn’t be that difficult to find someone who is willing to be more than a fuck.” Henry sighs 

“H that’s a little vulgar for a Monday at 4pm no?” 

Henry shakes his head, leaning back into the worn out vinyl booth that is holding together both his last shred of dignity and his sanity. 

“Pez, of the two of us you are much more vulgar. Let me have this.” 

“Darling, I am not vulgar. I'm colorful! And don't try to steal my style, Haz. Doesn't suit you. No one wants a knock-off when they can have the original!"

Henry groans into his hands, careful not to let his elbows rest against the sticky countertop. 

The Campus Corner Cafe was many things, but an upstanding, clean establishment was not one of them. Still, it was perfect for Pez and Henry to meet up once a week, take their drink of choice, and split an overwhelmingly large breakfast burrito. Henry would bemoan his lack of dating life and complain about the previous week's hookups. Pez would listen, commiserate, and then launch into tales of his many lovers and just how lovely they were. 

Henry wasn’t in the mood when he was getting the shaft, literally. Always smaller, usually more unsatisfactory than he was willing to admit. He shoots Pez a withering glare, 

“I am just fine and dandy at sex thank you very much, but when you ask for anything more than the sex, every Red Blooded North American Male in a 20 mile radius of this campus seems to clam up and scatter like prey being hunted for sport.” 

Pez throws back his head and laughs. “Love, you are basically hunting for a boyfriend. But these guys are commitment phobes, and your heart shines like a golden retriever looking for  a forever home.” 

Henry grumbles like a petulant child. “It doesn’t need to be forever.” 

Pez just shakes his head in exasperation and tries to reach over to steal a piece of Henry’s burrito.  Before he can manage, Henry grips his wrist and raises an eyebrow. Pez pouts and tries, as always, to flirt his way out of it. “Haz, I have literally told you a million times: the more you come onto me, the more I must deny you. My love for you is that of a long-lost sibling!” 

“Shut up you muppet,”  Henry gives up on his endeavor and lets Pez take a bite of burrito.

Satisfied with his victory, Pez leans sideways, twirling his fork around like a microphone. “All I’m saying is that most men on this campus want to sling the banana around instead of curling up next to one.” 

“Pez, I am not a banana.” 

Ignoring him, Pez leans forward and asks,  “So tell me then my liege, what would your perfect person do for you besides ignore your banana?” 

Henry sighs and sits back. He closes his eyes and leans into the cracked vinyl cover of the booth.  

“Pez, all I really want at the end of the day is someone who will curl up with me on the couch.” 

“Mate, you need a dog not a boyfriend.” 

Henry cracks an open one eye. Pez raises an eyebrow and snorts, gesturing as if to say  ‘am I wrong?’

“It’s not just cuddling, it’s enjoying the space of another human being,” Henry explains. “It is being able to wrap myself so completely around someone that the only noise is the thumping of our hearts together. It is hard enough trying to get a date out here when all I really want is to curl up with someone’s head on my chest and play with their hair.” 

“I can do that for you sweetheart,” a southern Texas drawl interrupts. 

Jolting out of his stupor, Henry opens his eyes to one of the most breathtaking sights he has ever laid eyes on. 

There stands a man with deep sun kissed skin. Freckles scatter across his nose like he has been enjoying southern California, not slogging  through a gloomy fall on the east coast. He has a wild head of curls that Henry  wants to run his hands through..  A half smirk on his face highlights a dimple. But more than any of that are his eyes— sparkling brown catching the reflection from the neon sign to twinkle gold. 

Before Henry can even make a comment, the man slides into the booth next to him. The feeling of a body pressed up against his own is a volcanic brand across an otherwise desolate ruin. 

Henry catches a whiff of fresh cinnamon and something spicy. Whatever cologne this man is wearing seems to have molded perfectly to his skin. He knows that when they leave the cocoon of this worn-out booth, he will take the smell with him. Decades from now, he could catch it on the street and long to follow around a corner, just past a light...looking for someone that was never his to begin with.

Henry is mesmerized by the syrup sweet voice speaking softly in his ear, “I’d like to cuddle with you. Rub your back, draw circles into your skin, play with that hair you’ve got going on there. It would be nice, lovely.” 

“Excuse me?” Henry says unsure, flustered, not knowing what to do with himself.

The man smiles. It’s softer, there is a heated warmth in the quirk of his lips. 

Pez, of course, cannot seem to keep his mouth shut. “Oh my, well aren’t you delectable! Henry, you’d better take up this strumpet or I’ll do it for you.” 

Henry waves a vague hand in Pez’s direction as if to tell him to shove off, but is distracted trying to come up with something, anything, to say. 

“I - erm,” is all he manages before this mysterious daydream of a man speaks again. 

“Just think,” he says in a voice smooth as silk against  Henry’s eardrums. “You and me, curled up somewhere comfy with a blanket wrapped around us, not a care in the world.” 

Henry just sighs at the idea, trying to ignore the way Pez is gleefully bouncing on the seat across from him. He isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth (even if a horse walking into the establishment would make more sense than this Adonis deciding to make Henry the target of his cuddles). 

He braves looking the man in the eyes, sure that he could easily be unmoored, sinking into that warm brown gaze .

Composing himself slightly, Henry leans forward into the man’s space and lets his eyes drift down to those lips. He bites his own, then whispers, “I think it sounds a little too good to be true, are you willing to make good on such a promise?” 

Pez is gasping, clutching his heart over a monstrosity of sparkles and plaid that only he would be able to pull off.

The stranger grins more broadly, “Why don’t you hand me your phone and we can find out somewhere without an audience.” 

Fuck . 

This man has spent all of a minute in Henry’s presence and all he wants is more. 

With his hands shaking more than he would like to admit, Henry pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it. 

With a few quick taps and a little flourish, his phone is handed back to him. The stranger stands, and the warmth at Henry’s  side leaves so quickly that he feels like he’s plunged into the Arctic. 

“Sweetheart, I’d love to stay,”  the stranger says. “But contract law won’t take itself. Please use that number. I don’t give it out to just anyone!” 

As he walks off, Pez leans forward and demands, “Henry, who was that?” 

Henry looks down at  the new text message in his phone. He grins at the name Mr. Bodypillow 

For all your cuddling needs. 

“I’m not sure, Pez,” Henry says. “But I sure as hell am going to find out.” 

Dearest Mr. Bodypillow, a cuddling emergency has occurred and I require your expertise, warmest — the cuddle connoisseur.

Henry presses send and then promptly throws his phone on the bed across his room. 

He has absolutely lost his mind. 

He has typed and retyped the opening message on seventeen different occasions in the last twenty minutes alone. Settling on that ridiculous harangue to try as an opening? The man was going to think he was absolutely insane. 

This mental break from reality started when he woke up from an afternoon nap, and realized that he had taken three pillows and fashioned them into a makeshift human to clutch while asleep. 

At some point one has to admit they need help. Henry wasn’t quite ready to admit that, but could not call himself “chill” as it were. Pez would delight in his own admittance that it was time to make a change, but instead of talking to Pez he was sending ridiculous messages to strangers.

He tells himself he does not care. He has more important things on his mind and on his to-do list than a random man he spent only a few minutes of time with. 

*bzzz bzzz* 

Henry rushes over to the discarded phone praying the message was and wasn’t from the mystery man. 

my dearest cuddle suitor i can only hope this is the Prince Charming from the cafe on monday

The grammar is atrocious. Not a single convection for punctuation used, and the lowercase “I” has Henry’s own eye twitching. Regardless, Henry feels his cheeks warm at the idea of being called Prince Charming — trying not to think too hard, he quickly types back: 

I would hope you were a one cuddle customer at a time kind of guy?

you are not a customer but an equal opportunity cuddle enthusiast as myself

though I have nO idea what to call you other than handsome

His texts come in little bursts of fragments, like someone hit the send button before he could quite get the entire thought out. Still, Henry feels like he is a 14 year old teenager texting a crush for the first time. A few sweet words should not make him feel this way. With a bit of a grin Henry, fully leaning against the wall not able to take his own eyes off the screen types back 

I’ll give you my name if you give me yours.

There are immediate bubbles that come up and subside. Maybe they are called texting bubbles for the fizzy feeling they leave your stomach in when you know without a doubt that someone is composing a message to you. The next barrage of messages they send back and forth leaves Heny 

woah Woah 

what kind of boy do you take me for 

thats a big ask

I can always just stay your Prince Charming.

thats a given but 

i guess if i was to give you anything a name isn’t too hard

its alex

Alex. The name seems to fit this boisterous man so well. 

I can still be your Prince Charming, but I also go by Henry. 

so henry 

my Prince Charming and cuddle suitor 

you seem to be in dire straights for some human affection

I see what you did with that dire straights line talking to a man as gay as a maypole.  

knOw what they say about a man with great humor 

he also has bIg hands

You are ridiculous. You know that is the first time you have capitalized the letter I in our entire conversation and it is in the middle of a word? 

grammatical conventions are capitalist and i will not 

succumb to the PRessures of society

but if i get going i will not stop so cuddling 

You and Me 

someWhere 

sometime 

yeah 

If it wouldn’t be too much of a bother, yes I would enjoy that greatly. 

it would no’t be a bother at all 

would you be able to last without affection until 

friday after 4:30 

Henry couldn’t believe he was actually agreeing to a meet up for some hugs with a stranger - no Alex - as if he hadn’t had one night stands before. This somehow felt more illicit. 

You can come by my apartment at 5?

There was a lull in responding. Henry could feel his heart constrict at the idea that he might get a no. 

This was the most vulnerable he felt in a long time, and he had spent his last weekend getting railed by a guy named Fabian that he had only met earlier that evening. There hadn’t been any kind of connection there, just carnal desire. Well… Fabian might have thought it was carnal desire but it was more like a lukewarm dusting of desire and a performance that nobody would rate fresh on rotten tomatoes. 

Henry lets himself daydream for a moment about what carnal desire with Alex might look like, but before he can think up more than a tantalizing glimpse into the idea, his phone, still clutched tightly into his hand, vibrates. 

send the addy and im there sweetheart

With hands that are now shaking Henry quickly types out his address and for the first time in a half hour lets his phone fall from his fingertips. He moves from his slightly hunched position over to the bed and tries not to scream into a pillow. Friday can’t come quick enough.

Friday finally arrives and Henry is a walking disaster. 

10:04am  

Henry should absolutely cancel everything right this minute and just never touch another human being ever again. What in the world was he thinking, scheduling a cuddle date, or maybe not even a date, with some guy who obviously was trying to pull a fast one?

1:34pm 

For the love of Christ, what the fuck was he going to wear? He only had three and a half hours to decide and that wasn’t nearly enough time for him to completely burn and rebuild his entire wardrobe from scratch. 

3:48pm 

It was getting to be way too close to five for Henry to be comfortable. He has changed a total of 4 times before finally settling on just walking around in his boxers until he can calm himself down enough that every item of clothing he owns doesn’t make his skin itch. 

4:35pm  

It is decision time. Henry looks at the neatly laid out options that he has folded and then refolded every time he has tried them on in the past few hours. Joggers or jeans or pants? He figures he should do joggers but would that seem sloppy? He knows that grey pair are a bit suggestive but is that necessarily a bad thing… he doesn’t want more than cuddles right now but really the joggers are the most comfortable thing he owns. He pulls them on and then has to contemplate the shirt. 

4:47pm 

He pulls the cashmere over his head and isn’t entirely satisfied with his choice but Bea told him that this jumper brought out his eyes and that it makes him look like a huggable teddy bear. That sounds like the right kind of choice for whatever this is about to be. 

4:55pm 

Henry is wearing a hole through the floor in front of his apartment door. Maybe Alex just wouldn’t show up and he has spent today in a tizzy for no reason. Still he longs to breathe in the sweet scent of those flyaway curls again.

Truly there couldn’t be any reason for Alex to actually take his ridiculous request seriously. Nobody would think it was normal to have to ask for cuddles or a hug. 

He knows he is lonely, but this feels a bit like stooping to a low that others don’t have to do. 

No. 

Henry is not going to feel sorry for himself when only minutes from  now he’ll have an armful of the most attractive man he had seen in his entire life right here in this apartment. 

Alex. Maybe short for Alexander. He would have to check about that. Alexander seems to roll off the tongue so nicely. 

Before he can ponder further, he hears three harsh knocks on the door. 

He looks over at the clock on the wall. 

4:58pm. 

Two minutes early. 

Show time. 

He rips the door open, and there’s Alex, looking like every fantasy Henry has ever had. 

He’s in a deep forest green sweatshirt and dark gray sweats. He has a backpack slung over one shoulder. All Henry wants is to pull him into a hug. 

“Alex,” he lets out with a bit more of a sigh than he means to. 

“Hi, Sweetheart.” Two words shouldn’t get his heart pounding like a snare drum, but nothing about Alex seems to follow any kind of normal pattern for Henry. 

He opens the door wider and Alex sweeps in. Before Henry can get another word out, Alex blurts— , 

“Can I have a hug?” 

A little stunned, Henry just nods. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who needed human affection. 

Alex carefully sets the backpack down and toes off his shoes before stepping into Henry’s space. 

Henry is immediately hit with that aroma he knows he will never tire of: sweet cinnamon, a cologne with sandalwood, and whatever clean scent from his fabric softener Alex uses. 

Alex is a few inches shorter than Henry. He can’t help but feel giddy at the idea of wrapping his arms around Alex and him fitting perfectly in his arms. 

That, and the idea of being able to lean down and kiss Alex’s forehead has already prominently planted itself in his mind. 

“Hello,” Henry whispers softly, 

“Come here,” is all Alex can say back before reaching forward and pulling him in. 

Henry feels a little awkward at first. 

It is all at once not enough and too much. 

There is a prickling fire and ice sensation that rips through his body at every connection point. From where his fingers are lightly touching Alex’s back to where their chests connect from collarbone to waistline. 

Alex’s arms are tightly wrapped around Henry solid iron bars along his back, strong enough to weather any storm. He can feel a soft fluttering of breath on the right side of his neck in the space between his ear and shoulder where Alex’s face lays claim to a new home.  

After about 15 seconds, the wrought iron grip along his back gets tighter and Henry decides to get with the program. With tentative hands gaining confidence every second he isn’t pushed away, Henry rubs his arms up and down the wide expanse of Alex’s back. He can feel corded muscle beneath the layers. He lets his hands pull Alex fully flush against his own body gripping the soft fabric of the well worn sweatshirt. 

Alex nuzzles closer, thumbs lazily swiping back in forth in a little maddening pattern. Henry brings up a hand from Alex’s back and softly rests it against his head. 

Slowly, with the kind of reluctance that was palpable, Henry pulls Alex away from his body. 

He looks a little punch drunk and gives a small smile. That little quirk of the lips will be driving Henry mad in his dreams tonight. 

“So is Alex short for Alexander?” Idiot. The second thing you ever ask him? Henry feels like a complete dunce. Alex just nods his head in a yes motion. 

“Do you have a preference?” Henry isn’t about to leave the question completely up in the air even if he was ridiculous enough to ask it. 

“Honestly, as long as you are saying my name, I am okay with anything,” Alex responds, biting his own lip. 

Henry has to let out a laugh at that. How can a complete stranger seem to be made perfectly for him? 

“Well Alexander, why don’t we move this to a more comfortable position.” 

Alex nods again and then slips his arms from around Henry’s back. He lets them run down Henry’s arms eliciting a shiver before sliding their hands together. He looks up into Henry’s eyes. All Henry can think about is the perfect set of lashes surrounding deep brown. 

“Lead me, my cuddle connoisseur,”

Henry just grips the hand in his own tighter, and leads Alex away from the front door and into the living room. Henry likes to think of his space as tasteful. There are a series of literary posters on the wall and a few art prints of his favorite Amiet pieces. A floor to ceiling bookshelf takes up the corner and the entire space is done in warm fall reds and browns. Looking at his sofa in all of its oversized glory, never before has he been so thankful to have spent hours meticulously planning out the space with Pez when he first moved in. 

He pauses and looks over at Alex. “So, Mr. Bodypillow, how do you want to do this?” 

Alex shares a sly grin and then almost just as quickly as it came the grin slips away. Instead, he is left looking a little like he needs another hug. 

“Umm, can I actually be held this time around?” He asks timidly. Henry is surprised by the reserved nature as Alex has been all brash confidence so far, but the apparent nerves are helping him feel a little better. 

His heart beats double time at the mention of ‘this time around.’ Alex already wants to do this again and they haven’t even done more than hold hands. It makes Henry giddy. 

“Of course, Alexander. You said we were cuddle connoisseurs, and this is a two way street. I’d love to be the one to hold you.”  

Alex swallows and nods. 

Henry lies down on the couch, legs splayed so Alex can fit himself between them. Instead of lying right on top of Henry as intended, Alex sits normally with both feet almost touching the ground, letting Henry’s legs awkwardly stretch around the back of his body from where he has laid claim to the couch. 

“Okay if we are doing this we are going to do this right,” and Henry takes the hand that is still clasped between them and pulls Alex down on top of him. 

Alex sputters out a laugh before situating himself on top of Henry, quickly tangling their legs together. He fits his head against Henry’s chest, one arm deeply embedded in the couch cushion and the other strewn near his own head splayed across Henry’s chest. 

“So Henry,” Alex says entirely into Henry’s sweater, not even lifting his head. 

“What’s your story?” 

Henry has to snort. Of course Alex barrels in with a non-sequitur. Henry can’t imagine silence and Alex get along for more than a few seconds at a time. Left field seems like a more comfortable territory for a man who practically sat on his lap at their first meeting.

“I’m sorry, when were you under the impression that I was the one who gets to share first? You obviously have a lot on your mind Alexander. Why don’t you tell me why you always seem to be moving at two million miles an hour?” 

Alex grumbles, burrows in closer and then takes a deep breath, 

“Well I guess it’s pretty easy. I grew up in Texas with divorced parents that made every holiday a nuclear explosion rather than something to celebrate. I moved out here on a sports scholarship.  I’m Poli-Sci and Pre-Law, but don’t tell my parents I am Done with politics or they would both have my head.” Henry can hear the capital letter in done, and privately wonders what sport Alex is playing. Alex continues on, “Son of a sitting governor and senator, so the expectations—” he pauses a moment and shrugs his shoulders, “are pretty exponential.”

Henry lightly runs his hands across Alex’s back, “That doesn’t sound very easy, darling,” the endearment slips out without much of a thought. 

Alex’s shoulders sag and he continues, “It’s not really that easy. But I have to make it look easy, because there are all of these people counting on me. If I stop to breathe, it’s all too much. And even worse, my only friends are my sister and her girlfriend who live on the opposite coast.” 

He is gripping and ungripping his hand in Henry’s sweater. That just won’t do. Quickly without reproach, Henry slips his hand into Alex’s and gives it a squeeze. 

“They told me to just approach anyone who seemed kind and make some friends since I’ve been here three years and can’t seem to do much more than exist on the periphery. I heard what you said and I spoke without thinking. It led me here though, so I’m not too upset about that one.” 

Henry can’t help but smile a little at the ending, but the rest of it breaks his heart. Nothing about Alex seems anxious or lonely.

“I’m not too upset about that either.” 

Alex settles down and continues on opening up about his parents divorce. How getting an ADHD diagnosis at 21 felt. The way it took him longer than he ever thought possible to realize that he was Bi and likely somewhere on the Asexual spectrum. That things didn’t seem to all line up just perfectly for him the way they did for other people.

Love wasn’t easy. For a while he thought he was broken, or that something had to be wrong because he didn’t feel the same way about anything. There was an initial spark, but the idea of shoving his tongue in someone’s mouth only moments after meeting them gave him every ick imaginable. Dating in college was hard because of the immediate expectations that came with it.   Sex was fine but it didn’t do much for him ever and that really seemed to scare people away. 

When there is a lull in Alex’s conversation he squeezes Henry’s hand as if to say your turn . So Henry lets himself open up in a way he hasn’t since Pez came into his life. 

“I think it is much more difficult to explain my parents than just their titles, I call them mom and dad, but they are known to so many others that they don’t always feel like they are just mine.” 

Alex lifts his face and scrunches it up, endearing and ridiculous. 

“What could you possibly mean by many others, It’s not like your dad is Indiana Jones or something.” 

“No but he was James Bond.” 

Alex pulls fully away from him, partially sitting up. Henry thinks he might have said something wrong, but Alex puts his hands on Henry’s chest stopping him from moving. 

“You are being serious aren’t you.” 

“Yes,” Henry lets it out slowly, the soft ending lingering in the air. 

“What is your last name?” 

“It’s Fox, Well it's Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, but the Fox portion is from my dad.” 

“Like Arthur Fox.” 

“Well that would make sense as he was indeed my father.” 

“Is.” Henry tilts his head to the side at Alex’s comment, “He is your father, regardless of if he is here anymore or not,” 

All Henry can do is tighten his hold on Alex. Alex closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and Henry has no idea what is about to come out, 

“Okay, Hen,” Alex interrupts the silence, and Henry doesn’t want to think about how that nickname makes him feel, “Let me tell you something. Arthur Fox is a babe, and i It makes sense as his son that you are also a babe because genes and all that, but a movie star as a dad? That must have been a hard way to grow up.” 

Henry can’t escape the flush at being called a babe even if it is in the same breath as his father. He nods his own head in agreement and starts to share more. What family expectations looked like when you were adjacent to British nobility. How he grew up on movie sets and spent the ensuing years in hospitals. What it felt like to lose his dad at 14 and then have to share that grief with the rest of the world that thought they knew him too. 

The entire time he is talking Alex has nestled down into Henry wrapping his arm back around him. It doesn’t feel as hard to share when there is a warm weight keeping him grounded. 

From there the heaviness grows as the conversation turns even more somber. He touches on his grandmother and his older brother Philip’s expectations, the disaster that was his coming out, along with fleeing across the pond. With a little probing Alex is able to get him to share even more. That Philip had witnessed him coming out to Bea as a last plea to get her to rehab. Before the dotted line was signed for her hospital stay, Philip had run to Mary Mountchristen and Henry had been kicked out of the house in all but name. 

Alex takes a deep breath interrupting his story, “There should be no consequences for living who you are. There shouldn’t be a world where you have to suffer for the bigotry of those who never learned that love comes in so many forms. Narrowing it down to romantic love between a man and a woman is a very stringent box to put such a beautiful emotion in.” 

It is all Henry can do to grip his waist at the overwhelming emotion that he feels to hear someone say it so clearly. He lets out a choked, “Thank you.” 

He continues on sharing about his dreams for his future degrees in English and History, the ultimate dream of queer anthologies, as well as how much he misses his dog David. 

“You can not name your dog David,” 

“I mean I can, and I did” Henry retorts the heaviness of the afternoon’s conversation dissipating. 

“That is literally the name of a tax attorney. Why would you give a beagle such a weight to bear.” 

With a laugh Henry ruffles Alex’s hair, “He is named after Bowie, but I couldn’t just name him Bowie no? I felt it was a bit on the nose, and a man should have a bit of mystery I have found.” 

Alex shakes his head but leans into Henry’s touch and he lets his hand sit there on top of his curls aching to card his fingers through them. 

Just as he settles, he lets out a quiet, “You should do that thing with your hands.” 

A little taken aback Henry asks, “What thing with my hands?” 

“You said you would play with my hair.  You said you wanted to.” 

And that’s really all it takes for Henry to take the hand sitting on Alex’s head and slowly sift his fingers through Alex’s curls. 

Soft, silky, and the way Alex relaxes is better than Henry could have imagined. He practically purrs with the attention as he melts further into Henry . 

They sit there for a while.  No music, or tv show, or movie to distract. Just their soft breath and the quiet Friday afternoon. There is some noise from outside the window, as there is in any city, but none of it really seems to matter. 

Henry can feel the stress from the past few weeks fade away. He knew he was a little touch starved, but the comfort and care that he feels from someone holding him tightly shouldn’t mean this much. 

Alex starts humming and Henry begins to pull his hand away. Before it can even leave Alex’s head Alex lets out a noise of frustration, 

“I am having a moment about this okay,” Alex pulls Henry’s other hand where it is resting on his lower back up to his hair and places it there. 

So Henry lets Alex “have his moment,” which just consists of him wiggling around even further like he is going to burrow inside Henry and make a home in his chest, before settling more tangled up than before. 

“Moment achieved,” Alex says quietly before turning the hand on Henry’s chest over. Henry brings one of his hands down from their perfect place tangled up in Alex’s hair. Alex lets their fingers lightly drag together before placing a delicate kiss—so soft and you might miss it—against Henry’s palm. 

There is a moment where the entire world focuses on a pinpoint. Where the sounds outside of  the very isolated screaming in one’s brain are silent. All that is left is his beating heart. It roars against his ears an unsteady rhythm, thumping against his ribcage an animal that has been hurt so many times it wants to flee. 

Instead of letting the animal out, he dives deeper. He pulls Alex’s tangled fingers up to his own lips and lightly gives a few soft brushes before holding their hands directly against his heart. 

Alex just makes an “mmmmmm” sound, humming into the cavity inside Henry that he has now occupied. 

Henry lets his eyes close, carried by the feeling of warmth in his arms. 

Chapter Text

Waking up has never been kind to Henry. He is often thrown out of a fitful insomnia induced haze, blinking wide eyed into a cruel world that doesn’t seem to love him back. Waking up means another dreadful day trudging along the gallows of life. It means time. An unfathomable amount of it. Time he would rather not think about. 

Henry's mornings dawn darkly. He'll lie awake as sadness rolls over him between the sheets of moonlight and the early cracks of sunlight. During those early morning hours, Henry comes closest to the depression-filled fits of his youth. He knows it's morbid, but he can't be arsed to care.

Today, however...

It is not morning. There is nothing fitful about the slumber Henry is softly dragged from. He feels warm and heavy. Limbs filled with weight that only comes from a nap that has done its job. Why he has napped on his couch, he is unsure. 

The awareness of being awake only comes slowly. A first inkling of where he is poking at his brain like something he might have forgotten. He could not forget, though. His right hand is ensconced in the silky smooth curls on the nape of someone's neck. Their fingers are intertwined...

Awareness is no longer subtle. It is glaring and warm. Bright and forceful. He has no idea what to do with the man on top of him except hope that he never leaves. 

The spot in his chest that Alex had carved out only hours earlier feels like a far more permanent change to Henry’s anatomy than a semi-stranger should warrant. 

Henry accidentally moves. Alex grumbles, gripping his hand tighter. 

“Nodnmve,” he mumbles into Henry’s chest. 

“Do you need to go anywhere?” 

Henry prays to any god out there, no matter how far into damnation he has already been cast, that Alex’s answer is no. 

When Alex shakes his head no, making his determination to stay where he is apparent, a tidal wave of relief rams into him. The force of it takes his breath away. Curls brush against Henry’s neck, making his entire body shiver. 

“If we are going to sleep, we should move to the bed,” is all Henry can get out. He feels Alex freeze, and he curses himself for pressing for something so intimate so quickly. The idea of waking up with a crick in his neck from the couch outweighs the fear of asking to wake up next to Alex in the morning. 

“Mmmmmm, yes,” is what Alex replies. 

The tidal wave surges again, and all Henry can do is grip Alex’s hair tighter, trying to hold onto whatever this moment may be. 

Despite immense grumbling from Alex, he slowly shifts them up to standing. Alex has his hands wrapped around Henry, doing as much as possible to limit any movement where they might have to separate. 

The next five minutes are filled with slow, blundering steps to the bedroom. It is New York, so the space is not large, but every side step of socked feet against hardwood floors is another step towards something monumental. Alex mumbles out a horrible reference to Neil Armstrong’s one small step for man moon landing quote, and Henry has to hold back his laughter. 

The bedroom door is upon them. It groans out a noise of protest when Henry forces it open, but at last they have made it to salvation. A queen size bed. Alex has not yet opened his eyes, his head finding a semi-permanent place along Henry’s collar bone. 

It adds another spark of warmth to Henry’s already glowing feelings.  

Alex untangles himself from Henry without fanfare. 

The immediate chill along his entire right side leaves him feeling bereft. Alex crashes down onto the bed. He opens his arms up and just waits, eyes still closed. 

Henry takes a moment to look at him, sleep-mussed, still so full of life even when only half awake. 

He knows he will never be able to forget the smell of cinnamon on his sheets the same way he will never forget the divots that so perfectly sit against Alex’s lower back, ready and waiting for a thumb to fill them up. 

Alex makes a disgruntled sound and flings his arms wider. 

“Cm’re, baby.”

Henry can't help but chuckle, trying not to internally scream at the endearment. He wants to be “baby” all the time. But trying not to look too far into the future, he lets himself be carried into bed by the pull that Alex already seems to have on him. 

It’s a tangle of limbs and duvet, but only moments later they are settled. Henry spoons Alex, entirely wrapped around him. There is comfort and safety in getting to envelop yourself in another person. To hide yourself away under the covers of the night. Spread under linen bed sheets, Henry rewrites his own understanding of what safety feels like. He pens comfort into his heartstrings next to the name Alex.

Without warning, his hands are gripped by Alex as he wedges their fingers together and then clutches them to his chest. 

“Ths’ll do,” he mumbles, already more asleep than awake. 

Henry lets himself fall asleep again, lulled by Alex’s steady breaths and the way their bodies fit together — small pieces of a puzzle falling into place.

Morning comes. But Henry isn’t weighted by dread, his body tied to bricks that hang in the sky the way clouds appear. This morning, tinged with soft pink light through the curtain he forgot to close and the blinds he forgot to shut, does not feel hard. It feels like the first day of spring. Giddy and evanescent. 

Alex is strewn on top of him. Some time in the night, their positions shifted, and Henry could not be arsed to care. It is refreshing to wake up wrapped in another person without the lingering aftertaste of unsatisfying, sticky ministrations from the night before stuck to the roof of his mouth.

What he is getting this morning is corded muscle and the hard planes of a man who takes care of himself loosely draped over his own body. Michelangelo would have spent hours sculpting Alex’s jawline alone — a fibonacci sequence of perfect proportions. Henry himself could spend hours contemplating his eyelashes, but Alex jolts out of his stupor before he can. 

He looks around the room, a wild animal caught and caged looking for escape. He doesn’t relax until his eyes land on Henry’s. He isn’t sure what the expression on his face is, but the tense lines of Alex’s shoulders drop. He leans down, and for one split second, Henry thinks he is about to be kissed. But Alex is already a world away, pulling himself out of bed. 

Henry doesn’t have but a moment to falter at the loss of warmth before Alex turns around with a yawn, muttering, “Coffee coffee, hmmm I need coffee.” He swiftly leans forward and kisses Henry on the forehead before wandering out of the bedroom. 

Henry is frozen, wide eyed. He had no idea forehead kisses were a part of this equation. He isn’t complaining, oh no, but he wants to re-examine every detail of the last 15 hours to try and wrap his mind around how he woke up to forehead kisses. 

Scrambling out of bed and nearly braining himself against his own nightstand, Henry stumbles into the kitchen to find Alex humming some tune he doesn’t recognize with a set of mugs on the counter. 

He starts speaking as he turns around, way more awake than he has any right to be this early in the morning. “So how do you take your tea? Because you are too offensively British to not drink tea.” 

“Offensively British?” Henry questions, letting his voice go up at the end with a raised eyebrow to match. 

Alex abandons the mugs on the counter to come drape himself all over Henry. It’s all Henry can do to accept the tangle of limbs and extra weight. 

“An accent to melt everyone’s hearts, and enough cold weather sensibilities to be the perfect space heater on a chilly fall day.” 

Henry can feel his own face heat up and is left speechless yet again.  

Alex bounds away back to the mugs and turns around holding them as if to say “well, what’s next?” 

With an easy shake of his head, he leads Alex to the right cabinet for the tea and coffee. 

Going through the motions, he pulls out the Earl Grey and the plain coffee grounds, looking up at the scoff that Alex lets out. 

“Why could you possibly be scoffing right now?” 

“You have the nicest Earl Grey I have ever seen and loose leaves with a literal silver spoon to feed yourself, yet your coffee beans are in a plain brown bag that looks like it was run over by a semi truck and then infested by subway rats.” 

“Thank you for that delightful image, Alex. It is from my local bodega, and it’s actually quite good. Unless you want to continue judging a book by its cover?” 

“No no, I’ll just judge you for how it tastes.” 

Henry looks over at him before opening the cabinet to his left and starting to unload his supplies.

While he may not drink coffee, he spent his first two years on campus working at a specialty coffee shop moonlighting as a bodega. So special that he could spend hours discussing the aration of coffee grounds and how the right filter changes the flavour of the beans. As a tea connoisseur himself, it was sacrilege to spend so much time around coffee. But, those $17 micro brews were paying his rent one cup at a time. He didn’t need to work there anymore, but he still had some of the supplies from when he was first learning the art of coffee from Manuela and Steve. 

He pulled out his Chamex Pour-Over, Fellow Opus Grinder, a bevy of tools, his filters, and his own teapot for his earl grey. 

“What on earth is that?” Alex asked, wide eyed at the array of contraptions now set out on the counter. 

“Well, simply making coffee the old fashioned way wouldn’t possibly be enough to impress you, given how you reacted to my beans.” 

Alex scoffs and gestures at the beans, which do look a little worse for wear. Henry just hums in response to the indignation and starts methodically working through the process of boiling water in his tea kettle. Alex just stares on. He opens his mouth a few times as if to say something before closing it again. He makes for quite the attractive fish. 

“Alex, do you have something you wish to share?” Henry asks as he measures out his loose leaf tea.

Of all things, Alex looks nervous, and he twists his hands around themselves before blurting out, “Just don’t blame me, okay?”

“Blame you?” Henry laughs incredulously at the idea of blaming anything on Alex except his peace of mind that has already come with only a few hours in his presence. 

Alex waves his hand at all of the coffee making tools with a stutter, “I have no idea what to do with any of this and I don’t want to mess up your chemistry set trying to make my coffee.” 

Henry can feel his stomach flip over at how cute Alex is when he is nervous, the way he gnaws at his bottom lip, hands wringing themselves out between rapid taps on his own legs. 

“Oh darling, I just want you to sit on the bar stool and look pretty,” Henry smiles at the flush of colour that erupts high on Alex’s cheek bones and the way his smile emerges from beneath his lips. 

Alex nods and sits down on one of Henry’s bar stools, resting his arms on the counter and his head in his hands as he prepares to watch. 

Henry spends the next ten minutes describing in great detail what he is doing as he grinds the beans, aerates the grounds, and explains the pour over process with a Chamex, which does indeed look like something out of a chemistry set with its hourglass shape and scandinavian wooden handle. Alex nods along. Henry isn’t sure he is following, but the sentiment is nice all the same. 

Henry finally sets a single brewed cup of coffee in front of Alex and hopes for the best. 

He needn’t have worried if the quiet pornographic moan Alex lets out after his first sip is anything to go by. 

“Who was murdered to make coffee this good? Are you kidding me, you aren’t even a coffee drinker are you?” 

Henry shakes his head trying not to think too hard about Alex moaning.

“I’m not kidding, where did you get your rat coffee?” 

“I don’t think Manuela and Steve would like their beans being called rat coffee.” 

“Who are they, Hen, and where do I need to go to get more of this?” 

Henry lets out a huff of a laugh before setting his own tea down, which has already been mostly abandoned during this process as he decided showing off for Alex was much more pertinent. 

He moves around the counter and wraps his arms around Alex’s middle letting his head rest on the shoulder in front of him. Leaning into as much of Alex’s space as he can, he whispers in his ear. “Maybe that was my plan all along. String you about with cuddles, get you attached to my coffee, and then you never leave.”

“Well it’s working mmmkay,” Alex says with a shiver. He closes his eyes and takes another sip of the coffee, savouring it. 

They stay like that, pressed together chest to back for as long as Henry can muster. 

They slowly move back over to the couch, this time shoulder to shoulder, with fingers clasped together and legs overlapping.  

They manage a half hour of calm morning emptiness. No hushed whispers or frantic movement. Just quiet breathing and enjoying the shared space of another person wanting to take up room next to you. 

Henry is savouring the feeling of Alex’s just-right touch. They have slouched fully together, and Henry can feel himself starting to nod off. Before he is able to though, a chirping alarm goes off on Alex’s phone. 

Alex reluctantly pulls away from where they are situated on the couch, heading over to the door. 

“I’d rather stay the rest of the day with you on that couch doing unspeakable things in the name of physical contact, but I have a stats study group that I must attend if any of those chucklefucks are going to pass this semester.” 

Henry is dissatisfied by the loss of contact. He lets his heart float out into the ocean of feelings that have overwhelmed him, buoyed by Alex’s apparent want to stay in the same spot for the rest of the day too. 

Before Henry can even get a word out, Alex has his shoes on and is pulling the door open, looking at his phone with a grimace. 

“We should do that again as soon as possible. Preferably overnight too. Don’t be a stranger.” He blows a kiss in Henry’s direction and then closes the door behind him. Henry hears the slap of his shoes against the hallway carpet as he runs to get to wherever his study group is meeting. 

Henry isn’t sure what to do with himself for the rest of the day.  But as he stretches out on the couch, he lets his mind wander over all of the possibilities. This really felt like it was just the beginning.

In the ensuing days, Henry begins to understand what it means to have someone feature as a constant part of his thoughts. It’s wake up and think of Alex, brush his teeth and see the crinkle of Alex’s crows feet, put on his socks and see Alex sleep-mussed in his kitchen. 

He would write it off as being too easily attached due to how he has emotionally neglected himself the past few years if Alex didn’t seem to be on the exact same page. The abhorrent texting style continues, rapid fire thoughts parading themselves line after line across his screen. Henry could rarely keep up, but all Alex seemed to care about was having a captive audience. And Henry? Henry was spellbound. 

Four days. That doesn’t seem to be an excessive amount of time. Only 96 hours. People have survived without water for longer periods of time. Henry doesn’t feel like he is a man starving of thirst in the desert. He feels like he is trapped on a tightrope, walking towards something that is far more grand than some sand and a wide open sky. He has done the maths this morning, and it has been nearly 3.5 million seconds since he has last been able to see Alex. He’s counting every one of them. 

He gets his chance to see Alex in the morning, albeit by complete accident. He is listening in on a gossip session by a group of sorority girls on a picnic blanket when he is shocked to hear his own name come up and Alex’s right along with it. 

Sara, a spitfire accounting major, and one of the only reasons Henry understands anything about the sorority system, conspirationaly leans into the group as they begin rehashing what happened at that weekend’s parties. 

“So if the rumour mill is to be believed, Alex Claremont Diaz is finally settling down with someone.” 

An echo of gasps come from the group of girls as they move closer together, a pack of hyenas closing ranks readying themselves for the kill.

Sara nods. “Oh, yes. He didn’t come to any of the lacrosse mixers on Friday night, even though the team took that huge victory on Thursday, and Samantha Seeves saw him running out of the Barker Dorm on Saturday at 10:30.” 

There is an eruption of noise from all of them and Henry can barely follow the thread of conversation. 

“He doesn’t even live in Barker—” 

“Who do you think it is?” 

“He’s never gone home with anyone before; she must be special—”

 “OH wait! What if it's a guy?”

 “What do you mean, what if it is a guy?” 

“He literally kissed Liam on the mouth last year after they won the national championship; it made ESPN, remember?” 

“Yeah but girls kiss each other all the time and don’t mean it.” 

“Lucy, he is literally out as bi! It’s in his instagram bio and he talked about it on SportsCenter — ” 

“Sorry, I don’t follow sports — ” 

“But is it Liam then?” 

“No, Liam has a boyfriend — ” 

“God, why are all of the hot ones gay — ”

“GIRLS,” Sara interrupts the rapid back and forth, and their heads all swivel to her like a group of bobbleheads looking to their fearless leader, “I think I know who it is.” 

Henry can’t help but sink lower into the bench. He thought he would be taking a nice break in his hectic week for a morning read over his favourite book, but instead he has a first row seat to the rumour mill hard at work, speculating about his own maybe-relationship. 

Sara is still smiling at the bated breath while everyone is waiting for her to continue. 

“A little birdie told me it was one Henry Fox who was doing the deflowering this time.” 

The shock at hearing his own name is electricity in his veins, ice white before he starts to burn from the inside out. The shame immediately follows. He feels it trickle in with the dread of what he is about to hear. The girls following the same well-worn path as before launch into excited chatter, and this time Henry feels so sick he can barely follow along. 

“Oh my god. How in the world were you told that? Henry is such a private person.” 

“Someone in Alex’s stats study group said he spent the whole time he wasn’t helping people on the phone texting with someone saved as H and like six emojis including a fox and a heart.” 

“That literally tells you nothing.” 

“Yeah, but then Alex asked someone about the poem presentation at the end of the year and we all know that Henry’s soulful tight ass is running that thing like a military man.” 

“Still.” 

“He lives in Barker” 

“There is no way—” 

“Man, I wish he wasn’t gay. Though, he looks just like his dad.” 

“Lucy shut up.” 

“But if they are together? What a pair of—” 

Henry turns away, feeling like his privacy has been entirely invaded. It isn’t that the girls are being mean, he doesn’t think Sara has a mean bone in her body, it is just the idea of being known. Anybody knowing that he is gay when he spent so long having to shove pieces of himself away — behind paintings, stuck inside curtains, and under beds — feels like he is being flayed bare for all to see. He spent the last few years of his life before coming to America watching the ghosts of his younger self wander the mausoleum of his childhood home, wondering if it would ever get better. 

He spent so long hiding himself. Even the idea of announcing that part of him when he walked onto campus as a nervous freshman was too much to bear. Pez came along more for Henry than himself, no matter what he said was the official reason.

Even with the vibrant, never-ending support from his best friend, the phantoms of England still followed him over the ocean. They whispered to him during news segments about his rights as a gay man, they smiled every time he passed a blood drive tent, they clutched at his shoelaces and tripped him up when he stuttered over his own sexuality while turning down women. 

It did get better, though. He found a group of people in his literature classes who didn’t turn their noses up at the idea of quiet. He found friends in his book club, in the library group, in his queer lit classes. However, they felt more like accomplices to a long line of shared experiences than a friend group he could pin his future to. They come and go, passing in and out of his life — smoke in the breeze. 

It is all terribly isolating. He would never admit it to anyone, except maybe Alex, but the loneliness of America’s vast expanse and cramped cities is still better than the silver spoon of the English countryside. Where strings were attached to every joint and he was a marionette doll for his grandmother's high society show. 

There is something here, even now, on this park bench, listening to girls talk about his sexuality without a care in the world. Something about others having a piece of yourself you didn’t know if you were ready to share yet, that is gripping at Henry’s windpipe. 

He is pulled out of his spiralling by two warm hands covering his eyes and a scent he would recognize anywhere invading his nose. 

“Hello, love,” slips past Henry’s lips without meaning to. The endearment is something important to him, personal and weighted with promise, and saying it so early on is only setting himself up for a world of hurt down the line. 

Alex pulls himself around the bench and fully seats himself in Henry’s lap, wrapping his arms around him tight, a blanket of protection from the outside world that Henry desperately needs. 

“Mmm, I like it when you call me that,” Alex whispers softly, so quiet Henry isn’t sure if he was supposed to hear it. 

“Love?” He questions hoping to prod Alex into more of an answer. Alex sighs and nods, letting his full weight rest in Henry’s arms. 

Henry just pulls him tighter as the past few minutes come back to him. Looking over at the group of girls, he notices that they have all gone silent. They are all staring. He feels a bit like he is in a glass cage being watched. A creature being dissected under harsh conditions. 

The whispering starts up again, and he notices Sara wave at him. He lifts an arm in a wave back and she nods satisfied with something before she turning to the group and beginning to disband their picnic. 

Henry looks back at Alex, jostling him a bit until he is looking at Henry with a disgruntled face. 

“So,” Henry starts. “Are we cuddling with each other all the time now? I thought you were for my cuddling needs, not the other way around?” 

Alex laughs and puts their foreheads together. “This is a two way street, sweetheart, and I need comfort after the awful day I’ve had.” Henry is immediately at ease with Alex. The nickname makes him grin so hard he might burst if he thinks about it for longer than a moment. Alex, of course, catches it. 

“Really? Sweetheart does it for you?” 

“I don’t know, love. Maybe it does.” 

“Touche,” Alex says back with a smile on his face. 

They sit there on the park bench, foreheads together, wrapped completely around each other, talking quietly about their day. Henry has forgotten about the group of girls and their picnic. He doesn’t notice some of the looks from other students passing by, the whispers, He doesn’t notice the sound of somebody’s phone as they take a photo. 

All he sees is endless brown surrounding Alex’s pupils and the way his freckles are starting to fade on the bridge of his nose. He notices the faint scar on his left eyebrow and how his curls are still damp after practice. 

The world around him doesn’t matter, because there is an entire universe sitting right in his lap.

Chapter Text

It has been 25 days of knowing the touch of Alexander Claremont-Diaz. Henry isn’t sure if he would ever be able to go back to what life looked like before this suave sensational straight out of a Hallmark movie waltzed into his life. 

Most people describe life before and after love and great loss as something that changed in colour. From drab and dull to a shiny sensation. For Henry it was his sense of smell. Every time Alex leaves his apartment, or his space, he remembers the scent he leaves behind. And he knows, intently, he will sit and dream of what the scent might smell like permanently etched into the space of his apartment. 

He doesn’t have to miss the scent for long as Alex has spent every possible extra minute in Henry’s presence. 

It started after the park bench. Well, really, after Henry called him love. Alex had muttered about giving him an inch and he would take a mile and all Henry could do was to tell him he would go the distance. Alex’s ringtone in his own phone is now “Go the Distance,” and the first time Alex heard it trying to find Henry’s phone in the couch after a particularly intense nap, the sappy look on his face was worth the weird mp3 early aughts YouTube download it took for Henry to put it all together. 

At first, Henry was expecting Alex to shy away from him in public, that maybe he should slow down on his obvious affection, but Henry could not have been more wrong. It has only been 25 days of knowing Alex Claremont-Diaz and he knows every day forward is better than the last. 

He isn’t used to having a shadow walk around campus with him but he feels like he gains a very clingy one.. Henry doesn’t know how Alex seems to keep popping up when he has never seen him around campus and the surrounding streets before, but Alex chalks it up to recency bias. 

“Sweetheart, this just means I am at the front of your mind now, not that I am complaining. I really haven’t changed my walking routine at all. You might have just not been looking.” 

“And what a shame that is for me, now isn’t it,” Henry replies. He can’t help but feel he had been missing out immensely on Alex Claremont-Diaz in the years they had both been on campus. Henry has also realised that he has been a bit of an ostrich at this school–head in the sand, a horse running his own race with the blinders on. If he had picked his eyes up any sooner there would have been no way to miss Alex. He was in the middle of everything on campus, and he couldn’t go a day without hearing Alex’s name in some kind of conversation around them. 

When he asked Alex about it his response was light and easy, “People want what they can’t have, and as much as they think they know me, they don’t and so the idea of me fuels them. I can’t help that I am on a very visible team on this campus, but when I don’t fit the mould that they have assigned me it throws everyone for a loop.” 

“Does it ever get scary?”

Alex looks over at him with a raised eyebrow in question. They are walking in Washington Square Park, hands intertwined. Alex always finds a way to be touching him now that Henry gives permission. 

“Does what get scary?” 

“People knowing, people talking, watching–people just speaking on who you are without knowing the full story.” 

Alex pauses to think about it, his thumb brushing lightly against Henry’s hand. It grounds them both in ways Henry could have never imagined. 

“I think,” he pauses again. “I think everyone in your life has a snapshot of how they see you. For some it is a polaroid of a single moment and that image is what they have going forward. For others they have hours and hours of unedited home video.” 

“Hmm…what a nice metaphor.” 

“Okay, but seriously, Hen,” and Henry must react visibly to the nickname because Alex smiles wide, “So many people know only my sportscenter highlights or the fact that they can name me as president of a few organisations. Maybe they see me at the lacrosse parties because I have to show face as one of the captains. Nobody but a few people know I am ace, and it isn’t because I hide it, it is just because people don’t care to know more than anything surface level.” 

Henry nods along, still not sure he could be so carefree about something that has haunted him for years. 

“Besides,” Alex pauses them on their walk and brushes the hair out of Henry’s face letting his hand rest against his face cupping his cheek, “It doesn’t really matter what anyone else has to say if the people I care about most are right where I want them.” 

Henry leans into his palm, “Does that include me?” 

Alex leans forward, letting their foreheads come together.

“You might be the most important of all.” 

Henry hears the knock on his door and grumbles. 

He lets the blanket wrapped around his shoulders drag behind him as he takes himself and his wool pj’s to the door. Without looking through the peephole he flings open the door only to stop short at what is on the other side. 

Standing there in that same forest green hoodie he wore the first time that he came over is Alex, perfectly tousled hair and an impish smile. He has his backpack on and is holding something in a bag in his hands. 

“What- how?” Henry can’t even get the words out. He has been having a dark day. The world had woken up and continued on shining and he had not moved more than a few feet past his couch. There had been some sporadic texting in the morning but Henry had turned his phone off at 11am too overwhelmed to deal with it. 

“You stopped responding and your location hadn’t moved from your apartment and you missed our lunch plans.”

“Oh I am so — ” 

“Don’t you dare say you are sorry. It's okay, Pez sent me a text and I put two and two together.” 

Henry just opens the door wider and starts walking back over to the couch. Alex pulls off his shoes and joins him. Henry is all but a lump. A crusty, sleep-mussed lump. 

“Budge up, sweetheart.” 

With a groan Henry moves his head up and Alex settles on one end of the couch letting Henry put his head into Alex’s lap. With tentative movements, Alex’s fingers slowly ghost over his hair. Henry sighs and lets himself fully rest his weight on Alex’s legs. The fingers in his hair start using more pressure, slowly rubbing from his neck to the crown of his head. 

Alex takes the remote off of the dining room table and starts on season two of The Great British Bake Off.  

They sit on the couch with no words, just the soft sounds of baking coming from the speakers, the volume turned low, letting the melancholy of the afternoon wash over them. 

Henry couldn’t tell you how much time passed, just that as the evening wore on, Alex curled himself around more and more of Henry until he was fully wrapped in his arms. Long after the TV fell silent and dusk had fallen, Henry let himself speak. 

“I’m sorry, Alex,” he whispered out, his voice hoarse with disuse. 

“Mmmm, what are you s’ry for,” came the soft reply back. 

“I am broken and sad and this isn’t what you signed up fo—” 

“Hey,” Alex interrupts his apology and pulls his head up from his chest to hold Henry squarely between his hands. “I didn’t sign up for anything but the privilege of giving you comfort. Of giving you the kind of hug you need and what are we for if not for our ability to comfort another human in their time of need.” 

Henry can’t help the tears. Alex just pulls him tightly against his chest. He still isn’t sure how this started; just that he hopes it never ends. 

Henry looks down at the jersey in his hands. It is an obnoxious purple with the number 17 emblazoned across the front and the distinct 13-letter last name that has been visiting him in his dreams across the broad shoulders of his back. Alex had handed it off to him only three days ago saying it was high time that he wore it to one of the games. 

Pez had dubbed it the “Boyfriend Jersey” and promptly told him that they were going to that Friday’s game with no questions asked. Henry had his own doubts about whatever the jersey means, but as long as Alex wants him to wear it, he will be there with it on. 

They pile into the stands, finding a seat somewhere in a middle section surrounded by other students. Henry had been to a few lacrosse games his freshman year to try and assimilate to American culture. The seats were mostly empty then, the popularity of the sport on campus had skyrocketed since. It wasn’t shocking as the team was coming off back to back national championships co-captained by the number one and number two players in the country. 

That and the fact that everyone thought they were dating. It wasn’t hard when Alex and Liam had shared a kiss after winning the national championship the year before and then both promptly came out before their Sports Illustrated Cover Shoot. Henry had met Liam’s actual boyfriend, Spencer, already. He was a quiet guy in the computer science program who would only interject when he had something interesting to say. 

He gets lost in watching the game, the players, but Alex in particular. He can’t help but be captivated by the energy and elegance. 

They win, because of course they do. Alex rips off his helmet after the clock finishes and starts scanning the crowd. Henry can’t help but admire his sweaty post-game glory from afar. After a few minutes of searching Alex’s face lights up when he makes eye contact with Henry. He bounds into the stands taking the bleachers two steps at a time. 

“Baby, we won!” He shouts in excitement all but tackling Henry. Bystanders are watching, but Henry can’t really find it in himself to care because he has an armful of happy Alex. Alex, who has an effusive smile and a contagious laugh looking up at him through eyelashes that are a sin on their own. 

“I know, love, I was watching the game.” 

“You’re my good luck charm, you know.” 

“Ah yes, because the hundreds of games and national championships you won before this were all just a fluke.” 

Alex throws his head back in laughter and Henry is helpless, following the line of his throat and the way his adam's apple bobs when he swallows. Being this close to Alex has to be breaking some kind of law, he feels like he has taken a number of drugs and is just getting his trip. 

“All of those were just practice to impress you.” 

“Then consider me impressed.” The last line is whispered into his ear as Alex pulls Henry into a bone crushing hug. 

Alex eventually pulls away and heads off to the showers. Henry sticks around. He was told before the game that they had an appearance to make at the celebratory party if they won. When he asked the question of why Alex gave a very clear and not-so-concise answer. 

“As a captain, I’m expected to show my face at functions that raise team spirit. While the majority of the team does not get shitfaced at these parties and ruin their hard work, they still enjoy the atmosphere, and so I will go to every after game mixer if we win in the name of my own position on the team.” 

So, after Alex comes out of the locker rooms looking like a wet dream of half-dried curls and a fresh pair of clothes, the two of them make their way over to wherever tonight’s party is located. 

They arrive in the East Village sometime after ten pm. There are people spilling into the streets, music from the bars oscillating in the chilly evening air. As they make their way through the throngs of people most of whom don’t look a day over eighteen, Alex grips tightly to Henry’s hand. 

There is a brownstone on a side street with a fenced-in yard. Somebody's grandmother had passed down the rent-controlled building through the family until it ended up being donated to the school for “sports programming purposes.” If only they knew what kind of programming was actually occurring. 

As they step into a hazy front hallway, Henry is reminded of all of his evenings before Alex, where the second hand high from backyard bongs and the thump of a base would carry him through his evenings. He is reminded of how sticky hands and slurred speech would be more than enough to pull him through his next touch starved week. He is reminded of how bodies would come together in coat closets and side alleys, bathrooms at clubs, and wonders why he ever thought that was enough. 

Looking over at Alex, clear eyed and smiling, Henry now knows that it would have never been enough. Small fires can not compare to supernovas. 

The blanket is spread out underneath them, and Alex’s backpack is pulled open with a concerning selection of food spilling out. A few hastily made “PB&J’s” as Henry was informed, made up the bulk of the loot. Paired with some crisps that have a questionable flavour profile, some pretzels, a container of strawberries, a cupcake, and a few brightly wrapped hard candies. There are two large capri suns, and an oversized bottle of water half empty also in the fray. 

Neither one of them had mentioned the date, or why they might want to have a picnic, just the two of them, but a quick look in either calendar would show that it had been three months since that first evening they fell asleep together. 

At this point, Henry can’t remember what life was like without Alex. They had blocked off the entire day and spent the majority of it here on this blanket curled around each other slowly making their way through the obscene amount of food. At some point in the chilly afternoon air Alex pulled out a blanket and a book and asked Henry to read to him. 

So now here they were, Alex sprawled across Henry’s lap as he read The Tale of Despereaux out loud to a captive audience. Henry had initially been quite confused at the book choice before Alex explained that growing up his parents used to read to him before bed. They had gotten a divorce before finishing this book and had left off their bedtime stories right in the middle. He had never finished the book because of the memories that came with it. Alex said all of this looking down at his hands, quiet and contemplating. 

He then looked up at Henry and said something that took his breath away. “ I am ready to make new memories and I can’t think of anyone else who I would want to make this new memory with except for you.” 

And so Henry opens the well-worn copy to chapter one and begins the story of a brave little mouse, while he slowly runs his fingers in lazy circles on the exposed skin over his brave man. 

“I will not take the sweatshirt.”

“Are you kidding me, Alex? I have two of your lacrosse jerseys and your favourite jumper.” 

“It's a hoodie. not a jumper, and I want you to have them.”

“Yes, and I want you to have this.” 

Henry forcefully places the jumper into Alex’s hands and watches as he opens and closes his mouth. 

“I don’t know why you are being so stubborn about this. Is it such a hard idea to believe that I want you to have a piece of me as well when I am not around.” 

Alex's entire face falls and he throws himself into Henry’s arms. This isn’t a fight, not really. It started with a silly comment about the lacrosse jerseys that Henry now rotates through and how nice it was to see Henry wearing Alex’s last name. That devolved into a heavy conversation about how attractive it was to Alex to see Henry wearing his clothes, and Henry pulling the sweatshirt off of his own body to try and give it to Alex in exchange. 

Alex had turned beet red and refused to explain why he was so flustered. From there he had become more and more adamant about not taking the sweatshirt until Henry’s comment. 

Now with his midsection squeezed so hard he can barely breathe Henry is more confused than ever. 

“Love, what has gotten into you? It is not that big of a deal.” 

“Tsyrddsweatshirt,” comes a mumbled reply he can not make heads or tails of. 

“Alex, darling, you have to speak up. You can’t possibly expect me to hear you when you are speaking into my neck and not my face.” 

Alex pushes himself into Henry harder. When he gets like this all Henry can do is pause and wait for Alex to gather himself together to speak. After a few minutes and some rather heavy breathing for what Henry thinks should not be that big of a deal, Alex pulls his face away and Henry is shocked to see unshed tears filling his eyes. 

“Henry, this is your dad’s sweatshirt.” 

Oh. 

He looks down at the faded white lettering on the grey fabric, soft to the touch from years of use. It is his dad’s Oxford jumper. It is one of his favourites, and he wears it just as often as he does nice sweaters. What is even more surprising is how nice he thinks it would be to see Alex wearing it. To see those faded letters stretched around Alex’s body. To see him wearing his parent's’ alma mater, wrapped in the history of his own parent’s love story. 

He pulls Alex over to the couch without a word. Once they are fully settled into the cushions, Alex between his legs back to Henry’s chest, Henry begins speaking. 

“Did I ever tell you how I became in possession of this jumper?”

“Yet again it is a sweatshirt , but no.”

“You are such a cretin,” Henry says fondly, kissing the top of Alex’s head before starting on the epic love story of Arthur Fox and Catherine Mountchristen-Windsor. 

“My parents met at Oxford, while my mother was working towards her PhD, and my father was taking some classes in the Fine Arts program to study for a role.” 

“Your mother has a PhD?” 

“Yes. She found it easier to continue classes to the highest level than deal with my grandmother and honestly I don’t blame her.” 

From there Henry waxes poetic about a man and woman falling in love between library stacks and backstage plays. He tells the story of a jumper that was exchanged for months at a time when his father would have to go work on sets all over the world. How Catherine would mail it back to Arthur when it stopped smelling like him, and she would receive a care package back only two weeks later on the dot with the jumper, a trinket from set, and a handwritten letter. 

He shares that after they got married they would still exchange the jumper and growing up it was Henry’s favourite story. When he turned 12, long before his father passed, Arthur pulled him into his office, sat him down, and told him he was passing the jumper to Henry. 

“He just gave you the sweatshirt?” 

“Could you please let me finish?” 

“Sorry, sweetheart; you tell a great story. I just want to know the ending already.” 

So Henry continues. Arthur wanted Henry to have his own love story and the jumper was such a big part of his dad’s that passing it on was a right of passage. 

“He used a lot of non-gendered terms during that conversation. Talked a lot about how they would be so lucky to have me, and I could make my own traditions with whoever I ended up with, that I deserved to have a love as fierce as his and moms. I never did get to come out to him in the way I wish I was able to, but I remember that conversation and know that he knew and supported me regardless of if I had the opportunity to tell him first.” 

Alex is silent now, his fingers unmoving, the frenetic movement that Henry is so used to still, his attention unwavering. 

“So when I want to give you this sweatshirt, it is important to me, but it is something that I am doing knowing the history behind it.” 

Alex turns around, those unshed tears now running down his face. Henry brushes away a stray tear and Alex lets out a wet huff of laughter before pulling the two of them together. Henry kisses his forehead, each cheek, his nose, and then lets his lips rest on the juncture where Alex’s collarbone turns into his neck. 

“Baby,” is all Alex seems able to get out before he is crying again. 

“Shhhh, it’s okay, I am here, I am here.” 

“Baby, Hen, I can’t -” 

Sobs are now wracking his body and it is all Henry can do but hold on tightly to ride the wave. After a few minutes when the crying has subsided slightly, Henry allows himself to ask the question, 

“Love, was it too much, did I do something wrong?” 

Alex abruptly pulls away from Henry to look him in the eyes. Even with his face wet from tears, eyes red and puffy, nose a little snotty, Henry can’t help but be enraptured by this man that has taken every piece of him and rewritten it to be more. More himself, more open, more everything he felt he was never allowed to have. He is terrified now that he might have pushed too hard or said too much. 

“Henry, this is the kindest thing I—” he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, “You are one of the brightest stars in any night sky, and every day I wonder what I did to be lucky enough to be in your orbit.” 

Henry tries to smile but he is still worried. He opens his mouth only to find Alex has put a finger over his lips.

He leans forward foreheads pressing together their lips millimetres apart from touching whispering out a thank you that Henry can feel. 

Henry is running late. Not only is he running late, but he is frazzled and more disorganised than he has ever been in recent memory. He has a senior thesis outline due, a thirty five page paper with a deadline looming, his grandmother had sent him a brisk yet scathing voicemail that he is trying to ignore, and he promised Alex that he would pick up the coffee order today. 

737 Coffee is a tiny nondescript hole in the wall coffee shop. They charge a flat $7 for a rather large cup of joe, and brew a respectable cup of Earl Grey. While they usually make coffee at Henry’s apartment, last night they stayed over at Alex’s and his too-small abode does not have enough room for the toaster oven and the microwave that is shoved on the counter, let alone anything to make coffee out of. 

It has become a habit now when they spend the night at Alex’s place. Whoever wakes up first goes to grab the coffee. Henry rushes into the small store only as wide as he is tall. Behind a dark oak counter is Kazzie, the barista who works most early mornings. She has a streak of purple in her hair today and more piercings than the last time Henry saw her. 

Kazzie looks up and smiles wide, “Prince Charming, you are running very late today.” 

“Ha, very funny Kazzie, it has been a stressful week.” 

“Oh right, Barnstone's Lit Review is due at the end of this week. I am not ready for that capstone project.” 

“Tell me about it, thirty five pages and for what, a stroked ego?” 

Kazzie laughs and before he can even begin his order she has two cups already on the counter, “You come in often enough it's easy to guess what you are getting. It is also a crime that you aren’t using one of our punch cards, so I added it up this morning and you have about five more trips of coffee on the house. I added in some pastries because I tried a new recipe this morning and I need a guinea pig.” 

Henry trips over his thank yous as he picks up the coffees and small bag with Kazzie's choice of pastry. After lugging himself back the few blocks necessary to Alex’s walk up, Henry braves the perils of pre-war stairs to apartment 3C7. He lets himself in and takes in the sight before him. Alex has a large studio apartment that he has set up quite well if Henry says so himself. It is technically a part of the NYU dorms, but it manages to feel like a personal space all the same. 

Alex has a trio of posters framed against the back wall, oil pastel renditions of scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy. They are flanked by a few large plants that he said were Nora’s fault — a bet she said he couldn’t win. The double bed is set up sideways along the wall, fitting perfectly into an alcove with a large bay window as a substitute headboard. The entire apartment is done in shades of blue, with a pop of purple here and there from Alex’s lacrosse gear. 

Henry sets the cups down on a sliver of counter that remains and toes his shoes off letting them sit on the small mountain that has piled up near the door. He pads over to the bed where Alex is dead to the world. He's got on a shirt that has ridden up and joggers that are slung low around his hips. To Henry, he is the embodiment of sin, his curls creating a halo around his face, his hands thrown up over his head, even in his sleep he looks carefree. 

“Good morning, love,” he says softly brushing the pads of his fingers across Alex’s forehead. He scrunches his nose up and curls into a ball, like a rolly polly after poking it on the playground. 

“Noo mpphf, I don’ wanna get up,” Alex mumbles out as he takes Henry’s arm hostage in his bid to never leave the bed. 

“Kazzie already gave us our coffee and she put some pastries together for us as well.” 

Henry can see Alex pause, open one eye, and give him a considering look. After a few seconds Alex's smile turns sly and before Henry can react he is pulled on top of Alex while he shouts, “Sneak attack!” 

The next few minutes are a tangle of tickling and limbs as the two of them grapple on the bed. It ends with Henry on his back and Alex looming over him, as much as a man of his height can. They are both breathing heavy from their laughter and Alex has a radiant smile on his face. 

Henry is so caught up in how breathtaking Alex looks in the morning he doesn’t realise that Alex has fully settled on top of him until they are nose to nose. 

“Why hello there,” Henry whispers, not wanting to ruin the moment. 

“I think,” Alex smiles big as if he is psyching himself up,”I think I am going to kiss you now, if that is okay.” 

Wide eyed, Henry can’t do anything but nod his head. He tries to keep his eyes open but the moment Alex’s lips brush his, his eyes flutter shut. It is soft and languid, taken at a pace that makes Henry’s insides feel like soup. His hands find their way to Alex’s neck and hair, the groan Alex lets out when Henry tugs on his curls sends feelings to his toes. 

When Alex breaks the kiss, they stay close together, forehead to forehead, noses brushing, breathing the same air. 

“Can we talk about this?” Henry asks, not sure where Alex’s head is. 

Alex gulps and leans backwards, stopped only by Henry’s arms wrapped tightly around him. 

“So what do you want to talk about?” Alex questions, his eyes betraying how nervous he is. Henry wraps his fingers into a curl that has fallen into Alex’s eyes, brushing it behind his ear before answering, 

“We have never discussed the boundaries of your identity and what you are comfortable with. You say ace, but I know that it is a spectrum and the last thing I want to do is to ever make you uncomfortable in any way.” 

Alex’s expression clears and the corners of his mouth tip up in the ghost of a smile. He lays himself fully against Henry getting comfortable. Henry knows whatever comes from this conversation that Alex being comfortable is most important. 

“So are kisses on the table now?” Henry asks, not sure where to begin. 

“They umm aren’t off the table,” Alex replies softly. Henry can feel his breath against his neck. He lets the silence sit while Alex gathers his thoughts. 

“I like having your lips on me. On my cheek, on my forehead, on my shoulder, and the back of my neck. It feels nice. I don’t umm — I don’t want you to use your tongue yet, or maybe ever? I am not sure if I would like that, but I don’t want that right now.” 

“Then we don’t have to do that right now, or ever Alex.” 

“And I am not saying that we would never uh, never get more intimate because I trust you a lot, but sex stuff really does nothing for me the way it works for other people,” He pauses, taking a deep breath like he is steadying himself. Henry starts to move his thumbs in circles over Alex’s lower back biting his tongue at interrupting Alex’s train of thought. Alex takes another deep breath and then continues, “I think I could be intimate with someone in that way to an extent for the closeness factor, but there are so many hang ups and expectations that surround sex and what it means that I have never gotten around to even thinking about it. All I know is that I want to be able to kiss you behind that spot on your ear that makes you shudder, and I don’t want you to lick me.” 

Henry can’t help but laugh a little at the licking comment, “Love, I can promise you no licking unless you explicitly ask for it. Thank you for sharing with me, if anything changes in any direction you just need to let me know.” 

He can feel Alex nod and then hears the whispered question of, “But what about you?” 

“Hmm but what about me?” 

“I mean, you obviously have a sex drive and everything this can’t be what you expected out of this when it uh — became what it is now.” 

Henry feels a stone in his stomach at the tone of Alex’s voice. It sounds meagre and small, like an animal whine that had been kicked when it was down too many times. He pulls Alex away from him so they are in a sitting position with Alex in his lap, chest to chest. He holds Alex’s face between his palms. 

He still can’t believe that only a few short months ago Alex slid into that booth at the café and irrevocably changed his life for the better. He isn’t quite sure how to get it across to him that all Alex could want for the rest of his life is hand holding and Henry would be on board. He pulls their faces together, only an inch or two of space separating them now. 

“Alexander, you have managed to swoop into my life and change every facet of it for the better. The past few months have been the most emotionally fulfilling in any relationship — friendship or otherwise— that I have ever had. Getting to wake up next to you in the mornings has been the greatest privilege, and if all you want from me is our pinkies intertwined then I will gladly link fingers.” 

Henry can see Alex blinking back tears but he continues on wanting to get it off his chest, “I will tell you right now that I find you attractive. Your body is a temple that I could worship for days, exploring every crevice as I see fit. I find you devastatingly handsome and I am in awe that angels decided to bestow one of their best on earth right here next to me. But more than any of that, I want to care for you in the way you need. However you need. If that means no “sex” by society's standards then I am more than happy to comply. I think you forget love that I have — as you put it — very nice hands, and I am very adept at using them if I need to.” 

Alex’s face crinkles up into a smile at the last line. They sit in silence for a few moments, breathing the same air, letting Henry’s confession linger between them. Alex takes a deep shuddering breath and then leans forward speaking his answer into Henry’s lips. 

Whispered thank you’s are tenderly placed against Henry’s cheeks, his nose, his forehead, the crease between his eyebrows, the line along his jaw, an earlobe, his adams apple, and that spot behind his ear that causes him to whimper out. 

Henry feels undone, every fibre of his being is caught up in the man in front of him, and he couldn’t be arsed to care. Alexander Claremont-Diaz might be the death of him, but what a beautiful way to go. 

They stay that way, tangled up in Alex’s sheets trading short kisses, until the coffee is long forgotten, and Henry couldn’t tell you up from down.

Chapter Text

There is no doubt about it, Henry Fox is sitting in the girlfriend section. It’s a final tournament match, one that determines if the school is making it to the national playoff finals or not, and Alex begged Henry to sit closer to the sidelines. His reasoning was so that Henry would be much closer to see, but Henry thinks it has more to do with the fact that he is sitting next to Spencer and Sara, all three of them wearing the jerseys of their boys on the field. 

Henry feels slightly odd that they are all referencing their boyfriends when he wouldn’t give that label to Alex. It isn’t that they aren’t together, because after the last seven months, Henry feels like Alex is his forever. But Alex doesn’t fit under a label in his brain, he is just Alex, his Alex. 

That and the fact that they had never labelled anything. They just kept showing up for each other in all the ways that mattered and now they weren’t Alex and Henry to most people they were AlexandHenry . The stares on campus have become much easier to stomach, especially after realising they weren’t looking at him, they were mostly just watching Alex. And Henry couldn’t really blame them, he would watch Alex too. 

This tournament had started stressing Alex out weeks ago and Henry wasn’t beyond using silly forms of distraction to get Alex out of his head and into the present moment. The pressure had been mounting for months, though. They were in line for a three-time national championship with a set of seniors that were graduating the next year. Alex previously commented that he was thankful that he had already turned down his options to go into the professional league for law school. He was looking forward to putting this chapter behind him, but it didn’t mean that he wanted to end the chapter on anything but the best note. 

The game was tense, and under a thunderstorm no less. The stands were still packed though, rain or shine. Rubber boots squeaked up and down the metal steps as everyone filed into their places ready to cheer the team on to victory. 

Alex was in rare form today. Henry had only seen that concentration before when he had been ripping through LSAT flashcards, or when he was attempting to make his grandmother’s mole recipe. 

They have five minutes left in the final quarter and Alex goes down. A hush falls over the crowd and Henry can feel his heartbeat in his throat. It is an uneven staccato that is pounding against his vocal cords. The entire world slows to a standstill for him as he watches the tackle happen. The way Alex crumples to the ground. The way he isn’t getting up. After the longest forty- five seconds of Henry’s life, Alex sits up, looking somewhat dazed. He is surrounded by team members and the medics. Henry can’t read his lips but he sees Alex shake his head. They are tied right now and Henry can’t imagine Alex subbing himself out willingly unless it is a life-or-death situation. 

After a few more minutes they allow him to stand up and the stadium erupts in cheers. Henry can feel every aching muscle in his body relax minutely as the clock time goes back up and the players get ready. 

Every second of this last match is exhilarating, and Henry can’t imagine what it must be like in the final game if this is just the semi-final playoff.

As the clock winds down into its last seconds, the plays get more desperate: Alex is able to make a breakaway, and manages to get his ball into the top corner of the goal only moments before the buzzer for end-of-game play sounds. If Henry thought the roar of the crowd was loud when Alex got up from expected injury, it is nothing compared to the decibel level of a winning goal. 

Henry steps off the bottom of the bleachers onto the edge of the field, moving towards Alex without even realising it. Alex breaks away from the group of teammates and barrels towards him. Arms open wide, Alex flings himself into Henry. The force of the man in his arms makes him stumble back a step but he turns them around and around, Alex wrapping his legs fully around him. 

“Baby, I did it, fuck I did it, we did it, I can’t- baby ,” Alex can barely get words out around his gasping breaths but Henry just pulls him in tighter. Alex is soaking wet, but he seems to have forgotten that little piece of information. His hair is dripping and his eyelashes are so dark it looks like he has them painted on. Henry could care less about the wetness that is starting to seep into his clothes because Alex is okay and he is happy and the relief he feels is only strengthened by the weight of Alex in his arms. 

“I am so proud of you love, so proud .” Henry is whispering it into his ear letting one of his hands move from where it is acting as a shelf for Alex to sit on into Alex’s curls. Alex pulls back from where he has shoved his wet nose against Henry’s neck. 

He feels two cold hands grip his face and he is met with wet lips and hysterical laughter. 

Henry wants more than anything to bottle this moment up. He wants to take the uncomfortable cold feeling of wet cotton bunched up around his toes, the icey sensation of water rolling a single drop at a time from his collar to his tailbone, the weight and warmth of Alex’s legs wrapped around his waist, the feeling of their breath mingling between bursts of laughter, and hide it away. He wants to take the overwhelming feelings that Alex gives him and package them up in a keepsake box protected from the rest of the world. 

He wants to never forget the clammy hands, or the way Alex’s eyes are dancing in the rain, his smile so contagious Henry can’t help but give a giddy lopsided one back. 

Henry believes that the gates of hell might be found at the entrance to the LSAT. It doesn’t matter that he himself isn’t actually planning on taking the wretched exam, he has spent so many hours across from Alex at the library he can practically list off which study deck is for what in alphabetical order. 

Their only saving grace in Alex’s mad and spiraling dash to take his LSAT and get results before he graduates is the supposed unspoken understanding that certain students have certain tables at the law library. Henry, as much an extension of Alex as the textbooks he carries around with him, has found home in the deep arm chairs and thick oak tables. If you ask the librarians, the Great Room at the New York Public Library was based off of their Law Library. It isn’t nearly as grand, but the space is cosy, quiet, and the perfect place to work. 

The claiming of the table didn’t happen overnight, and it took Henry longer than it should have to realise that everyone steers clear of the desk they often sat at because Alex lives both in Henry’s bed and the second seat from the right. 

They are two months into LSAT prep with an entire month to go when Henry shows up a little early to their nightly study session for the first time as a byproduct of the MTA actually managing to be on time for once in its entire existence. 

He is making his way to their usual table when he notices two girls spread out over the seats that are usually taken by Henry and Alex. He isn’t sure why he is surprised, it is technically open for anybody to use, but their seats haven’t been taken before. 

He makes eye contact with one of them, Lucy, who’s eyes widen and she leans over to her seat partner to frantically whisper something. After a second she looks back up at Henry and waves him over. He is slightly wary remembering Lucy’s less than courteous comments from that day on the quad, but there don’t seem to be any open seats so he navigates around the tome-filled shelves to take an open seat at the four-person table. 

“Sorry you aren’t usually early, we’ll finish up and be out of your seat soon,” Lucy’s seat partner whispers. Henry recognizes her from one of the introductory law lectures Alex is assisting in. 

“Oh don’t mind me, Alex and I can share we are just-” 

“Studying for the LSAT of course.” Lucy interrupts looking just a tad smug. 

“Well, erm, yes studying for the LSAT.” 

Lucy twirls a piece of her hair around her finger leaning back in her chair. Henry can’t help but feel like he is being watched by a predator about to capture its prey. 

“Of course Alex is studying for the LSATs–he is at the top of his class in the pre-law program. I just think it's cute that his boyfriend comes with him every night to study, you are the talk of the law program around here.” 

“I um-” Henry gulps, not really sure how he is supposed to talk to Lucy or what he is supposed to say. 

“I mean you are both here every evening at 7:30 like clockwork. It's not really a spoken rule but those who are studying for the LSAT or the Bar get first pick of desks at the library. If they have a study plan they are allowed to put it in the system just like a book reservation. We were all a little shocked when Alex put in that he would be using two chairs. That man has been a lone wolf since he got to this school.” 

Henry still isn’t sure what Lucy is getting at but her cadence and tone remind him of nails on a chalkboard mixed with a startlingly close approximation of his grandmother. That alone has the hair on his arms standing on end. 

“So what we are all wondering,” Lucy leans forward into Henry’s space entirely too close for comfort, “Is what is so special about you , that it grabbed Alex’s attention.” 

Before Henry can even deign a response to Lucy’s ridiculous inquiry an achingly familiar backpack is smacked down on the table startling all of its inhabitants. 

Henry looks up to see Alex, windswept and a little wet, the weather must have taken a turn for the worst since Henry had meandered into the library early. 

“While I am sure Henry would love to spend the next three hours extolling all of the wonderful virtues that make him the best thing to ever happen to me, it is now 7:30 which means that my desk reservation has started. Jennifer, if you would like to stay you are more than welcome, but Lucy, if you are going to continue to berate my boyfriend for your needless gossip, you need to leave.” 

Henry can barely breathe. Alex had just stormed in here like a brown John Cusack and called him his boyfriend for the first time and defended him against Lucy and her clutches. He felt a bit in a daze not following the next few minutes as Lucy left the library in a huff and Jennifer, he would have to remember that name, settled in with them for an evening of studying. 

Later that evening long after flashcards are put away and complaints about classes have passed, Henry presses his nose against the soft spot where Alex’s ear meets his head, and asks the question that he has been holding in for hours.

“So… boyfriend?” 

He hears Alex let out a soft exhale before rolling around to face Henry. There is a sliver of light passing through the blinds in Alex’s apartment, just bright enough that Henry can see Alex’s expression.. 

“I don’t think labels have ever really been our thing, but when someone asks what you are to me, saying ‘everything’ doesn’t seem to encompass other people’s understanding of what we are to each other.” He can feel the stress Alex must be under as his arms are taut and there is a furrow between his eyebrows. Henry slowly rubs his thumb in between the space letting his hand softly cup Alex’s cheek. 

“Love, I am fine with calling each other boyfriends to the rest of the world if that makes it all easier.” 

There is a sigh and the tension Alex has been holding deflates and he burrows himself down into Henry’s collarbone, his hands finding grip on Henry’s jumper. Running his hand through Alex’s hair Henry lets out a soft murmuring of something he knows to be true, 

“Alexander, you are my everything too.” 

Tech week is a jet-fueled propulsion of every possible nightmare that Henry could possibly run through. The poetry showcase is seventy-two hours away, but you wouldn’t know it by the sad shape of some performers' poems. Henry needs to be careful or he might go bald before he turns 25 at the rate this group is pushing him to pull his own hair out. 

“Steven, for the last time I do not care how into Freud you have been getting, I am not letting you read a poem about how your mom wants to fuck a door .” 

Henry hears a snort behind him and turns to see Alex, unexpected of course, leaning against an auditorium chair holding a bag. 

“What are you doing here?” Henry asks as Alex comes up and envelopes his entire body in a hug he has needed since lunch. 

“Well,” Alex pauses to kiss Henry on the forehead, they rarely kiss on the lips but every other piece of exposed skin seems to be Alex’s for the claiming. “A little birdy told me what you have had to deal with for the past few hours and I thought some samosas and sopapillas might make your evening just a little better.” 

Henry can feel his own face light up. Alex managed to cook, which means his apartment kitchen is going to be an absolute disaster when he gets home tonight, but he doesn’t really care because the prospect of spiced meat and cinnamon sugar is enough to give him strength for the remainder of their 12-hour rehearsal. 

Henry calls for a break and everyone files out onto the stage and into the auditorium seats to eat their evening meal before another few gruelling hours of trying to match lighting to music to whatever terrifying topic Steven had decided to bestow upon everyone this time around. 

Instead of leaving, Alex goes right onto the stage with him, pulling Henry down into the v of his legs putting his arms around Henry’s middle and his head on his shoulder. Henry would feel a little self conscious, but Alex acts so blasé about the public displays of affection he has started to forget that if people aren’t used to seeing them together it might be a little shocking. 

He settles comfortably into Alex and lets himself enjoy his samosas, eyes closed, the warmth of Alex at his back, and the stage lights at his front. It isn’t perfect, but it is somewhere close. His relaxation is interrupted by a clattering of noise as a group sits down around them. He cracks open an eye and sees the rest of the senior cohort has situated themselves around the two of them in a makeshift circle with Alex’s splayed out legs its awkward point. 

“So this must be the muse then,” says Terry, a Classics major who refuses to read anything for the presentation unless it is in iambic pentameter. 

Henry can feel Alex squeeze him a little tighter before responding. “I would hope I am Henry’s only muse, though the weather outside might be just as inspiring.” 

There is a tittering of laughter and Henry lets himself smile. The group begins to chat about their poems and the various inspirations that have brought them to life, before everyone starts asking if they have read them to the people they are about.

After a few exclamations of no’s and then some nervous yes’s, everyone else had given their answer the group turned to Alex and Henry, questions on the tip of their tongue. 

Henry isn’t exactly sure what to say but as always, Alex steps in and answers perfectly. 

“Well, do you mean the poems he workshops all over both of our apartments? He has sticky notes all over one of the walls rearranging stanzas and looks a bit like Einstein. Sometimes he is running his hands through his hair so much he looks like he stuck his finger into an electrical socket. There are only so many synonyms the thesaurus can provide.” 

Some encouraging smiles and Alex continues, 

“Or do you mean his showcase piece, about metaphors and maps, about the way history remembers only friends and never lovers, his piece on letters between love’s who lost?” 

Everyone leans forward. The one piece that Henry hadn’t shared yet is the closing presentation for the entire event. It is a fifteen-minute-long epic working through queer history told through letters plodding from one place to the next, the thrum of love lost present across the entire piece. 

Alex tilts his head to the side as if he is pondering, “ I get the nomenclature now- saints’ names belong to miracles ,” he quotes. Of course he quotes the line he helped come up with. Henry snorts and leans back further into Alex. 

“So what’s the context?” Steven asks, surely looking to apply some outdated philosophical ideal to a few words strung together trying to convey love. 

Alex turns to Steven, who is sitting slightly on the outside of the circle of seniors, as both a junior and the bane of this entire production's existence. 

“Well Steven, won’t you just have to wait until Friday to find out for yourself. I am not going to try and assign anything contextual or not to Henry’s work, especially when hearing someone whisper it to you in the dead of night rings a little different than said with careful precision on a stage in front of an audience.” 

There are awes all around and Henry tries to hide away only to face the laughter of Alex at his back. There was no need for the rest of his cohort to know that he read Alex his poetry when he thought Alex was asleep. They didn’t need to know that in the dead of night when he was trying to finish a line, assign names, give titles he would sit there at his desk and read his words to Alex letting the inspiration strike. He hadn’t known that Alex was awake for any of it until recently, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop the routine that he had already cemented into habit. 

Steven sputters and Henry’s phone chime reminds everyone that the break was only just that, and a long night still remains. 

Alex drags Henry off the stage and into the back of the auditorium to say his goodbye before they meet again in bed in the early hour of the next day. 

Henry lets himself take a deep breath, the scent of Alex filling his nose. This week has been exhausting. Mornings easily take the shape of a starburst of depression blinding him through a crack in the window. It is only fleeting as the worn-out smile of Alex quickly replaces the light, leading him down a different tunnel with a different ending. 

“I’ll see you when you get home, okay?” Alex murmurs into his shoulder, their arms wrapped tightly around each other. 

Henry realises in that moment that Home isn’t a place. It isn’t some rickety pre-war building with lopsided stairs. It isn’t a small corner of a suburban lot carved out just for two. Home is where he wakes up to the smell of flakey pastry right from the oven, and he can not tell if that is due to the warmth that the man next to him emanates or more akin to the scent that now covers his pillows more than anything else.

Home is where the people you love the most are, and Alex is right at the hearth centre. 

“BABE TURN ON THE NEWS,” comes a screech competing for the title of pterodactyl impersonation or a parrot that has seen better days. Alex comes careening into the living room practically flying onto the couch, crash landing into Henry. 

“Oof. Do you mean the actual news or that dreaded ESPN that you attempt to call more important than the BBC.” 

Alex, worming his way entirely around Henry, who has resigned himself to the fate of having an octopus attached to him for the foreseeable future, rolls his eyes at Henry’s comment and makes grabby hands for the remote. 

With a shake of his head Henry hands it over already knowing that some form of SportsCenter is about to fill the screen. The lacrosse team had just pulled off the National Championship win the weekend before and Alex had spent the following seven days recording every bit of coverage of the game and post-game commentary. Henry could quote most of it in his sleep at this point. Watching Alex’s face light up anytime a commenter said anything good about Claremont-Diaz or number 17 was worth the incessant droning from a channel he would never tune into otherwise. 

Pulling his arms out from underneath Alex’s grip Henry rearranged Alex until there was no longer a threat of elbows or knees in places where the sun doesn’t shine. After finally settling Henry tuned into what was happening on the screen. 

It was Sports Center just like he predicted, the same John and Brad in their perfectly plain ties sitting in their ill-fitting suits behind a shiny silver countertop giving their often unasked-for opinions on games that had already happened. 

There’s a countdown on the screen and it readily becomes apparent from the commentary that the men are counting down the best moments of the collegiate season. From Soccer plays to College Football, to March Madness, they rounded up the best of the best and were playing them out and giving background to the audience in case they had managed to live under the rock-shaped shadow of professional sports for the entire last year. 

Alex is so excited he can’t keep still, almost vibrating with movement. Henry knows better than to try and get Alex to sit still, with this amount of energy and he would have to wear himself out with at least a few miles running before bed. 

Henry feels the taps on his arm as the announcers move on to announce the number one sports moment of the year. He wasn’t sure if he was about to see a play Alex had made or a scene from the final game that clinched the championship. 

“Pay attention sweetheart,” Alex says, a smile bright across his face. 

“Love, I am watching just the same as you, I can see that it is going to be the number one sports moment of the year.” 

Alex laughs a little, “Yeah but I don’t think you are expecting this.” 

“And now,” John starts in with a little drumroll on the desktop before Brad picks right back up, ”The moment you have all been waiting for: the collegiate sports moment of the year.” 

“Now John, the past three years our number one sports moment has been a hail mary touchdown pass, a perfect ten on a floor gymnastics routine to win the national championship, and a buzzer beater sweet sixteen half court basketball shot. Do you have any ideas about what this year’s might be?”

“Well Brad, I can tell you now it is not a sport we've had make it into our top ten college sport moments in three years. In fact it is the same person as last time, though the context is a little different.” 

The two men turn away from the camera slightly so the screen behind them goes through a transition before it fills up the entire screen and a voiceover starts, 

“Three years ago our number ten moment featured the NYU Men’s Lacrosse team, who came from an unranked season to winning the national championship under the helm of co-captains Alexander Claremont-Diaz and Liam Clayborn, and this year it is no different. The men’s team picked up a third National Championship win under these two, but our highlight doesn’t feature the finals, but a moment from the semi-finals that feels just like it is out of a movie.” 

Now Henry is paying attention. He is assuming he is going to get to watch Alex go down to the ground again, as if that moment hasn’t lived in his nightmares every time he closes his eyes. 

“With only 5 minutes remaining in the game against longtime rivals Columbia, Claremont-Diaz took a hard hit to the sternum and went down. Now this isn’t the first time number seventeen has gone down in a match, but he is known as the king of the bounce back. He was remaining down though. Now you will want to pay attention to this, as he stays down the sidelines and starts getting antsy.” 

The shots on screen move away from Alex on the ground to the sidelines where Henry is standing in his rain gear in the front row looking devastated. Alex leans into him on the couch, the warmth of his body a calm reminder that he is alive and well, not unmoving on the sidelines. He feels Alex clasp their hands together, fingers interwoven and he lets out a huff of air trying to expel his own anxiety about that day through his breath. 

“It's okay baby, the segment is really cute, just keep watching,” Alex murmurs into the side of Henry’s head, taking the idea of cuddling one step further attached in every way possible to Henry’s side. 

Henry manages another shaky breath and tunes back into whatever SportsCenter is saying about that semi-final game. 

“And out of nowhere, Claremont-Diaz comes blazing through to score in the last nine seconds of the game pushing the NYU Violets to yet another National Championship Final. Now John, while the play itself is phenomenal and would have made the top ten on its own, we can’t talk about this game without mentioning what comes next.” 

John nods his head and Henry can feel the pit of his stomach start to sink through his body. There is no way they are going to comment on Alex’s celebration right? He can’t imagine that being a piece of the story that pushes the play of the year over the top. 

“Only moments after the buzzer sounds you can see CD rip himself away from his own teammates and make his way to the side of the field.” 

“Yes, now I am not sure if the audience remembers if they aren’t lacrosse fans, but three years ago when Clayborn and Claremont-Diaz won their first national championship together as co-captains the two made a splash by making out after their championship win, and came out in tandem together on their shared cover of Sports Illustrated.” 

“The boys apparently never dated as we saw Clayborn loved up with his long-term boyfriend for most of the next two years.” 

“CD on the other hand is more of a mystery, and one that piqued the interest of the general public as his NIL deals picked up in the previous two years. He is the highest searched name in college lacrosse and only third in overall college sports behind Jameson Franks and Lazzerous Donalds who are on the fast track to the NFL.” 

“That’s right Brad, but wonder no longer, as number seventeen tore his way across the field into the arms of another unknown man.” 

On the screen, in the pouring rain, Henry watches from the perspective of various camera angles as Alex throws himself into his arms. The way Alex’s legs wrap around him and how they share an emotional kiss. Henry isn’t sure what to feel or think. On one hand, tweedle dee and tweedle dumb have not said anything harmful about anybody's sexuality, but the idea of being discussed on national television by sports broadcasters who knew nothing about them wasn’t helping his stomach now sitting somewhere along the fourth circle of hell. 

“Well John, I can tell you right now we did a little digging and it seems our King of the Lacrosse game has landed himself a prince. Introducing Henry Fox, son of none other than famed James Bond actor, Arthur Fox, and truly royalty adjacent. He falls somewhere in line for the British throne as his grandmother is siblings with the King.” 

“Brad, I am not sure how these two managed to find each other but that celebration was truly a movie moment. It broke the internet. Trending globally on Twitter, searches for Alex’s name went up over 5000% following the game, and he gained almost a million Instagram followers overnight. Henry doesn’t appear to have any socials, but the two aren’t hiding, as he is all over Alex’s social media. If you ask anyone around the NYU campus they are apparently a pretty legendary couple and have been together now for over a year.” 

“John, I can’t think of a better sports moment to round out our top ten. Both a phenomenal sports play, and a great human interest story. And isn’t that what sports are all about?” 

“Yes indeed. Hopefully we will be able to talk to Alex Claremont-Diaz more in the studio next week when he comes in to talk about why he is deciding against professional lacrosse and going to law school instead.” 

“This has been Top Ten with John Dacey and Brad Lipint.” 

Henry doesn't know what he is feeling. He had no idea Alex had blown up so much, or that it had become such a big story. He had completely stayed off any social media much to Pez’s dismay. He isn’t feeling dread, surprisingly. He didn’t feel the telltale signs of itchy skin or pressure against his diaphragm. The entire world wasn’t closing to a pinpoint and he couldn’t hear static in his ears. 

Alex is still sitting practically on top of him, head shoved on his shoulder, hands intertwined. More than anything the smell of Alex, and his too-wild curls are what is keeping him steady. The knowledge that Alex isn’t going anywhere. That everything the announcers said had already happened and Alex is still here, drinking Henry’s coffee, sleeping in his bed, getting the smell of cinnamon and Santal 33 all over his apartment. 

Henry pulls Alex away from him, so that he can look him in the eye. Alex looks a combination of elated and nervous, the half smile on his face carefully controlled unsure of how Henry might react to the attention on them. 

“It was a wonderful segment, love,” Henry whispers out, not sure he is quite ready to break the silence they had fallen into. He feels the tension in Alex’s body dissipate as Alex falls forward into his own chest. He isn’t sure at first what is happening but realises that the shaking of Alex’s body is from his tears. 

“Hey, hey, love. Alexander , it's okay. What is wrong?” 

Henry knows he is pleading but he isn’t sure what is going on. The segment was good, and he thought Alex would be happy with it, what with the excitement that he had bursting in to turn it on in the first place. 

Alex sniffs and then in a watery voice lets out, “I’m just so glad you aren’t upset, they did it without me knowing and it was too late by the time I found out. And you are the love of my life and I don’t want to lose you.”  

“The love- The love of your life?” Henry stutters out in disbelief. He had been halfway in love with Alex since their first meeting, but he had never expected Alex to return the sentiment, let alone be the first to say it. 

Alex never seems to struggle with intimacy the way his ex’s had. Regardless of any kind of sexual attraction Alex is fiercely vocal about all of the ways he finds Henry attractive. He’s touchy, and definitely spent more hours than Henry ever felt possible mapping out Henry’s body with his mouth. They’d had so many conversations about expectations and boundaries that Henry felt more secure with Alex than anybody else in his life. So maybe it shouldn’t be shocking that Alex is just as obsessed with Henry as he is with Alex. 

“Henry James Fox,” Alex retorts, grabbing his face with two hands, “You are the love of my life and probably every other life I might have lived in another lifetime as well.” 

Warmth suffuses every atom in his body. Slow burning want becomes a molten heat at hearing words he never thought would be his to have. Henry can’t believe he has been given this. This lovely wonderful man is filled with mischief and care. Not one to be outdone Henry feels the grin overtake his face, 

“Alexander I would love you in every universe, but I am glad I get to do it here in mine.”