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“When did we start calling it boyfriends?”
“Like the 1900s, I think.”
“When there were three of us in this relationship.”
Lando and George are both looking at Alex as if he’s grown a second head. Alex, for his part, doesn’t think it’s as stupid a question as they’re making it out to be.
“No, I mean… there was a time where we didn’t define, you know… what this was.” Alex can sense himself digging a deeper and deeper pit. “Not that it’s a bad thing! I like us all being boyfriends! - Makes it a lot easier to explain to the reception ladies at the factory - I just… I feel like I missed a milestone.”
Lando looks up from his phone, flashes the screen at Alex as if he can see anything. “1909. ‘A woman’s param- paramoo- paramour.’ George has been calling us boyfriends for weeks.”
“I thought it was a joke.”
“You thought it was a joke ?” George seems particularly offended by that.
“Yeah. Like ‘have you ever waited in line for your boyfriends?’, ‘be a good boyfriend and make me dinner’... I thought you were having a laugh.”
“Having a- Do you think I would joke about that?”
“To be fair, you would.”
“Lando, it’s not helpful.”
“George, you’re not my minder.”
“Er, guys…” hesitant as he is to bring the conversation back around to his apparent faux pas of totally missing the moment they decided on a label, Alex has seen where these sorts of arguments go. One of two ways: exuberant sex, or both of them sulking and refusing to talk to one another for an hour or two. “It’s just that you did joke about it. On camera. You said I wasn’t your boyfriend.”
Even Lando turns unimpressed eyes on Alex. “That was ages ago.”
“Okay!” Alex realises when he’s fighting a losing battle. Facing down the monster of George and Lando allied against him is something he’s certainly not willing to do before breakfast. “We’re boyfriends! You’re my boyfriend, you’re my boyfriend, I’m your boyfriend. Good for us. Who wants sausages?”
The raucous cackling that follows is more than enough to distract them.
--
Alex thinks that’s the end of it. Until George is slipping behind him in the window seat where Alex is trying to finish his book.
“Do you really think I didn’t want to be your boyfriend?” George’s breath is slow and warm against the nape of Alex’s neck. He can feel the cool tip of his nose when he shakes his head. “Do you not want to be a boyfriend?”
“No, George. I’m good. I really was just wondering.”
“Mhm.”
They sit in silence, Alex reading, George with his eyes closed enjoying the afternoon sunshine.
Then, “you never just wonder, though.”
“Are you saying I don’t have thoughts?”
“Little bit!” George teases. “You’ve always got a reason for things. Have we made you feel-”
And Alex scrambles to reassure him. “No, no! Nothing like that! Seriously.”
He twists sideways in the window seat, one knee jabbing into George’s thigh just so he can look at him face on.
George does this thing where he gets really serious and starts thinking he has to take on the role as the stoic ‘man of the house’ to make sure that Lando and Alex are sharing their feelings and being heard.
It all contributes to George not making himself heard, which, yeah, Alex would not have believed not so long ago. George Russell? Silent about his opinions? Never.
“Okay,” he concedes, just so George doesn’t disappear into his own head, only to be pulled out by one of them forcing him into the shower, dumping a load of peppermint oil in a burner, and refusing to speak until George tells the truth about his feelings. “But you can’t laugh at me.”
“Alex-”
“You have to promise. Okay. I was trying to come up with our timeline.”
Silence.
George has his ‘I’m listening and by God I’m going to understand you if it’s the last thing I do’ face on.
“I’ve got the day we kissed. Then when Lando invited himself in. And then somewhere in there we all started sleeping together regularly - I figured that didn’t count as a proper date, more of a landslide effect - um, and then I got to wondering when we made it official.”
“When Lando got all jealous and we-”
“That’s when we said we were exclusive.”
“I know I said I love you-”
“Yeah, but…”
“We’ve all bought massive beds.” George makes certain to meet Alex’s eye this time. “How much more official did you want?”
“There wasn’t, like, a conversation , though.”
“Oh, my god.” George pulls away. “LANDO! GROUP MEETING!”
Lando materialises in the doorway while Alex is still trying to pin George’s head under his arm for screeching in his ear.
“Lando, Alex wants a grand gesture.”
“I don’-”
“He wants doves! Bouquets! A message in the sky! Doesn’t your dad have his pilot’s license?”
“I don’t want a gesture!”
“Just a conversation?”
“Well, it’s not necessary now, is it? I get the picture. We’re all boyfriends.”
“Nope,” Lando is grinning at the two of them and if that isn’t a sign of trouble brewing… “You deserve to have what you want.”
Alex watches him and George exchange long, meaningful eye contact. He immediately abandons his quest to squash George, and starts a new one: getting as far away as possible.
Before he can even think about escaping, George has wrapped his freakishly long arms (Alex calls them as much when he’s protesting his shackles) around Alex’s torso and just… refuses to budge.
It gives Lando the opportunity to straddle Alex’s lap, awkward though it may be having to navigate George’s knees and crotch and chin, and cup Alex’s cheeks in each hand.
“Baby,” he begins.
Alex gives a retching cough right into Lando’s face. Disgustingly, he is totally unperturbed.
“Baby,” Lando repeats. “I’ve sucked your dick. George has sucked your dick. You’ve sucked my dick. We’ve both sucked George’s dick. I’ve seen you nearly knock yourself out getting out of the bath. Will you please, please be our boyfriend?”
“Do you promise to never call me baby again?”
“I really can’t.”
“Yeah, you like it too much, Alex. We know you.”
“Okay, fine. Yes. I’ll be your boyfriend. Now, will you let me go, I’ve got a chapter left until I’m finished.”
“Can we do sex after?”
George does Alex the honour of pushing Lando onto his ass for that one. “ Do sex, Lando. Really? Add that one to the relationship calendar, Albono. ‘The Day Lando Became a 50 Year Old Married Divorcee.”
“You can’t be a married divorcee, George.”
“Yes, you can. I’ve divorced you, Alex is still waiting on the paperwork to come through.”