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Alex pulls the tea bag out of the mug on the counter: Henry’s Earl Grey. Dim sunlight peaks through the windows as he pours milk into the cup. It’s one of those rare mornings where Henry’s still sleeping and Alex doesn’t mind getting up alone if it means he can rest a little while longer.
Usually during this part of the morning, Alex plans out his day: lists of research, essays, meetings. Today, all the deadlines are behind him, the coffee dripping into its pot the only thing left to study: an unfamiliar peace before the new semester starts.
Warm arms wrap around him as he stirs cinnamon into his own mug.
“Come back to bed.” Henry mumbles it sleepily into his neck, the warmth of his body against the cold January air already lulling Alex back into drowsiness.
“Sorry,” Alex apologizes, “I wanted you to keep sleeping.” He leans back into Henry’s chest, sighing, not fighting the content smile as it works its way onto his face.
Henry presses the side of his face to Alex’s neck, breath feather light and fanning over his skin. “What are you thinking about?”
“Our first morning like this.”
“Eleven days ago?” Henry asks. They only moved into the brownstone last week.
“No.” Alex drops his head back on Henry’s shoulder, eyes closed. “At my dad’s house.” A pause. “The day after I realized I loved you,” he adds quietly. “you wrapped your arms around me like this.”
Henry listens, tightening his arms around Alex in response to his words.
“The next day was awful, obviously, but that morning was—” He takes a deep breath, like he can still smell the rich forest breeze and hear the pancakes sizzling on the stove; still feel the zip in his heart at the thought of telling Henry everything. “Perfect. I already loved you, but it was the first time I knew.”
Henry hums in acknowledgement, still not saying anything more, just content, it seemed, to hug him and press a kiss to his collarbone.
Alex turns in Henry’s hold, looking up to meet his tired gaze. “I think I need a new prescription on these glasses. They’re making me dizzy.”
“You could take them off if you came back to bed.”
“A convincing argument.”
It is. They’re back in bed before the minute is over, mugs steaming from the nightstand.
Both of them have the day free, so they stay there, under the warmth of their puffy duvet, and, against the warmth of each other, drift back into an easy sleep.
When they wake again, their drinks have gone cold next to them while they stay wrapped around each other.
“I remember our first morning like this,” Henry murmurs, an echo of Alex’s earlier musings.
“Paris?” the first time they woke up together. The first time Henry was there, real and warm and brightened by fresh morning light: not just found in the aching of Alex’s body or the colone pressed into his sheets, but whole, there in his entirety.
“It was a beautiful morning.”
He’s right. Alex still remembers cool wind tapping softly against decadent hotel window sills, Henry’s skin looking somehow even softer in the morning’s hazy blue glow. Today’s light is the same. Outside, thick clouds drape over Brooklyn the way they had in that months-ago French morning, knitted together like a wool sweater around the city, Henry’s heartbeat the same steady rhythm beneath his palm, flat on his chest; his shoulders the same sturdy support for his head; their bodies pressed snugly— perfectly— against one another beneath airy sheets.
“And of course I was beautiful, too,” Alex adds, because he’s not above fishing for compliments.
“Yes,” Henry agrees. “That wasn’t helping.”
“‘Wasn’t helping’?” Alex scoffs, awake enough now for his usual dramatics. “My beauty was adding to the charms of the morning.”
“Right, well,” Henry says, tentative. “They weren’t charms I ever thought I’d have.”
“Look at you now,” Alex says, poking him in the ribs. “Enjoying my charms every day. What a gift.”
“I indulge you too much.”
“You can’t help it.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You don’t seem to mind.” He traces his fingers up and down Henry’s torso, feeling him trembling slightly as he hovers above him.
“Insufferable,” Henry mumbles, already surging up to close the space between them.
>>><<<
“It’s January 26th?” Alex squints at the date on his phone.
“It would appear so, yes,” Henry’s voice answers from across the table.
Today’s their first time at the Korean restaurant two blocks from their house and it still makes Alex wonder if he’ll ever get used to all this. Going for lunch together, taking David for walks in the park. Sharing shampoo and grocery store runs, just like he said they would. It’s theirs.
Alex’s chopsticks clang loudly onto his plate, his hand going slack. “Oh my— Henry. It’s the one year anniversary of the day I dragged you into the Red Room. I’ve been bi for a year.”
“What?”
When their eyes meet, Henry’s are blown wide.“Okay, obviously for longer than that, but that’s how long I’ve known.”
“No, you— you didn’t know you were bisexual until the second time we kissed?”
Alex stares at him, bewildered. “Did I— wait, Hen, you’re shitting me. Did I never tell you you were my gay awakening?” There’s no stopping the delighted grin from overtaking his face. “I totally thought I was straight before New Years.”
Henry’s gaping at him fully now, eyes wide, jaw slack. “I knew you’d never really done anything before but… I didn’t think you— hadn’t known.”
Alex is enjoying Henry’s reaction way too much to let the subject drop. “I seriously can’t believe I never told you this. I had to consult Nora, run with June, curse you out when I saw the pictures of you kissing someone else, and triple my step count pacing before I even started to get it. Honestly, I don’t think I was completely sure until you came up to my room.”
“You didn’t know you liked men until I gave you a blow job?”
Alex waves his spoon in a circular motion. “Other way around, sweetheart.”
“Christ.”
Alex nods.
“And Liam— how could you think you were straight after that?”
Alex shrugs. “Just never let myself think about it, I guess,” he says, reclaiming his chopsticks from where they’d fallen to point them accusatively at Henry. “Until you forced me to.”
“I have been known to have that effect.”
Alex tells him to fuck off through a mouthful of rice cakes.
>>><<<
“When you called me on Christmas Eve.”
“Huh?” Alone together in the study, both of them are hours deep in work. It’s past eleven now, and Alex is more than ready to quit for the night.
“That’s when I knew I loved you.”
Oh.
“Oh.” That’s… not what he was expecting to hear. They’re tired on a Tuesday night, Alex is sporting a faded Claremont 2016 T-shirt and messy hair, deep purples and browns coloring the skin around his eyes beneath his glasses: not a look that usually inspires confessions of love. He’d thought all those were behind them, anyway. “Where’d that come from?”
“Just…” Henry’s eyes have the kind of fondness in them you think can’t exist in real life until it’s directed straight at you. “You told me before you knew at the lake house, and for me it was then.”
“Hey—” Alex squawks, realization sending him leaping from his chair in accusation. “You said you loved me all along.”
Henry chuckles lightly, making his way across the room. “And I did, of course I did, but it wasn’t the same.” He sighs. “Suddenly you were sending me selfies from bed; calling me in the middle of the night; telling me about your family. And I knew I loved you, really loved you.” He fiddles with the hem of Alex’s shirt collar. “Not just the idea of you but— exactly who you are.”
Alex still finds himself running into these moments: like he’s never really known anything until right now. Their first time: jittery and excited and desperate; LA: that same excitement paired with a newfound trust; the lake house: smoke and a gentle song and a love so real he could feel its zip on his skin, its weight as he finally let it sink into his bones. He pushes Henry’s hair back, off his forehead and stands tiptoed to kiss him there, pulling back with a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be bad at articulating your feelings?”
“You’ve forced a lot of practice upon me, love.”
Books are closed and lights and computers are shut off, but Alex can’t stop thinking about Henry’s confession as they make their way upstairs.
“What were you thinking then?” Alex asks later from where he’s perched on the bathroom counter.
“When you called me?”
Alex nods.
Henry’s eyes go far away, like he’s pulling an old favorite book off a dusty shelf. “Initially, I was surprised,” he begins. “That it was me you chose to call.” A step forward so he’s standing between Alex’s parted legs. “It sounds somewhat foolish now, but I remember thinking to myself, I think he really likes me, not necessarily in any romantic sense, just as a friend. As a person, even.”
“I did,” Alex interrupts. “I do.”
Henry’s eyes flicker back to him at the words before he continues on. “After that it was just— loving you was, all around me— like everything since Rio had been building up just to come crashing back down with me under it all.” Henry cups his jaw so delicately, so tenderly in his hands, like Alex is the most precious thing he’s ever gotten to touch. “Because I did love you all along, just differently. Just distantly.”
“Now it was up close and— I loved you for being so passionate and for trusting me with the things you cared about.” He sighs, a bitter smile twisting at his lips.
Alex wants to wipe it off, give him a reason for a real one, but he stays quiet, this time, listening.
“I knew I was fucked— deeply, sincerely, entirely fucked. That I could never truly have you, but I told myself, just for that night, I wouldn’t think about it. I would just think about you. Love you. The rest would be as awful as it was inevitable, but it could come later.”
Fuck. Alex knows what it was like for Henry, before, but hearing it like this… fuck. He feels his eyes go glassy. “It’s a good thing I’m the one who’s always right between us, then.” It’s a weak attempt at a joke, his voice is tight, but it earns him the softer smile from Henry he wanted.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
Alex elbows him in the ribs. And he’s laughing, really laughing, and Alex is laughing, too, into the darkness of their room, hair still damp from the shower. It’s only when they’re lying together, windows shut against the February cold, that Henry admits: “I’m very glad to’ve been wrong, too.”
And Henry’s holding him as he thinks of all the endings they thought they might have. How this one seems even more impossibly perfect next to all the others they almost got. They’re free, and they get to be that together.
>>><<<
Spring introduces the two of them to cool, sunny New York mornings and vibrant pops of green peaking through cracks in sidewalks. It’s also when Alex takes it upon himself to introduce Henry to spring cleaning.
So: they’re going through old boxes together, Henry leaning against the dining table, flipping through some forgotten book, Alex standing next to him, rifling through a stack of papers. He stills for a moment, pulling something shiny out from the pile’s bottom.
“What the fuck? Why do you have this?” Alex holds a worn edition of People, creased open to a page featuring himself. It’s old, no later than 2017, he guesses.
Henry glances, absent minded, to the glossy pages before returning unfazed to his book. “Darling, you are well aware I've been in love with you since we were teenagers, I hardly think me having that magazine requires an explanation.”
“You having it five years later does.” Alex swats him until he gains his full attention. “You brought this from London?”
“What do you want me to say?” Henry shrugs. “It was well loved.”
“Well loved?” Alex echos, delighted. “You horny bastard.”
“Christ, Alex, not like that. I only meant I used to look at it rather often back then.”
“Look at it while jer—”
Henry’s palm muffles his voice before any real accusations can be made. “I wasn’t that desperate.”
Alex fixes him with a look— taunting disbelief— still silenced beneath Henry’s hand.
“It was more wistful sighs and staring longingly out the window, if you must know.”
Peeling those strong, lithe fingers from his face, Alex figures it’s as good a time as any to come clean himself. “I, uh, might have also had one of those.”
“A magazine of yourself you jerk off to?”
“A magazine of you.”
“That you—”
“No, God, I was a kid.”
Henry smiles at him quizzically, eyebrows drawn in confusion.
“Well, I mean, technically it was June’s. But I used to sneak into her room all the time.” He traces the lines of Henry’s hand softly with his fingers. “It wasn’t the same as you just… My life was changing and scary and you seemed so sure about yours. I never really got why I was doing it, I just kept stealing it to stare at you.”
Henry takes it in slowly, watching their hands. Alex can see the wonder in his eyes, feels it when they finally meet his own.
“That magazine’s why I introduced myself to you in Rio,” he admits.
Something clicks behind Henry’s eyes. Alex watches it happen, watches the understanding finally settle over his features. “Which is why you were so disappointed that I was such a bloody prick.”
“Yeah.” He’s thoughtful for a moment. “I guess I just had this picture of who you were, and that you’d be able to understand everything because it seemed like you’d already figured it all out.” Alex smiles privately at the memory, then turns a full, bright smile on Henry. “I also used to wonder if your hair was soft.”
“Have I disappointed you?”
Alex smirks, grabbing a handful of that sandy blonde hair and pulling Henry’s mouth an inch away from his. “Immensely.” And he’s laughing into the kiss, running his hands through the impossibly soft waves, breathing in Henry: just the way he is, just the way Alex likes him to be.
>>><<<
Alex rests his head on Henry’s shoulder, cuddling closer on the couch they share. Scones and warm drinks clutter the table in front of them. “I don’t believe in deja vu but it’s definitely happening right now.”
“Really?” Henry murmurs. “How’s that?”
“You. Me. Kensington. Thunderstorm.” At Henry’s unimpressed grunt he adds: “We’re going to have sex later.”
“Not wet, no one’s yelling, Philip is out of the country, we’re together, people know,” Henry counters. “I’d say tonight’s rather different.”
“I guess.” And maybe Henry’s right: his heart isn’t pounding wildly against his ribs— instead it’s steady and slow, full of a certainty he was entirely without last time. “I never want to relive that, so I’ll let you win.”
“How kind.” A thoughtful sip of his tea. Two. “I’d never want to relive any of that week, quite frankly.”
Alex couldn’t be more in agreement.
“Me neither, I was— I was losing my mind waiting for you to call me, so I only let myself check if you did every other hour. But then I just ended up staring at the corner of my computer watching the minutes pass until it’d been that long.” Just the memory of those endless, heart-splitting days made him grimace. “June wasn’t saying anything, but I knew she knew.” A bitter chuckle. “Everyone did— I was a fucking disaster.”
“Oh, love—”
“No apologies,” Alex cuts in. “Seriously, H, none. We’re past this.”
Henry concedes, quietly, chewing the inside of his lip. A quick peck on his cheek coaxes a small smile out of him.
A clap of thunder outside.
“Hey,” Alex's eyes are bright with sudden curiosity, a smirk on his lips. “What were you doing the week you were breaking my heart?”
“Breaking my own.”
An eye roll. “I know that much. Elaborate. I’m curious.”
“Well, I… My story’s much less frantic, I’d say.”
Alex nods, waiting.
“I was truly convinced it was over, on my side anyway. I was determined.” A pause. “But when you stopped texting, stopped calling, I thought even that was out of my control. That I’d already lost you, and even if I tried apologizing it’d be too late.”
Henry stares out the window, pensive, watching the rain pour down into the gardens. “There was this particular day you called me. I was so close to just giving in— just picking up the phone— but Shaan came to tell me about some meeting and I didn’t. It was my morning, it must have been around three for you. That’s when you would always call me. I wanted to answer so terribly much, to apologize for ruining your trip— and for everything— to hear your voice again, even if you were only using it to yell at me.” Alex’s thumbs rub soothing circles into his skin.
“Mostly I just sat here, in silence, alone. At first I cried because I’d done the thing I had to do, later because it seemed you’d accepted it. I told myself you accepting it was what I wanted, respecting my all but professed wishes and leaving me to go on how I always had, but there was no fooling myself. I was miserable.”
“So fucking miserable,” Alex agrees. “Glad I knocked some sense into you after that.”
Henry hums. “Wholeheartedly, immeasurably glad.”
The rain pounds against the windows with the same force it had that night in July, lightning cracking through the darkness just the way it did then. This time, though, they’re huddled together, sharing scones and gentle touches instead of biting words. This time, they have a home— their own home— waiting for them to return to. This time, everything's perfect, and it's going to stay that way.