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Henry figures it out by his tenth birthday.
It's not hard, not really, not when his fingers twitch towards the knives at mealtimes, or when he looks at Philip sometimes and thinks: you're too tall. No, it's not very hard at all.
What is hard is going it alone. He doesn't want to do that again. So he doesn't.
He tells Bea, first, pulls her aside when he's eleven and she's just had her first scandal. He tells her about not always being a prince, not always being British, but still blond, still gay.
He keeps a few things to himself (his people, his knives, the fate of his twin’s mother). He tells her most of the important bits, though; he tells her about the fact that he'd existed before, that he was hurt and he's still being hurt by the system, different system it may be.
And what happens is this:
Bea cries, and pulls him into a hug, and whispers thank you into his hair. She is grateful that she's good enough for him, grateful that he trusts her enough to open up to her.
Of course, he answers, bewildered by the thought that he wouldn't trust her. There is time for her to betray him yet, perhaps, but she is his sister, and he's always had a soft spot for his siblings. It is a small, sad part of him that wishes he could tell Philip as well, but Henry has seen what the crown has done to him too much to trust him like he does Bea.
He remembers more.
He starts wearing armbands underneath his prim and pressed shirts. No knives, unfortunately, because he's too well-versed in scandals by now to know what would happen if he was ever caught. Not that he would be, but he won't take that chance.
He meets Pez when he's young, at first sporadically but then, because he's approved by his gran and Henry actually likes him, more and more.
Henry loves his siblings. He starts to love Pez, too.
It's Pez’s fourteenth birthday that Henry tells him, laying under the stars on a balcony at Kensington.
“That's not all, is it?” Pez asks after Henry trails off. His throat is dry from explaining the rules of Exy, and why it matters. He told Pez about Aaron, and Renee, and a little bit about Palmetto. Pez had been curious about America, what it was like to live there. Henry, before, had been on an extreme end, so he can't tell his friend more than the bleakness and poverty that he'd been through. He, once more, keeps just a few people to himself.
(Kevin is his. The Spears, as well, are also his, but in a different way. He doesn't want to hurt his friend or his sister. He keeps the worst parts, the parts about being forced down and used, being medicated, what people had thought about him—those are the parts he keeps to himself.)
“No,” Henry replies, truthful.
“I want to ask,” Pez says. He turns to face Henry, eyes serious and older than they should be for someone so young. “I want to, but I won't.”
“You can, if you want,” Henry tells him.
“I can,” Pez allows. “But you've already given me so much. I won't force you.”
Henry laughs, sits up, and pulls his friend into a hug.
“Happy birthday,” he says, as the stars blink down upon them.
Henry's father dies.
Henry, for lack of a better term, shuts down. He gets knives through Pez; good, sharp blades that he can run his fingers over when he feels numb.
He smiles for the cameras, plays nice for nobles and dignitaries, and stuffs his hands into his pockets when they twitch around a phantom neck.
He wants to stab something. He wants his mother back. He wants his dad back.
He wants so much that it's overwhelming, so he shunts those thoughts back of his mind and wants, as before, nothing.
“What do you want?” Bea asks. It's the week before Henry's eighteenth birthday, and they're sitting in the empty dining hall. It's just the two of them.
“Nothing,” Henry says, the words slipping out just as easily now as they did before. “I want nothing.”
Rugby is fine. So is polo. They're no Exy, though, not that Henry'd admit that he misses the feel of the racquet in his palms. He's good at sports, works out enough to have a healthy amount of muscle, so he can fight back if he's ever—so he can fight.
He experiments in Uni a bit. Some of Philip’s friends are able to be convinced to keep it to themselves. It's fun for the most part, but there's one—
“Say my name,” he pants, hands braced on either side of Henry's head.
Reluctantly, Henry forces out a low, “Drake.”
He doesn't touch himself for a month after that.
Henry meets Alex.
It's a bad time, a very bad time, because his headspace is—not the greatest. Bee would say he's processing. Maybe Henry should look into therapy, but—no. His gran would never allow it. Anyway, he meets Alex, and he says something, or does something, and Alex hates him.
Henry doesn't like that as much as he doesn't mind that, because Alex hating him means less chance for Henry to indulge in these feelings he's just discovered that he has. Alex, all curly hair and sharp eyes and pretty bronze skin. A healthy weight, not scarily thin, not looking like he'll fall over if a breeze pushes too hard. Easy and charming and steady, here and stable. Not running.
Henry knows immediately. He aches to curl his fingers into that soft hair and tug, misses the feeling of that warm neck under his palm. But he also knows that Alex doesn't, and that kills him almost as much as the void in him where his father should be does.
Time passes, though, as it's wont to do, and Henry picks himself back up. He teaches Bea and Pez Exy, because he'd die before admitting it to Kevin but he does sort of like it. And it's nice, blocking all their shots as easy as breathing.
It's so, so easy. Pathetically easy, Henry thinks, standing in front of the makeshift goal. His face, he knows, is bored, not at all what he should look like as a prince. But he can't help it. Being here, in this position, is bringing the memories up to the front of his mind. He's bored. This is dull. He wants a challenge.
He wants—
He's not allowed to want.
He's a prince. He should be grateful. He has so much more than so many others but all it does is embitter him. Why aren't they helping more? They have more than enough money and then some. It's frustrating and he hates it, but when he tries to bring it up to his gran she shuts him down immediately, because of course she does.
Henry is a prince. He can't be bored, he can't speak out against the crown, and he most definitely can't be gay.
It's a shame, then, that every time he and Alex Claremont-Diaz are in the same room all he wants to do is pin down the president's son. Alex is shorter than him, he notes with sardonic amusement.
Alex really doesn't like him.
Their interactions are filled with bitter remarks, biting comments under the breath passed back and forth. Henry is fine with this because he has to be. If this is all he gets, it's leagues more than he deserves. He thought it was a pipe dream before, but now…Henry is a prince. Alex is the president's son, and most likely, if not straight, at the very least not interested in Henry. Not like Henry is interested in him.
But then the wedding comes, and Alex embarrasses both himself and Henry and causes an international incident, and Henry is torn between laughing and fighting the urge to stab something. Or someone. Preferably someone.
He and Alex are forced to spend time together. It should be fine; it should be Alex just barely putting up with Henry, and faking a friendship long enough that everything goes back to normal. But it doesn't, because Alex, no matter who he is, will overcome the impossible. He is the reason the Foxes won the finals, that first year he was there. He is the one who survived against all the odds working against him. He is the one who keeps up an actual, real friendship with Henry even when they're no longer obligated to spend time with each other to appease the governments.
And Henry's stupid, foolish heart decides that it wants Alex.
He once more initiates their first kiss. It's at a New Year's party, outside, in the snow. He thinks there might be something there, maybe. Alex doesn't push him away. He doesn't kiss Henry back, though, so Henry pulls back, apologizes, and gets the hell out of there. He gets out of there so fast that he doesn't see Alex drop to his knees.
-
Alex stares after Henry's retreating back. His mind is blank, except no it's not. He falls to his knees with a thump, fingers pressed lightly to his lips.
“What the fuck,” he says softly.
Because. What the fuck. Henry kissed him. Henry—Henry, who wears armbands beneath his shirt and who is smart and clever and pretty and everything Alex likes and everything Neil has ever wanted but never let himself dream of. His fingers drift from his lips to his cheek, digging into where a black four was forced on him.
“Shit,” he says. And then he laughs. It's a bit hysterical, because. Because.
A serial killer for a dad, shit. Exy—at least that hasn't changed, his love for sports, even though he can now understand why he was never fully satisfied with lacrosse. He pulls his sleeves up even though the cold is biting at his skin, just to see the lack of scars. It hits him all at once. He can't move. A smile forms, the deranged, teeth-baring smile of his father because Alex is crazy.
His breath crystallizes in the air. Shit. This is insane. Is he insane? Should he be institutionalized? But. No, because these images running through his mind, these memories—they’re real. Alex knows they're real. He's not exactly sure how, maybe, but he knows, just like he knows that Henry is Andrew.
“Pipe dream,” Alex says under his breath.
He stays there for an hour, maybe more. He doesn't know. As the memories settle, so does his paranoia. Nora finds him staring blankly into the distance, and when he hears the crunch of her footsteps he flinches, eyes darting around for a threat. There is no threat, of course, Alex is just crazy and he needs to talk to Henry.
He doesn't say that.
He lets Nora pull him up, lets her lead him back inside and hand him over to June, who fusses over him. He thinks about Henry's lips, and the way his hand had felt in Alex's hair, and how he misses the reassuring weight of a hand on the nape of his neck.
He should tell someone, he thinks. He doesn't want to. This feels private.
His names, the life that he'd built, the people that had made him into something real—they’re not here. Exy doesn't exist here. Neither does the Moriyama family. Alex had looked the second he'd gotten home.
He slips into June's room like he had when he was younger and overwhelmed with everything he'd taken up on. He sits on her bed carefully, doesn't meet her eyes. He'd done research.
“I'm bisexual,” he blurts out finally. “Demisexual, too. And romantic.”
Which makes sense, even now. He hadn't hooked up with Nora until he'd known her for a good year or two, and even then it took a little while to be actually into her romantically. Something had always felt off, though. Alex had always thought there was something missing. Now he knows what.
June softens, sitting next to him and enfolding him in her arms like he's a kid. “I'm proud of you,” she says into his hair. “Thank you for telling me. Can I ask how…?”
“Ah. Um. Henry.”
June snorts. Alex shoots her a glare.
“Oh, don't give me that,” she chides. “You've been sneaking into my room to see that magazine since you were, like, fourteen, you really think I didn't pick up that?”
Alex bluescreens. He'd been so overcome with the flood of knowledge that had poured into his brain the other night that he'd totally forgotten—or pushed out of his mind—god. Does he have a thing for blonds, or is it just him? Nora's definitely not blond. And Alex—Neil—had never been interested in Aaron, even though he and Andrew looked almost exactly the same. They weren't the same, though, and even when they acted the same Neil and Kevin and Nicky had been able to tell them apart.
There's just. There's just something about Andrew that's entirely unique to him. Alex misses him.
Alex can't wait to yell at Henry the next time he's able to get that stupid prince alone. Who's the one running now, huh? Fucker. Alex is so going to punch him. Or kiss him. He's not sure yet.
“Okay, well.” Alex huffs. June laughs at him, which he thinks is seriously unfair, because he's having a crisis, June, but it's not like he can just tell her about all the other stuff. He just…his life was sad, okay? He doesn't want to make her sad.
“I think I'm gonna go tell Nora,” he says instead of bawling like a baby because fuck. His life. Jesus Christ.
“Okay,” June says. She's smiling, a soft, proud sort of thing, and Alex sort of tucks himself smaller so he can fit into her arms like they were younger and their family was still together.
Alex doesn't let himself process.
He tells Nora, endures her teasing, and throws himself into literally anything and everything else.
It doesn't stop him from waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, it doesn't stop the nightmares or the twitchiness or the paranoia, or how when he goes on his runs he runs until he can't think. It doesn't stop any of the aftereffects a life filled with trauma and running has given him, but it lets him compartmentalize, it lets him pretend like he's normal (as normal as he can be as the president's son, anyway).
He doesn't think about it. He can't afford to fall apart, not now when he needs to get on the campaign and help his mom win the election.
He doesn't think about it—until he's told about an event that will include His Royal Highness Prince Henry here at the White House.
He gets Henry alone. Henry, who looks at him like he's braced for something—a hit, rejection, Alex doesn't know. Henry whose blond hair shines like spun stardust when the sun hits it just right. Henry who is taller than Alex.
“Henry,” Alex says, like it's the first time he's ever said the name.
“Alex,” Henry returns, cautious.
Alex thinks Henry might apologize if given the chance, so he just won't give him that chance.
“What do you want?” Alex asks before Henry can say anything. A test as much as a challenge. He is so certain in the knowledge that Henry is Andrew, is the one who would do anything to protect his people, is the one who held Neil firmly, secure in the fact that he wouldn't break even under the pressure.
Henry's eyes flash. Alex bites down a grin.
“Nothing,” Henry answers coolly. “I want nothing.”
The way his accent curls around the syllables makes Alex want to pin him against a wall and ruin that prim and proper image. He holds back, though, because he has restraint; he boxes Henry against the wall, against the painting of Alexander Hamilton.
“Yes or no?” Alex asks, and his heart is pounding so loud he's sure Henry can hear it.
Henry reaches out, places a hand on the back of Alex's neck, and squeezes, eyes dark with something Alex can't—won’t—name.
“Yes,” he says, and brings Alex in for a kiss.
They meet in his room, later. Alex takes hold of Henry's arm, rolls up his sleeve to see the armband.
“Can I?” he asks. Henry dips his head. Alex slides his fingers underneath to feel the hilt of the knife. They feel fancy.
“Alex,” Henry says.
“Henry,” Alex says, an inverse of their earlier interaction.
Henry smirks. Alex wants to kiss it off his face.
“You are an idiot sometimes,” Henry says. Alex bristles. Henry frames Alex's face, thumb brushing delicately over the spot where the scarred over tattoo used to be.
“And you,” Alex says, tilting his head into Henry's palm, “are a pipe dream.”
Henry laughs, startled. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” Alex says, finding Henry's waistband. “Tall, blond, handsome prince of England? Speaks for itself.”
“So you admit I'm taller,” Henry murmurs against Alex's lips.
“Fuck off,” Alex retorts automatically.
“Oh, I don't think you want me to do that,” Henry says, and he leans in and kisses Alex and suddenly Alex doesn't care how tall either of them are.
Alex still doesn't let himself think about it.
This, what he and Henry have now, it's borderline torture. When they're apart a hole opens up in Alex's chest, a great yawning thing that threatens to swallow him whole if Alex missteps even the slightest bit.
Time keeps passing. He sees Henry when their schedules allow it. The polo match should be illegal, and Alex tells him so in the shed.
“It's no Exy jersey, but it'll do,” Alex says, slotting between Henry's legs like he belongs there.
Henry scoffs, a beautiful sound that Alex wants to capture. “Junkie.”
“Yeah,” Alex agrees, and sinks down onto his knees. Henry's hand is in his hair, and Alex tries to memorize what he sounds like, what he feels like, what he tastes like. He still can't believe he has this. He should be dead a million times over, but he's not. He's here, alive, internationally famous and giving the Prince of Fucking England a blowjob. What is his life?
(He doesn't deserve it. Isn't close to deserving anything he has. But he'll hold onto it, because that's all he can do, because if he loses anything more he might break, and that won't be pretty for anyone.)
The nightmares don't go away.
Alex wakes up one night, heart in his throat, a muttered litany of, “She's dead, she's dead, she's dead,” still pouring from his lips over and over until they don't sound like words. He can feel the flame licking his face, can hear Lola's crooning words in his ears, and he digs his fingers into his cheeks until they sting, until Alex can feel the smooth expanse of skin that's scar-free.
He fumbles for his phone, one hand still pressed hard against his cheek. He doesn't know how he's able to call the right person, not with how he's trembling, but when the phone drops to the bed, having slipped out of Alex's shaky fingers, the voice that comes through is British and smooth.
“Alex?”
He's never once called Alex anything but. Even when he gasps out Alex's name during the scant, precious times they can slip away together, the letters his mouth form are the same four. He never once says anything else. Alex, in his own mind, has referred to Henry as Andrew, because he is, because they're the same person, just—nature versus nurture in how they react, in how they act.
“Drew,” Alex says now, a whispery thing that's tainted with too many memories for him to hold back. His eyes burn with unshed tears. He can't. He can't. He won't let himself.
Henry says, “Alex, love, can you tell me what happened?”
“Nightmare,” Alex forces out, because he'll always answer Henry's questions with as much truth as he can.
“Okay, that's good, thank you for telling me,” Henry says. Alex wonders if maybe Henry's separated himself from Andrew in a way Alex will never be able to separate himself from Neil, from Nathaniel. He thinks that maybe that's a good thing, because Andrew's gentleness is hidden for his people, underneath sharp blades and cutting words and a reckless violence. Henry's gentleness is protected, but it's there so much clearer than Andrew had ever let himself be seen. “Breathe for me, Alex, can you do that?”
Alex tries. He forces himself to inhale, but he chokes on it before it can reach his lungs.
“Hello, Junior,” echoes in his ears.
“Alex,” Henry says. He's worried now. Alex shouldn't have called him. He should have just dealt with this on his own, like he'd been doing for months now— “Alex, what do you need?”
Henry keeps saying his name. It's equal parts endearing and irritating.
“You,” Alex says into the phone. “I need you, Andrew—”
Alex doesn't know if Henry's even okay with his slipups, with Andrew falling from Alex's lips just as easily as Henry. He's not sure he wants to know, because if Henry doesn't like it, if his face is twisted into resentment—
“Alright, it's okay, I'm here,” Henry says. There's no hint in his voice that he's annoyed at all. “Just keep breathing. In and out. In for four, hold for four, exhale for four. You can do it.”
Andrew had never been so open with his encouragement. He'd hidden his motivation under a blank expression and empty eyes. Alex almost doesn't know how to reconcile that man with Henry sometimes.
“Shut up,” Alex grits out. “I'm breathing.”
“Good, that's good.”
Eventually, his breaths even out, and he spreads out on the bed, limbs splayed out like starfish. His phone is next to his ear.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Henry asks. His voice is tinny through the phone and so patient that Alex sort of wants to punch him. His face is a lot more punchable now.
“Baltimore,” Alex says, and that's enough for Henry to fall quiet.
“Oh, Alex,” he says finally. He sounds sad. Alex’s mind is filled with images of Andrew. He can't help it. He's got Henry, but he misses Andrew. He misses being Neil. He wants to go back. But he can never go back, can he? Why can't he just be happy here? His dad isn't a serial killer, his mom loves him and has told him she loves him, verbally, he's got June and Nora and all he wants to do is run.
“Sorry,” Alex mutters.
“For what?”
“For disturbing you? I dunno.”
“Don't be sorry. I'm glad you called.”
And that's the problem. Alex loves the fact that Henry can express these things without forcing them down. He's so glad that Henry feels safe enough to feel. He doesn't want Henry to go back to being Andrew, closed off and guarded. Henry is guarded, yes, but he's not damaged like Andrew was. He's got a curtain that lets him be his own person, with wants that he can tell people. So why, why does Alex selfishly want to go back to the roof where he'd steal cigarettes from Andrew, when Andrew would threaten him with bodily harm in the same breath he used to kiss Neil?
“Alex,” Henry says. He says it like he's been saying it a while. Alex blinks and shakes his head.
“Yeah, I'm here. Must have spaced out. Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Henry inquires.
“Because—I—” Alex cuts himself with a frustrated noise.
“Hey, it's okay,” Henry says immediately. “You don't have to tell me.”
That's the problem, Alex thinks bitterly. Andrew would have pushed, would have made Neil promise to tell him at a later date if not right then. Alex doesn't know how to handle this. He doesn't know how to be treated like something gentle, something to be treasured, not when it's coming from Andrew.
But it's not, is it? It's not coming from Andrew. It's coming from Henry.
“I'm gonna try and sleep,” Alex says. He's tired and scared and stressed and all he wants to do is run. That's not an option, though, not anymore. It hasn't been since Andrew had pressed a key into his palm and told him to stay.
“Okay.” Henry's quiet for a moment. His next words are deliberate, like he's choosing them carefully. “Is there something I should know about?”
Probably, Alex thinks. What he says is, “Nah. G’night. Or whatever time it is for you.”
Henry sighs. It's staticky through the phone speaker. “Sleep well, love.”
-
Henry is worried.
Alex is off, and it might be his fault. Alex is a spitfire, a wonderful ball of condensed rage shaped into a cold logic that gets what he wants, but the last few times they'd spoken, he'd seemed doused.
Henry toys with a knife. He presses the tip against his finger, not enough to draw blood but enough to sting.
He won't see Alex in person for a few weeks yet, and his texts have been short. Dry. More Neil than Alex.
Ah, Henry thinks suddenly. That's it.
Henry's been able to…not disconnect, perhaps, but acknowledge that he is a new person here. He is Andrew Minyard as much as he is Henry Fox, yes, but he is able to merge them into who he is now. Alex…Alex hasn't been able to do that.
And Henry is worried.
-
Paris happens.
They meet up and talk about menial things, things that don’t have to do with running countries or putting on appearances or sports that don’t exist here.
“I can’t believe your last name is Fox,” Alex says when Henry tells him his full name, shaking his head in disbelief.
Henry laughs. “Yes. It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it?”
“Mm, I wouldn’t say ironic.” Alex blows out a breath. “Just funny, I guess.”
“I suppose.”
Henry watches Alex. Alex is unbelievably wonderful, and Henry doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve him. Even so, he can’t fight off the worry he feels when Alex gains a distant look in his eyes.
He can't fix Alex. He doesn't want to fix Alex. Humans are not math equations to be solved, and Alex, perplexing as he is, fascinating and entrancing and desperately broken as he is, is still human.
“We are men of many names,” Henry murmurs. He takes Alex’s hand in his own, rubbing his thumb over Alex’s palm. Alex exhales shakily, eyes darting down to the contact. Good. Hopefully, it’s grounding, forcing Alex to focus on the present and not wherever he just went off to.
“Many names,” Alex says quietly. “Sometimes I'm not sure which one I am.”
Henry tilts his head to the side. “All of them. You are whoever you want to be.”
Alex snorts, pulling his hand free. Henry shoves aside the pang of hurt. Alex's expression has regained that distant look, and Henry doesn't like it. It's the same look he'd get before when he was caught up in memories, and it was never good memories.
“I don't know who I am,” Alex says aggressively. “I don't know, Hen, and I—”
“Let's go,” Henry says abruptly. Alex starts, the glass in his eyes giving way to surprise. “To the hotel.”
-
They have sex. It's the first time in this life that they wake up in the same bed. Alex clenches a hand around the key that still hangs from his neck and thinks back to the key Andrew had given him, the one that he had traced into his hand over and over until he memorized it.
There's something wrong with him, Alex thinks. Something even more jagged then the iron burned onto his shoulder or that time he got shot.
This is a bad idea. This—him and Henry and sleeping in the same bed. Henry is not Andrew. Alex isn't—Alex is—
Alex is an idiot, is what he is.
-
He manages to avoid talking about before, their past lives, whatever it's called, until Henry stops bringing it up all together. It's enough that they're here, somehow. It's enough that Henry agrees to go to Texas with him. (Is it?)
It's so enough, in fact, that Alex finally gets over himself enough to say—
Still Andrew, he thinks cynically, watching Henry swim away. Still Andrew enough to not want the vulnerability that comes with love.
Henry leaves and Alex is alone for two weeks before he's sick of it. He wants Henry. He wants to love Henry in a world where he doesn't have to worry about serial killer fathers and rapist foster brothers. He wants to love Henry, loudly and publicly. They can't do that, though, not yet, so Alex will take what he can get. What he can get is this: a Hollywood-esque standoff where he's drenched in rain, refusing to leave until he can see Henry.
“Tell me to leave,” he says, water dripping down his clothes and onto the floor, dampening the carpet. “Look me in the eyes and tell me to leave.”
Henry turns around and looks him in the eyes. “You know I can't do that.”
No, he can't. Andrew was always the one who kept Neil staying. He can't just turn around and tell him to leave.
“Then ask me to stay.”
Ask me to stay and maybe I can fix whatever's wrong with me, he doesn't say.
Henry's expression shutters. “I can't fix you.”
Alex smiles bitterly. “I know. I don't want you to.” He laughs at the confusion that flits across Henry's face. “I want to—I don't want to be fixed. I want to heal.”
“Oh, Alex.” Henry crosses the short distance between them and enfolds Alex in his arms. “Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Alex says, the only answer he could ever give Henry.
Henry kisses him, short and sweet, and when he pulls back he cups Alex's cheeks in his hands and presses his forehead to Alex's.
“Do me a favor,” he whispers against Alex's lips.
“Anything.”
“Go to therapy.”
Alex barks out a surprised laugh. “They won't believe me.”
“Probably not,” Henry agrees. “But you have other issues besides your identity crisis.”
“It's not an identity crisis,” Alex protests, but Henry's chuckles cut him off.
“You could still phrase it as such,” he muses. “Just…take some liberties. What with being thrust into the spotlight…hm.”
“Are you encouraging me to lie to my hypothetical therapist?” Alex asks, arching an eyebrow.
“Well,” Henry says, drawing out the word. “Not lie, just…smudge a few details.”
Alex laughs helplessly, slumping against his boyfriend's hold.
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
Alex lets out a breath. “Yeah. I'll go to therapy.”
The museum is beautiful. It’s eerie, with only the two of them in this large empty space, but it's beautiful nonetheless. And then Henry starts playing music, and he's wearing a sweatshirt that he'd taken from Alex months ago, and Alex is so in love with this man he just might die.
They dance, and Alex follows Henry's lead, and as the music dies down, Alex whispers against Henry's ear those three little words.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” Henry replies, fondness and an impossible adoration in his eyes. Teasingly, he adds, “Junkie.”
So Alex goes to therapy.
It's different than before, because before he didn't want it, but now he wants to be better, if not for him than for Henry. He doesn't tell them everything, of course, because if he did then he'd probably be thrown in the mental ward of some hospital, but he and Henry had worked out a believable enough story that Alex actually learns a few coping mechanisms from it.
Things are good for a while. They're together, and they're hiding it but it's okay because they see each other when they can and they email and call and it's good, but then—
He can't breathe, alone in his room with no way to contact Henry. He's having a panic attack, he thinks distantly, and his first instinct is to call Henry but he can't, he doesn't have his phone and he doesn't know how Henry is doing and Alex can't breathe.
He feels a phantom hand on his neck but it's not enough, overshadowed by a sharp pain in his cheek and long, agonizing cuts that aren't there anymore but are in his mind.
He needs Henry, needs to know he's okay. It’s a physical ache that makes his heart pound with fear and adrenaline.
He doesn’t know how, but eventually he falls into a restless sleep, plagued with fractured memories and hands that fall short of reaching.
When Zahra bursts in and drags him onto the plane, he follows blindly, trying to blink away the image of Andrew, lifeless on the bed, bruises around his wrists. Time goes weird; he’s numb, his heart pumping with adrenaline, but he can feel the seatbelt digging into his waist, the plastic of the water bottle that Zahra forced into his hand. He blinks, and he’s in the trunk of a car, long limbs wrapped around him. He blinks, and he’s staring blankly out the window of the plane.
When they finally land, Alex rushes off, waiting impatiently as Shaan leads them into the palace. He spots Henry, and his mind finally—blessedly—goes blank.
He darts forward, feet skidding as he comes to an abrupt stop right before Henry. He scans him, hands lifting to frame his face.
“Yes,” Henry says, answering the unspoken question, and Alex wraps himself around Henry as much as he can, as tightly as possible, because he needs Henry, needs to feel him, needs to—
Fingers press into his cheek, where the four once was. It hurts, an echo of Andrew’s violence in Henry’s softness. It grounds Alex enough to breathe.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Henry says into Alex’s ear. “We’ll figure it out.”
Alex doesn’t reply. Because what can he say to that?
“Alex. Rabbit. Look at me.”
Alex looks at him, looks into Henry's warm eyes that flicker with love and panic, and shudders.
“Okay,” he says, hoarse. “Okay. We'll figure it out.”
-
They do figure it out, much to his grandmother's irritation, but all Henry can focus on is Alex. Alex, and his eyes that are sparkling with relief and awe. Alex, who never asked for any of this. Alex, who Henry loves so, so much.
They sit together in Henry's room later, Henry on the bed and Alex’s head in his lap.
“Can we go to the roof?” asks Alex.
“We can,” Henry says, carding his hand through Alex's curls. “I don't have a cigarette, though.”
Henry snorts. “Those things will kill you, you know.”
“You're the one that actually liked smoking,” Alex huffs.
“Yes, because being addicted to the smell is so much better.”
“I was not,” Alex says with a scowl. “It just—”
“Reminded you of your dead, abusive mother, yes,” Henry says dryly. Alex’s scowl deepens. Henry smirks down at him.
“Okay, well.” Alex is silent for a moment before saying, “Do you ever miss them?”
“Some of them. Sometimes.”
Alex sighs. “I miss Kevin.”
“Really?” Henry asks, raising an eyebrow. Alex shrugs and sits up, crossing his legs.
“I dunno. He's just…Kevin. You know?”
Henry does know, is the thing, and sometimes there is ache where Kevin used to be, but he has learned to live with it. He's learned to live with a lot of things.
“Yes,” Henry says quietly. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Alex hums. He tilts to the side, his head landing on Henry's shoulder.
“So. We're public.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think…would you want to get married, someday?”
Henry blinks at the question.
“Just, because, it's legal, and everyone already knows so it's not like we're hiding it anymore, and—”
“Alex,” Henry interrupts. Alex's jaw snaps shut, a light dusting of pink settling over his cheeks. Henry bites back a laugh. “I would love to marry you someday.”
Relief fills Alex's face and he laughs. Henry smiles and leans in for a kiss.