Chapter Text
Henry sits across from Alex, solemnly looking down at the desk he’s seated at. There’s a rose scratched into the corner. Probably some kid with a pair of scissors and too much time on their hands.
Alex looks down at his desk. (There’s a tiny fuck scratched on the edge of his. Certainly something they’ve all missed before now.) (Alex can’t help but feel it to be fitting for the situation.) He clears his throat, feeling his once bright smile begin to fade.
He took a seat eventually. After a few moments where his heart beat hard in his chest. When the joy twisted into fear. Into loss.
He fucked this up.
All of this time Alex was afraid of Henry. Afraid that he already didn’t care.
And now that he’s sitting with him, Henry’s face contorted into something that Alex never wants to see again (Never wants to be the cause of again.)
Can we talk?
Three words that could spark anxiety in anyone.
Especially Alex.
And especially when they’re coming from Henry.
(There are so many other combinations of three words that Alex would like to hear from Henry instead.) (Have you eaten?) (David says hi.) (Have some coffee.)
There’s one other three word phrase Alex would prefer. But he can’t let himself think about that right now. Not when Henry’s looking the way he is. (Heartbroken.) (Sad.) (Like he’s too tired for this conversation.)
Alex swallows. “What did you want to talk about?”
Henry sighs, looking at his fingernails, examining them like he might find answers beneath his cuticles. When he raises his head and makes eye contact, Alex wants to look away.
(He doesn’t.)
Not now.
“What’s happening?” Henry asks softly.
Alex opens his mouth, ready to respond with questions. What do you mean, H? We just got approved by the board! That’s what’s happening!
But it catches in his throat.
Now isn’t the time to play dumb, or to avoid the topic at hand. Alex knows what Henry means.
“I—”
“I thought we were getting along fine?” Henry says, a small inflection making it sound like a question. Alex tries to answer, but Henry continues. “Better than fine, really. I even thought that—” He shakes his head. Alex wants to pry him open like a book, read every page of his mind and figure out what it holds. What he thought. But he keeps it to himself, letting Henry have the moment. (He’d let Henry have anything, really. Everything.) “But it changed when I went to London to be with my sister.”
A breath lingers in the air, words that multiplied themselves in Alex’s brain for weeks. Emotions and thoughts that built themselves a home in the inner corners of his mind seem so small now that he’s about to say them out loud.
Nora’s voice creeps into his brain. How she called him out for running away from what he clearly wants.
“I—”Alex clears his throat, catching on the emotion building within him. A custodian walks by the door, wheels of their cleaning cart squeaking as they pass. “I thought you left me.” His voice is small. He feels small. “I waited for a response and nothing happened. My brain kind of…” Spiraled? Went to shit? Broke? “Filled in the gaps with a story that may not have been correct.”
Henry frowns. “What story?”
Alex takes a deep breath. This part is never easy. He can talk circles around anyone about politics, about history—hell even about the type of bread one should use when making sandwiches.
(White for peanut butter and jelly. Wheat for anything with vegetables.)
Feelings, though? That’s where it’s messy. Where emotions tangle everything up and he can’t tell the difference between fact and heart.
“That you didn’t actually feel the same as I did,” Alex provides. “That everything in my head that I thought we were—”he clears his throat. A vacuum sounds off in the next classroom. “Should we do this somewhere else?”
Henry shakes his head. “No. Here. Now. Alex tell me.” He looks desperate. His eyes are red, his voice filled with emotion. A man on the edge. (He’s still lovely, though, Alex thinks.) (Always lovely.) “What did you think I felt?”
“I thought that—” He stammers. I thought you loved me. (No. He can’t say that. That’s too much. Too intense.) (He can think it, but never say it.) “I thought we were on the same page.”
“What page is that, then?” Henry asks. His voice is tight, anger bubbling under the surface. (Anger at Alex? At the circumstance?) “Because I thought we were on the same page too.”
Alex starts to flounder, not sure what the correct response is.
His brain can’t think of any words.
His heart beats loudly in his chest. It’s screaming, practically.
Tell him, it says.
(Hearts, they always want to be heard.) (But now’s not the time for that.)
Well, when is the time?
Alex shakes his head and opens his mouth to respond with...well… anything. But the door to the classroom opens.
A lady with a cleaning cart and a vacuum walks in, nodding her head to whatever sound is coming from her earbuds. When she looks up and sees the two of them, she freezes.
“Oh—”she begins, pulling a bud out of one ear. “I’m sorry I—”
“That’s okay, Maura,” Henry mutters. “We were just leaving.” He stands up and walks back to his desk, gathering his things. Alex still sits at the table, frozen in place. Heart still beating out of his chest—desperate to be heard. “Alex. When you figure it out, you know where to find me.”
He walks out.
Alex’s brain is still catching up, but his feet act of their own accord. They carry him out of the room, nearly knocking over a bottle of cleaning solution and a broom, and follow Henry out of the room.
His heart continues to beat. Alex’s mouth opens.
If you’re not going to do it, I will.
“I love you!” He shouts down the hall. Henry freezes.
Alex’s heart calms, soothed at last. (It said it. It said the words it's wanted to for a long time.)
Then, it spikes again.
Alex never meant for those three words to come out like this. Like a hail mary tossed into the abyss. A hope to salvage what might have been.
“I love you,” he says softer this time. Because he’s already said it. Because there’s a sharp panic building beneath his throat, and he hopes that repeating those words will help quench whatever it’s looking for. (It works for a second.) (It’d work better if he knew for certain Henry would say them back.)
Henry’s eyes meet his own.
“Alex—”
“Please. Just—” He takes a deep breath. “Can we take this back to my apartment? Yours? Hell even the parking lot. I’ll sit in your fucking Prius and tell you all the ways I love you.”
Now that they’ve come out, they can’t stop.
I love you I love you I love you.
Henry lets out a long exhale, examining his shoes. Alex turns back to Henry’s classroom to see the custodian’s head drop suddenly. She turns the vacuum back on, quickly pretending to not watch the scene unfold.
He’d be upset on the intrusion, but he’d have done the same. (Fuck when did his life turn into some fucking cheesy rom com?) (Is his entire self just molding into some kind of brown John Cusack?) (What’s next? Holding a boombox above his head outside of Henry’s apartment?)
Henry turns and begins to walk. Alex feels defeated, like he’s lost everything. That his hail mary failed. (Where’s that fucking rosary when he needs it?)
But then he says “Come on, Diaz. I’ll order takeaway.”
And Alex has never followed him faster in his life.
____________
They don’t drive together. Alex follows Henry, who surprisingly drives to Alex’s apartment. (He tries momentarily to panic about what it means.) (But even he knows he’s reaching.)
Walking up stairs and down the hallway is awkward. Alex isn’t sure what to say. (Tell him you love him.) (Shut up, heart.)
Fumbling keys. Soft footsteps on carpeted floors.
The soft haze of the evening sun pouring in through his window.
The fact that Henry is here still willing to talk indicates good things, right?
“Alex,” Henry murmurs, sitting on the couch.
“You don’t have to say it back.” Alex sits on the coffee table, knees parallel to Henry’s.
Henry frowns, opening his mouth to speak.
“It’s okay if you don’t.” Alex clears his throat. “Love me, that is.”
Henry’s frown deepens, his face beginning to look completely taken aback. Offended at the words Alex is speaking. “Alex. When have I, in the time we’ve been together, ever acted like I was anything but completely and utterly in love with you?”
Alex pauses, mouth hanging open. “You—”
“Love you, yes.” A sigh. “I thought—well… I’m not sure what I thought.” He shifts on the couch, blue eyes meeting brown. His hands reaching for Alex’s.
The evening has been filled with intense emotions, joy mixed with fear and desperation. At hearing Henry say he loves him back, however, Alex feels something in his chest loosen.
But it’s not over yet. The talk, that is. While they’ve both admitted to their feelings, nothing’s finalized. There’s no definitive statement saying that their feelings have led them to anything more than what they are now—two men, sitting in Alex’s living room. Confused and hurt.
“I’m sorry,” Alex murmurs. “I—” He freezes. It’s been a night of incomplete sentences and not well thought out plots. Henry would certainly go through the scene of events with a red pen and hack it apart if he could. “I let everything from my past flood my brain.” Alex moves to the couch to sit next to Henry. He removes a hand from his grasp, allowing himself the risk of pushing back a bit of blonde hair from his forehead. (It’s nice to feel between his fingers again. Soft and lovely.) (Henry lets him, leans into the touch even.)
It’s what gives Alex the final push to say all the words he keeps inside. To share with Henry what he barely shares with anyone else.
That even he is weak. That he needs help sometimes.
“I’ve been working through so much this year.” He drops his hand. (Henry catches it.) “What I want to do with my future. Where I want to go. How to change these kid’s lives in a positive way.” Alex pulls his legs up onto his seat, turning his body to completely face Henry. “I thought it was simple. That I’d be here for my year, help June out. Reset my brain. But then… everything changed.”
Henry shifts to mirror Alex, raising an eyebrow in question.
“I started to like this stupid fucking place.” Love, really. “The kids, the teachers, hell even fighting for this fucking class with you.” A sigh. “And I met you. Which… well. It really rocked my world, didn’t it?” Alex sees a small smirk come over Henry’s face. A small victory this evening. “I thought I hated you. That you were the most infuriating man I’d ever seen. But then you had the audacity to make me fall in love with you.” He’s said it once and now the phrase keeps falling from his lips like a mantra. Like it’s trying to make up for all the times he hadn’t said it before.
I love you I love you I love you.
“And I—I don’t know. I think I was afraid. Because I had this fucking plan, and thought I was going to Georgetown—” Realization hits. “Fuck Georgetown.”
What’s he going to do about Georgetown?
“Alex, I care deeply for you. But I don’t think I can continue to put myself in a situation where I’m going to get frozen out.”
Alex lets out a deep exhale, pondering what he can do.
“Henry. These past few weeks have been awful. I constantly wanted to run and tell you dumb stories about my students, or ask you about your sister. But everything that happened—every interaction we had—felt stifled. I felt like there was no feasible way for me to get unstuck. But I won’t let that happen again.”
A pause.
“I love you,” he whispers.
A breath.
“I love you too, Alex.”
He leans forward, a question in his eyes, waiting for Henry’s permission. It comes quickly in eyes closing softly, in his body shifting closer. Alex lets his eyes close all the way, allowing his lips to meet Henry’s. (It’s been too long since he’s let himself have this.) Alex can’t help but wonder, as his hands move to Henry’s jaw and his body shifts forward, leaning above him, why he kept himself from this for so long. Why he denied himself instead of succumbing to everything.
As Henry lifts himself up to let Alex slip his shirt off, Alex swears he’ll never make that mistake again.
He kisses down Henry’s chest, murmuring promises into flesh that he intends to keep.
I promise I promise I promise.
Whispering confessions against soft skin. Telling him all the ways Alex has always been undeniably in love with him.
I love you I love you I love you.
And when they end in bed, limbs tangled amongst limbs, nothing but moonlight and the sound of cars far away on the road around them—Alex feels it. A new start.
A beginning. Solid this time. A structure built on a foundation of promises and agreements.
There are more conversations to be had. Georgetown to be sorted out and all. But it’s a start.
He feels relief, kissing Henry’s cheek. His neck. His shoulder.
Henry loves him.
Something Alex knew but didn’t let himself believe. Didn’t let himself have.
But he doesn’t plan to ruin that ever again.