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Henry has a bit of a love/hate relationship with Saturday nights.
On one hand, nothing can compare to the freedom of having the apartment to himself, taking a break from intense therapy sessions with his clients, kicking back on the sofa with a glass of wine and binging a marathon of his all-time favorite films until he inevitably falls asleep under the fleece throw blanket, the stress of a long week falling away.
On the other - Alex. Henry’s roommate-turned-best friend of three years, ridiculously hard working up-and-coming lawyer, fellow movie lover, and notoriously serial dater. The Saturday nights that Alex spends at home are scarce, often few and far between. He mostly spends them at art museums or pottery painting classes or away on other niche, obscure dates, each one with a different person, usually a woman, at his side.
Henry’s never been the dating type. He’s had a few short relationships over the years, but he’s always respectful, never bringing them around the apartment or being overly showy with his affection. But honestly, with the influx of new clients this past year at his therapy practice, it’s been difficult lately to find time to date anyone at all.
He’s surprisingly fine with it, content to spend his nights off here in the aforementioned cozy-couch-scenario instead of out on the town, but - it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get a little lonely, a little touch-starved sometimes.
On weeknights, he has Alex to come crashing in with his southern charm and nervous rambling and familiar grins and climb all over him like a big, overworked koala. On weekends, Henry’s on his own.
Dropping down onto the sofa, he tugs the blanket over his pajama-clad legs and presses play on his James Bond lineup for the night, taking slow sips of his wine and trying his best to get distracted by all of the action playing out on the screen.
He makes it half an hour in before there’s fumbling at the door, a familiar jangling of keys and muttered curses, before Alex is crashing in through the entryway suspiciously early, already halfway out of the outfit that Henry’d helped him pick out before he left. With a grumble, he tosses the keys sideways into the bowl by the door and kicks off his shoes, stumbling toward the couch and landing face-down into Henry’s thigh.
“Dating is too hard,” he mumbles, heaving a dramatic sigh into the blanket.
With a soft laugh, Henry hums in acknowledgement, lifting a hand to run his fingers through Alex’s hair. “Did it not go well?”
“It was fine. She was fine.” Alex shoves an arm underneath his cheek, blinking frustratedly at Henry’s stomach with a sigh. “I’m being mean. She was very nice, actually, and we did have a lot in common. We actually ended up having a few mutual friends from work too.”
Henry’s nails drag over the sensitive spot on the back of his scalp, and Alex shivers at the touch. “Then what was the problem?”
“I just- we got to talking about love languages and she was mentioning how hers is mostly quality time and then I felt guilty because I spend most of my time here or at the firm and then I started thinking about how it would be really difficult to make that work so I told her that and then she wanted to go home.” He ends his run-on rambling with a pout, busying himself with a loose string on Henry’s pajama shirt.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Henry says. It almost kind of sounds like he might actually mean it this time.
“It’s okay.” Alex shrugs. “At least I was honest. I’m more of a physical touch kind of guy anyway.”
“You don’t say,” Henry teases, brushing a thumb over the back of his neck.
In the three years they’ve lived together, he thinks it’s safe to say that he and Alex have gotten… close. The kind of close that other people like to point out sometimes when they’re in public, and not just their overinvolved older sisters and overly suggestive friends. A few of Alex’s colleagues have made comments when Henry shows up at the holiday parties or after a stressful work day to make sure Alex is eating and staying hydrated, just the same as Henry’s client each know little bits of odd Alex-facts that he lets slip sometimes in his sessions.
Regardless, it’s all terribly domestic, and the twinge of satisfaction Henry gets when Alex’s dates don’t go well is most definitely not appropriate, even if they are kind of in a weird, probably mostly platonic, very codependent relationship. If he’s not careful, Henry’s going to get himself so, so hurt one of these days.
Suddenly deciding that he needs more alcohol, Henry shoves him off and pushes to a stand, heading for the kitchen. “Did you eat?” he calls over his shoulder.
“A little,” Alex yells back. “Get me a beer?”
“Already got it,” Henry mutters to himself, the neck of the bottle dangling between two of his fingers as he reaches for the wine to refill his own glass.
Popping the cap off on the edge of the kitchen counter, he rounds the corner back into the living room and hands it to him over the back of the couch, then reclaims his spot on the cushion next to him.
Beside him, Alex has ditched any pretense of presentability, his belt undone and discarded on the floor and the first few buttons of his shirt hanging open. Henry gulps, forcing his eyes away from the tan skin and sparse dark hair that he most definitely does not have committed to memory, and takes a long, gratuitous sip of wine, drawing his knees up onto the sofa to put some distance between them.
Unfortunately, like most times, Alex doesn’t get the memo. He scoots closer and picks up the edge of the throw blanket, readjusting it so it’s covering both of them. Then he really settles in, hitching a leg up and over Henry’s bent knees, his lips stretched around the neck of his beer bottle.
An explosion goes off on the television and Henry’s gaze snaps over to it, grateful for the distraction. “I’ve never understood this part of the movie,” Alex murmurs, the colors of the fiery scene on the film reflected in his eyes.
“Why not?” Henry asks quietly.
“Well, when Bond goes into the scene, he’s got on this tie, right,” Alex gestures loosely to the screen. “Then, the next time we see him, after the building blows up, he’s not wearing it anymore. See?”
Alex is pointing in front of them but Henry can’t quit staring at the side of his face, his mouth achingly dry. Typically Alex is a big ball of energy and Henry’s the quiet one, but tonight he’s just - different. He wishes, for a wonderful, fleeting moment, that they could spend every Saturday night like this.
When Henry doesn’t ever actually check the screen to see what Alex is referring to, Alex tilts his head where it’s leaned up against the couch cushion to look up at him, and a slow, soft smile spreads across his lips. He reaches up and grabs Henry’s chin with two fingers and Henry freezes. Is Alex going to kiss him?
But then he’s applying pressure to Henry’s jaw, turning it sideways until he’s facing the television. “See?” he says again, softer this time.
Henry’s seen the movie a million times. He’s noticed the tie, and lack thereof, many times before. In fact, he’s pretty sure they’ve already had a conversation about it. But he nods anyway, swallowing to get some moisture back in his mouth, and clears his throat as Alex’s hand falls away.
“That’s- you’re right. Maybe he was just feeling a little overheated and decided to take it off while he was running.”
“And holding a gun in either hand?” Alex’s nose wrinkles, taking another swig of his drink. “That seems like it’d be kind of difficult to do.”
“It’s James Bond,” Henry argues. “He can do anything.”
It gets a little easier to fall back into the storyline when Alex finally stops talking, but Henry’s mind is still running in the background. It’s one of his favorite ones, a comfort thing, so he tries to let the familiarity of the dialogue ease him into relaxing a little bit.
None of this is new, he reminds himself. Alex always has a reason that things don’t end up working out with the people he dates. It’s probably why Henry’s so terrified for him to ever find about his own feelings - if Alex manages to find a reason to snub even the most perfect, elite, intelligent, beautiful people in all of Brooklyn, why on earth would Henry be good enough for him? He finishes off the last of his wine and leans forward to put the glass on the coffee table, Alex’s hand on his knee the entire way.
On the TV, the action has calmed down. Henry watches as James glides up to the pretty, mysterious love interest in a dark bar, all suave and charming as he offers to buy her a drink. Distantly, Henry wonders if somewhere, in a different universe, maybe he could’ve met Alex in a bar somewhere. Maybe he could have flirted and they could’ve had something really, really good. He wishes that, in this one, he’d have admitted to his feelings a long time ago, way before he’d inadvertently put himself in the painful limbo of the dreaded Friendzone.
The girl in the movie is moaning now, pressed up against the brick wall outside of the hotel lounge, and James is kissing her neck. Alex shifts, leaning forward to put his bottle on the table beside Henry’s empty glass. When he leans back, he’s even closer than he was before, nearly completely tucked into Henry’s side.
“I’m serious, by the way,” he says, as if the scene had reminded him. “Dating is too hard. I’m pulling myself officially off the market for the foreseeable future.”
Henry snorts, hoping he doesn’t sound too excited. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s made such a promise. “How dare you deprive the good people of New York from the spectacle that is Alexander Claremont-Diaz. They’re going to be properly devastated.”
“Shut up. You know what I mean,” Alex groans, nudging him softly with his elbow. “It’s hard to find somebody that gets it, y’know? Between all of the new cases I;m taking on this year and actually finding time to sleep, I feel like the only real chance I would even have at a solid relationship is if I just, like, lived with them or something.”
James and the woman on the screen are locked in a passionate embrace now, rolling around the luxurious looking bed in the hotel suite, hands clasped together on the mattress. Henry feels hot underneath the collar of his shirt for an entirely different reason.
Alex shifts closer, his head still reclined over Henry’s arm on the back of the couch. His lips are parted enough that Henry can feel his slow exhales on the side of his jaw where he’s sitting next to him, alcohol and something sweet on his breath. He’s dizzyingly close, so much that Henry’s eyes cross a bit this time when he glances over carefully to meet Alex’s gaze. It’s an immediate mistake.
He realizes with a jolt how much they’re touching; Henry facing him with an arm around his shoulders, his legs over the top of Henry’s folded ones, his fingers twitching in his lap, Henry’s hand on his thigh and grazing his wrist, Alex’s elbow nestled against Henry’s ribcage. If he were to move just slightly, their noses would touch.
The noise of the movie falls away, even as the love scene blends into more gunshots and yelling. Alex’s face tilts toward him so minimally that if he’d blinked he would have missed it. The lines are blurring inside of Henry’s head, friend-Alex morphing into so, so much more.
Henry presses forward until their mouths are just barely touching, giving him every chance to pull away. When he doesn’t, he drinks in one last long look at him, his bronzed skin, his brown eyes, his long lashes touching the tops of his cheeks, and tilts his chin forward to seal the distance.
It’s achingly gentle and Henry immediately wants to burrow into it and never leave the feeling that blooms inside of his chest. He lets Alex set the pace, unsure of exactly what the parameters are when kissing your friend-slash-roommate-slash-massively embarrassing three year long unrequited crush.
The way Alex is kissing him now doesn’t feel unrequited.
He inhales against Henry’s lips and presses forward, turning his body further into the space Henry’s carved for him. His hands move from his lap and tangle in the front of Henry’s sleep shirt, gripping firmly and preventing him from pulling away. As if Henry would make such a grave mistake.
Alex’s hand disappears and returns on his cheek, firm and steady, holding him there as he gets his fill. With a heavy sigh that lands somewhere between Henry’s teeth, he tilts his head again and then his tongue is at the seam of Henry’s lips, molten heat against his mouth and fireworks behind his eyelids.
He squeezes Alex’s thigh and slides a hand up to grab at his waist and draw him in closer. Henry’s never been kissed like this in his life. He’s never been kissed so gently and yet so passionately, every tendon in his body thrumming and aching with the liberation of three years of longing finally reaching a precipice. This time, Henry tumbles over the edge willingly.
When he finally parts from Alex’s lips to draw in a shaky breath, neither of them move. Alex’s hand remains on his cheek, his thumb stroking careful circles over his cheekbone, and Henry’s hold on his waist doesn’t falter. He blinks his eyes open slowly and it’s still Alex there in front of him, with his southern charm and nervous rambling and familiar grin. It’s still Henry’s Alex.
Then, as if he hadn’t just knocked Henry’s world off its axis, Alex reaches up and pecks him casually on the mouth one last time, dropping his hand to lace his fingers through Henry’s and turning back to watch the movie again.
It takes Henry much longer to return to his body. He blinks at the TV, flexes his fingers inside of Alex’s grasp, tries to grapple with the constraints of reality until he lands on something that makes some semblance of sense. Ultimately he doesn’t land on anything concrete, so he leans his jaw against Alex’s temple and exhales, waiting for his pulse to calm as the rest of the movie plays out and the credits begin to roll.
“Just so we’re clear,” Alex says pragmatically, “when I mentioned that I was off the market? That didn’t apply to you.”
The nerves hit him all at once, and Henry’s never been more grateful for Alex’s incessant need to fill any silence with a stream of his thoughts. A laugh bubbles from the back of Henry’s throat, a smile stretching his lips. “Oh, really?”
“Mhm. I am very much on the market for you. Like, in those little display cases right when you walk in, in between all of the cheeses and the deli meats. On sale, too. Final call. Clearance. You’d better cash in before I’m gone, Henry, or else-”
Henry grips his jaw and turns his head back upward again, kissing him hard until he stops trying to make anymore obscure references about objectifying himself for Henry’s consumption.
“Such a mouth on you,” he murmurs against Alex’s lips, their front teeth knocking together with his grin. “Do I get a receipt?”
“No returns,” Alex says seriously, flashing his eyes at him. “All sales are final.”
“Damn,” Henry muses. He knows the look on his face betrays his sentiment completely.
As if he can’t help himself, Alex kisses him again several times in quick succession, trailing his lips from the corner of Henry’s mouth down to the loose collar of his shirt. Henry may actually expire right here on his couch.
Then Alex curls up all over again and fixes the blanket where it’d fallen off of them, stealing the remote from beside Henry and clicking back to the main menu.
“Now, where’s the one with the train and the secret society thingy? He looks just like you in that one, especially in that opening scene with the car chase. It’s so hot, Hen. You should wear suits more often. But also, like, less clothes too. Ooh, or maybe just the tie. That could be interesting. Hey, should I make us popcorn?” Henry laughs again, this time with his whole chest, and Alex raises a brow. “What?”
He pulls Alex in with both arms and presses a kiss to his forehead, blanketing Alex’s hand with his own to work the remote over to the right movie and pressing play. “Nothing, love.”
“Hm, sure,” Alex hums, wrapping a hand around Henry’s arm.
The chords of the theme song echo around the living room. He tightens his grip and hides his giddiness in Alex’s curls, the soundtrack of the inside of Henry’s head finally going peacefully, blissfully quiet.
One Year Later
“Sorry I’m late,” Henry calls into the apartment, kicking off his shoes by the door and tugging at his tie. “My last session ran long.”
Alex’s voice echoes over from the kitchen, rounding the corner with a giant bowl of popcorn, a beer, and a bottle of wine in his arms. “No problem, I just walked in, like, five minutes ago,” he says. “Movie’s paused.”
Accepting the wine with a grateful sigh, Henry presses a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”
“‘Course, baby,” Alex grins.
In the middle of the living room floor they strip down out of their work clothes in record time and slide into pajamas (which are now housed in the cabinet underneath the TV to accommodate their Saturday night rituals) and Henry’s not sure which one of them falls into the couch cushions first.
Alex presses play on the newest Bond movie that just came out, shoving a handful of popcorn in the general direction of his mouth. He misses, of course, and Henry grins as he picks up the pieces from their laps and pops them into his own mouth instead.
“Happy one year, love,” he whispers as it starts.
“One year?” Alex makes an indignant sound, half-chewed popcorn on his tongue making the words jumbled. “Try four, sweetheart. I expect gifts, by the way.”
“Oh yeah?” Henry laughs, raising Alex’s hand to press his lips to the back of it. He doesn’t know that he’ll ever get used to this. “And what’s my present, pray tell?”
Tossing an incredulous look over his shoulder, Alex swallows his food and takes a long swig of beer, shrugging. “Me, of course.”
Unable to help himself, like most times, Henry leans forward and kisses him until they’re both breathless and Alex’s hold on the popcorn bowl has gone slack in favor of holding Henry’s face instead. When he pulls back, Alex smacks his lips on the tip of Henry’s nose and smiles, kicking his legs up to tangle them with Henry’s.
Henry no longer has a love/hate relationship with Saturday nights. He does have a year-long ( four -year long?) relationship with Alex, however, and he loves Saturday nights just almost as much as he loves Alex.