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It’s been ages since Henry’s felt so comfortable in his skin. It’s likely what a bit of privacy will do given the circumstances, something he’s never really fully had before.
It isn’t quite like the spark of something new and exciting. Not the highs he’d chased to get him by in years past. Things are easier these days, when there’s no routine to adhere to and the days are marked with bustling city noises and sunsets on the back patio while David lazes around in the yard. The brownstone is the first place that’s ever really been just Henry’s. He’s already nearly lit the kitchen on fire and broken the washing machine a few times but none of it matters. It’s his.
The changes are visible. Pez thinks so, anyway. His sister, too. When Henry meets them occasionally for brunch or dinner at his house, they comment on how laidback he is. His shoulders less tense, his smile never forced.
Alex living a few blocks over certainly helps. Transitioning from clandestine hook ups to something more had been a whirlwind enough as it was. The leak and subsequent chaos has only just now begun to die down. They still mostly stay at one of their places when they see each other because the cameras inevitably follow them anywhere else. They’d agreed to live apart at least until Alex finishes school, but Henry would be lying if he hadn’t thought often about making the messy drawers of Alex’s things in his bedroom into something more permanent than that.
That’s the thing, though—there’s no rush. There’s no deadline, no one waiting for the final, formal verdict. It’s on their own terms now, and if he’s got any say in it, it’s going to stay that way.
Breathing room was a rare privilege before this. Now, there’s so much that Henry thrills at the idea of all the ways to fill it; all the things he thought he knew about himself that are changing and shifting that he’ll be able to get to know in this phase of his life too.
And, the part that might be most unbelievable to his former self: the fact that he has someone to share all of those things with now.
“I’m not saying it looked appetizing. I’m just saying that if Paul Hollywood was looking at me like that, something probably would have come out of me that looks a hell of a lot like what’s on that guy’s plate right now too.”
“Delightful, Alex.”
“Sorry. I waited until you were done eating, at least.”
Tossing a glare over his shoulder, Henry leans forward to deposit their very freshly emptied plate onto the coffee table in front of them. As soon as he sits back again Alex is taking up his former spot, their sides pressed fully together and a blanket over their laps while the television continues playing in the background.
It’s the beginning of a long weekend, one they’ve waited for for what seems like ages. Both of their phones are on silent for at least tonight, David curled up by their feet and no plans other than to enjoy themselves. Henry’s certain they’ll find ways to pass the time.
He lifts an arm to settle around the back of Alex’s shoulders, the way Alex has told him he likes because he can lean his head back at the perfect angle. It’s exactly what he does, his eyes closed and a pleased hum caught in his throat as the tension from the day seeps out of him little by little. They do this from time to time. Recharging.
His fingers shift a bit until he can get them into Alex’s curls, a bit messy from the wind outside on the walk over, and scratch lightly at the root. This time it earns him a quiet moan, and Henry smiles as Alex tosses a leg over his and scoots in closer to lay on his shoulder instead.
This is one of his most favorite things about them recently. Intimacy has always been rushed and impersonal for Henry because it had to be, by design. He’s never had the time nor the capacity for casual touches and innocent proximity, to experience how heavy the light can be without the fireworks to accompany it.
He leans in to nudge his nose against Alex’s cheek and Alex turns to close the distance, tasting like the pasta they’d just shared when his tongue brushes Henry’s briefly. It’s easy to settle a hand on the back of Alex’s neck, easy to share an exhale with him, easy to just let their lips slot together without anything else.
It is them, though, and at some point Alex’s hand is tugging at his hair and he’s more on top of Henry’s lap than on his own cushion and Henry’s losing his breath, gripping his hips, and he’s half hard already in his pants by the time Alex presses a hand to the center of his chest and pulls back, lips red and eyes glazed as he swallows abruptly.
“I—can we stop?”
Henry frowns. “Of course. Did I…?”
“No, it’s not—we just still have some of the show left, so.”
Sucking in a breath, Alex glances away and pulls himself off of Henry’s lap, dropping back onto the cushion beside him. Henry stares at the sliver of space that wasn’t there before as if it’s burned him somehow. The sweet taste on his tongue begins to feel sour when Alex goes quiet and fixes his eyes on the television, his knees pulled up and sitting on his hands. Alex doesn’t even like Bake Off.
Tentatively, Henry reaches across the gap and traces a finger over the back of Alex’s hand where he can reach, relieved when Alex turns it over and easily accepts Henry’s fingers with a small smile. He bends to leave the light press of his lips to the curve of Alex’s shoulder, then pretends to watch the rest of the episode to give them both some time to calm down.
When the credits finally roll a handful of minutes later, Henry reaches for the remote and Alex reaches for the plates. Lowering the volume, Henry stops him before he can rush off to the kitchen, taking his hand again.
“Darling,” he says, “tell me what’s wrong?”
Alex shakes his head, picking at a string on his track pants while the muscle in his jaw twitches. “It’s nothing. I’m just—in my head.”
“That isn’t nothing,” Henry urges gently.
Suddenly blowing out a breath, Alex drops his head onto the back of the sofa and blinks at the ceiling, then rolls it to the side to look at Henry.
“Can I say something that’s gonna sound completely fucking insane?”
Henry squeezes his hand. “I’m listening.”
Nodding to himself, Alex debates for a second before he turns and tucks his knees to his chest again, one arm wrapped around them, the other connected to Henry’s on the cushion, his lip indented with his teeth.
“I was thinking about sex.”
With a somewhat relieved chuckle, Henry smiles. “That isn’t all that insane for you, love.”
Alex clears his throat and drops his eyes. “Yeah.”
Henry’s chest tightens at how tired Alex looks as soon as he says it, the way his hold goes limp. Tossing the blanket off of them, Henry moves closer and lays a hand over the back of the sofa, his chin in front of Alex’s knees so he can see his face better.
“That’s not all of it,” he encourages, tracing a thumb over Alex’s shoulder until he looks up again. “Tell me what you were thinking.”
He’s seen Alex when he’s nervous, all the different shades of it. Worried about university work, socially drained, restless, when he’s giddy to ask for something new. The look on his face doesn’t fall into any of those categories.
“Like—sometimes, I just…” Alex starts, wide eyes unblinking, “sometimes the idea of having sex, like, repulses me?”
Henry’s thumb stops moving.
“Oh.”
Alex rushes to correct himself, his knees falling open as he leans forward to grab Henry’s hand more firmly. “Not sex with you —well, I mean, yes, sex with you, but not in the way that you’re probably thinking right now, I just—”
“Alex,” Henry stops him. His own mind is in a bit of a spiral, but he tries to pull out the most coherent of it. What he knows. “I’m not mad. I promise. I don’t think that you think I’m repulsive.”
Alex’s chest caves with his exhale as he nods. “Okay, good. That’s—yeah. I don’t. At all.”
“I believe you,” Henry tells him. He tries to catch Alex’s shifting gaze again. “Can you tell me more about this?”
He bites at his lip again. “It’s—it’s not all the time. And it’s not—everything that we’ve done so far has been great, like. There’s never been a time where we were having sex that I didn’t want to be having sex.”
Alex’s relief circles back around to Henry tenfold. He’d never forgive himself if the answer had been anything different. The knot in his throat shrinks by a bit.
“Good. That’s good.”
“I guess I just…” Alex glances off toward the front windows, then back down to their hands. “You know, things are slower now. Like, I actually have a little bit of time to think in between everything else. It’s not just one thing into another constantly and me trying to keep up. And I’ve enjoyed it so much. Being here with you is, like, probably the happiest I’ve ever been.”
“Me too,” Henry smiles, and Alex shoots him one in return.
“But like I said, the thinking. That’s—I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Not anything about us, but. About me.”
“And?”
Alex’s brow furrows the way it does when he’s deep in thought. Henry aches to smooth it with his thumb. “And…it’s like. It’s like, yeah, I fucking want you. Like, all the time. I’ve literally never been more attracted to another person before. So it makes sense that I’d—I’d want to have sex with you.”
“Not necessarily,” Henry interjects softly. “There’s all sorts of ways to be intimate without that.”
“I think that’s kind of what I’m getting at?” he says. “Lately, I’ve just…I do like, like— touching you. Like when I come over and we watch something in here or when I sleep over and we’re in bed or cuddling or whatever. I want you to touch me, I just don’t want you to— touch me.” Alex’s face sours for a moment before his uncertain gaze drags up to Henry’s face. “At least not—not all the time. Right now. Anyway. Does that…does that make sense?”
“I think so,” Henry says carefully. His voice dips and softens when he asks, “How long have you been feeling this way?”
Tossing up a shoulder, Alex’s chin wobbles. “Uh. I don’t know,” he rasps. “Maybe…maybe a few weeks now? Maybe longer. Off and on. I haven’t really—I don’t know.”
“Alex,” Henry breathes. Slow enough to make sure it’s alright, he leans forward to wrap his arms around his shoulders, and Alex crumbles easily into his chest to hug him back. He presses his mouth to Alex’s temple. “Thank you for telling me. I’m so sorry you felt this way and I didn’t know. I didn’t notice.”
“No, don’t do that. Please.” Alex sits up only enough to be face to face, swiping at his cheek. “I’m trying to be better at communicating and shit, but I just. Sometimes I don’t even know how to describe what I’m feeling. And then when I realized what it was I just…” he trails off.
“Just what?”
“It’s stupid—no, stop it. It is stupid,” he insists when Henry attempts to convince him otherwise. He sniffs. “I just got worried that, you know. We…we have a lot of sex. Good sex. Fucking great sex. It’s like, one of the first things we did together and something we still do. That normal people our age do too. And I was just nervous, I guess, that it would seem like I was just taking sex off of the table forever, which I’m not.”
“It would be perfectly okay if you were. I told you I wanted all of you, Alex. That doesn’t just mean your body. It means also the parts that do or don’t want to be touched and the parts that are having feelings you can’t describe yet and everything else in between.” Henry nudges their noses together, kisses the jut of his cheekbone over one of the freckles there as he holds the side of Alex’s face. “It’s whatever you choose to allow me to help you carry. I want to do that. The way you do it for me.”
Alex lets him swipe at his cheeks and tilts his head up to kiss him properly, slow and soft. When he pulls back, he keeps their foreheads together.
“Thank you,” he whispers, playing with Henry’s fingers in their laps. “I really don’t know where it came from. Maybe just all the changes lately, I don’t know.”
“You don’t need a reason to feel what you’re feeling. I just want to be able to make you feel better in some way, if that’s something I can do.”
“You can,” he says firmly. “You do. Always. You’re so—you’re fucking everything to me, H. And I know how insane it sounds that I don’t want that with you because who fucking wouldn’t? But I just—the thought of being so—and everything happening all at once and just—my body and—I don’t know. I just get so fucking overwhelmed and I start to freak out and—” he blinks frantically as the tears come back, his throat closing up.
“Come here,” Henry says.
It isn’t the first time Henry’s wished that they could be physically closer than is actually physically possible. He supposes that’s where most of his own desire typically stems from; some kind of urgent, baser instinct to be as entwined with the person he views as his other half as possible now that he's free to do so.
But there are plenty of ways to get to that feeling without ever making Alex feel like this. Henry wraps both arms around his shoulders until they stop shaking, until Alex’s tears have slowed where his nose is burrowed into the side of Henry’s neck, does his best to talk him down with as many things as he can think of.
When he’s relatively still again, Henry tugs him back and moves the hair out of his face, leans down and kisses him once, wet cheeks and running nose and all.
“I love you,” he says. “It doesn’t matter to me what anyone thinks you should or shouldn’t want. The only thing I care about is that you feel safe with me.”
“I do.” Alex’s fingers tighten on his shoulder. “I do. So much.” His eyes flicker up to meet Henry’s, his voice nearly gone. “But what if you…what’s going to happen when you want—and I don’t—”
“We’ll figure it out, alright? I enjoy sex because it makes me feel close with you. But there are lots of things that make me feel that way.”
Through his slowing tears, Alex snorts softly and manages a tiny smile. “Thought you liked it ‘cause you like to show off.”
Henry rolls his eyes fondly. “Hush. There are many things I can show off that aren’t in the bedroom.”
“I’m serious, H,” Alex sobers. “I know that sex is like, a big self expression thing for you. I don’t want you to have to give up anything for me ever, even though I know you would.”
He takes a second to sit with that, framing and reframing it over again. There’s only one certainty here, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Henry’s ever changing libido. He’s not changing his mind about this.
“I’m not going to tell you I don’t want to have sex with you anymore. I won’t lie to you.”
“I don’t want you to,” Alex agrees.
“But I don’t look at it as giving something up. Or as something that has some eventual expiration date on it that I simply have to wait out. I mean that, Alex. If you never want that again, we would make that work too.” He grips Alex’s face again, suddenly desperate to make him hear it. To say it all the right way. “I can tell you with full certainty that I’m never going to enjoy sex with you if I know that it isn’t something you’re fully on board with. I just won’t. It’s never going to be worth it to me to put you in an uncomfortable situation just to get the same feeling that I can get when we’re together. When you let me hold you. When we sleep— just sleep—together. When you’re here, and I—Christ, Alex. I want you here always. Just here. Not in any specific way. There isn’t one that I think is better than the others. I’ve never had anyone else like this before. I don’t want anyone else.”
“Okay,” Alex laughs a little brokenly, his smile caught between Henry’s palms. He turns to kiss each one. “I believe you, baby.”
He dips to press his nose to Alex’s collarbone, arms around his ribcage while Alex moves a hand over his back. Henry feels like he’s said both too much and nowhere near enough to describe it, how he never wants to leave this space they’re in. He is insatiable when it comes to Alex but never only in one way. That same feeling he’d felt when he first moved in takes root inside of him again, the quiet excitement of something that feels like new territory and home all at once.
It doesn’t feel like they’re taking anything away. It feels like an opportunity to find out all of the other ways they can be together. And isn’t that something to look forward to?
He’s pulled out of his thoughts when Alex clears his throat above him, his fingertips soft and warm on the back of Henry’s neck.
“I really don’t know anything past right now. I don’t know how I’ll feel next week or next month or…”
“That’s alright,” Henry says. “You can just tell me as we go. You don’t have to have only one answer.”
Alex laughs again, each one lighter than the last. This one sounds a little incredulous as he pulls back to look down at Henry, shaking his head.
“God, I fucking love you.”
He drops the rest of the way to press their lips together, the hand in Henry’s hair pulling him closer. He’s so warm, pressed to Henry’s chest and tasting of the dinner they made together in one of Henry’s oversized shirts. Henry kisses him firmly, then pauses.
“Kissing is—?”
“Yes,” Alex groans. “Kissing’s good. Please.”
So Henry pulls him close and keeps kissing him, and it’s not any different than any other time they do this. It’s still Alex, it’s still them. Henry tries to spell it out with his lips, with hands that don’t wander quite as far and a slowness that doesn’t have to escalate into anything rougher.
By the time they part their legs are tangled and it’s grown dark outside of the windows, and Henry’s heart feels several sizes too big for his chest. It pounds under Alex’s splayed fingers as if his heart is trying to physically launch itself into his hands.
“Fuck,” Alex sighs, the last of his tension dissipating as he lays his cheek on Henry’s shoulder again. “I can’t wait until I don’t have to go home and we can just do that whenever we want.”
Well.
“That…that could be now. If you wanted it to be,” Henry says slowly.
Alex tilts his face up to look at him. “Seriously?”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to,” he prefaces, “but, yes. I’m—I meant it when I said I wanted you here always.”
Henry wheezes as he’s knocked onto his back on the cushions, Alex’s body wrapping around him like a vine. He makes an indistinguishable but enthusiastic sound and David huffs, relocating to finish his nap elsewhere. Henry laughs and brings a hand up to settle in his hair.
“That’s a yes, then?”
“It’s absolutely fucking yes,” Alex grins, hovering on top of him. “You’re never gonna get rid of me now.”
Henry’s own smile widens as he leans up against Alex’s mouth and says, “Good.”