Work Text:
Alex is five years old and knows in his gut that he's gonna marry Henry.
They've only just met—Alex was chasing the other kids around with a jagged stick when he saw Henry in the corner with his head down, frowning and holding a stick of his own.
Alex passes his stick over to Neighbor Liam and approaches Henry. When he gets closer, he realizes that there's something on the ground.
"Is that Mufasa?" Alex asks with delight. Henry had drawn a lion in the dirt, with huge whiskers that extended outwards, wide eyes, and a glorious mane. Alex turns to him, holding out his hand all polite, because his mama tells him you should always introduce yourself to someone you want to get to know, and Alex definitely wants to get to know this boy. "My name's Alex."
Henry shakes his hand just as politely. "My name is Henry. It's Aslan, not Mufasa."
"What's a Aslan?"
"He's from Narnia."
"What's a Narnia?"
"You don't know Narnia?" Henry lights up. He launches into the story then, telling Alex all about a closet and a lamppost and an evil witch.
Alex doesn't know a lot about what it's like to be married, but his parents tell him that people should only get married if they want to be, and Alex can't think of anything better than getting married to someone who tells him stories.
Henry has a funny accent and sounds like a prince from a magical fairyland. Alex's head spins as he tries to follow along, and Alex thinks that if he and Henry get married, his children are going to have funny accents too. He tells this to Henry to convince him of their marriage.
"I think your accent sounds funny," Henry says with a frown.
"We both have funny accents," Alex says placatingly, aware that marriage requires compromise.
Henry pauses in thought and then nods, considering. "I need to ask my parents first."
The next day, Henry finds him after story time and tells him his parents agree with their union. Alex, glumly, has to tell him that he didn't quite have the same luck.
"When you're older, honey, sure," his mama had said when Alex announced his plans at the dinner table. She was wiping his palm clean of mashed peas. "If you still want to."
"No!" Alex said, wriggling out of her grasp, banging his hands on the table, and making the cutlery rattle. "Now!"
"Alex—"
"That's not fair!" June cried over her carrots, her voice shrill. "Why can Alex get married but I can't?"
"June-bug, you don't even want to get married," their dad said tiredly. "You just want to get married because Alex wants to."
"June's just a copycat!"
"Am not!"
"Nobody's getting married," their mother said loudly.
"No!" Alex screamed.
"It's okay," Henry tells him now, his blonde head nodding sagely. "I can wait."
Alex is seven years old and therefore old enough to know that proposing marriage to boys he's just met at the playground is something only little kids do, but he does know Henry's going to be his best friend forever.
Henry only lives three blocks away from him, so Alex spends every waking moment either spending time with Henry at school, spending time with Henry at his house, spending time with Henry at Henry's house, or thinking about spending time with Henry.
His parents are pleased at how much of a good influence Henry is on him—Henry makes him read a new book every week so that they can discuss it together, and he's perfectly polite whenever he comes around for dinner. But they don't know that Henry also ropes him into pulling pranks on Philip and that Henry teaches him how to scale the side of his house and unlock his window so that Alex can sneak into his room whenever he wants to.
He doesn't do it all the time—Henry won't let him, because then their parents will get suspicious. But the first few times he does it, they play board games in hushed whispers and almost get caught when Henry lets out a yelp after Alex smugly slaps down a Draw Four card during a particularly intense round of Uno.
They've never gotten caught, though. Alex is just that stealthy.
Henry's mom writes books, which means that all over his house there are books with her name on them. Henry's dad, however, is an actor. Henry tells him that his dad does fancy movies, ones where they don't talk in English and where people watch them at festivals. Alex doesn't know why anybody would watch a movie at a festival when you could go on a roller coaster instead, but he's not one to judge.
"It's so cool that your dad is famous," Alex says when they're throwing a basketball at each other one afternoon.
Henry passes him the ball, frowning. "Isn't your dad the senator?"
"That's different," Alex argues, catching it with one hand. "My dad's famous here."
Henry nods slowly. "That makes sense."
There are months where Henry's dad is there every single day, and there are months where he's away for weeks at a time. Henry says he doesn't care, but Alex notices that he's always a little quieter whenever his dad isn't there.
Alex sneaks into his room more often on those days. Sometimes, they don't do anything but sit on Henry's bed and read. Alex feels like he should be doing more, but Henry smiles at him whenever he climbs through the window and never tells him to stop coming, so Alex likes to think he's helping.
Alex's favorite days are when Arthur comes back, because Henry's never looked happier than when Arthur bursts through the door bellowing, "My children!" before Henry, Bea, and Philip pile on top of him. Whenever Alex is there for his return, Arthur always squeezes him too, and smiles at him a certain way, as if to say, Thank you for taking care of our boy.
Alex always nods and beams at him right back, as if to tell him, I always will.
Alex is ten years old and thinks he might want to marry Maya Hernandez, but only because she has a Game Boy and lets him play it more than anybody else.
His friends tell him it's because Maya likes him but won't actually tell him how they know. "Y'know," they say, all smirks and elbows to his side. He doesn't, is the thing.
"I think she's just nice," Henry concludes, though he still looks disappointed when she giggles at his jokes. Alex doesn't know why; Henry always laughs at his jokes too.
Alex doesn't like Maya like that, but he's not opposed to marrying her. His parents tell him that people should at least like each other before they decide to get married—and since one of them does, Alex supposes that's good enough.
Alex's desire to marry Maya Hernandez is short-lived, though, lasting right up until he passes the Game Boy over to Henry for a turn and she adamantly refuses to let him. Henry says he doesn't care—he prefers his books anyway—but Alex is disgruntled.
How could he possibly marry somebody who doesn't prioritize Henry the way he does?
He doesn't think it would be hard to find somebody who does, but if he doesn't, Alex figures he just won't ever get married. It's an easy choice—if he has to choose between Henry and a random, faceless spouse he isn't even sure he'll love that much, Henry will always win.
Alex is thirteen years old and far too young to even think about getting married, but he thinks he would die if he doesn't get to kiss Sylvie Garfunkel.
Sylvie's a sophomore and the prettiest girl in school. She has long, shiny hair and a beauty mark on her left cheekbone, and all the boys are in love with her. But Alex hasn't missed the signs this time: Sylvie's always hanging around his locker before classes start and tucking her hair behind her ear when they're talking, and if that doesn't mean she has a crush on him too, he doesn't know what does.
That, and the fact that she said yes when he asked her to the dance, of course.
"What even is a corsage?" Alex complains when he flops onto Henry's bed after school.
Henry barely jostles at the movement, scribbling furiously in the margins of the novel he's reading. "A corsage is a small arrangement of flowers that girls wear on their wrists or their dresses at a dance," he says without missing a beat.
"What the hell, did you have that memorized?" Alex's eyes fix on the ceiling as he lets the scratch of Henry's pencil fill the comfortable silence. He chews on his lower lip, heart thudding in his chest. "Do you think she'll kiss me?" he asks quietly. There's nothing else on his mind these days. All he can think about is what it would be like to kiss someone, to be kissed, if he would be any good at it.
There's a pause on Henry's end. "She'd be crazy not to."
It isn't until two days before the dance that Alex finds out Henry isn't going. Nobody's asked him to be his date, and he doesn't feel like going alone.
"So ask someone!" Their lunch at the cafeteria actually looks good for the first time in forever, but Alex finds that he's lost his appetite.
"And risk being punched or shoved into a locker?" Henry scoffs. He doesn't seem to have any problem scarfing down his food, delicately stabbing a piece of lasagna and shoving it into his mouth.
"You know I won't let anything like that happen to you," Alex says stubbornly.
"Give it up, Alex," Henry simply says tiredly. "I'm not going. You can't do anything about it."
That's where Henry is wrong, though. Almost a decade of friendship, and he still doesn't know there isn't anything Alex won't do for him.
When he tells Sylvie he can't go to the dance with her, Sylvie is understandably upset, but Alex narrowly avoids getting a milkshake thrown on him when he promises to find her another date. He gets Jordan Faulkner to take her instead, and judging by the way she keeps looking up at him through her lashes, he doesn't think she's that bothered about it in the end.
When all of that's settled, Alex finds himself knocking on Henry's front door an hour before the dance is supposed to start, smoothing out the suit his mom helped rent for him and holding a bouquet of yellow daisies.
Arthur is the one who opens the door, raising a brow when he sees Alex. "He's not going," Arthur reminds him.
"He's going," Alex says firmly.
Arthur gives him another once-over before the corner of his mouth lifts. He opens the door wider for Alex to come in and calls out over his shoulder, "Henry, it's for you!"
"What—?" Henry says, skittering down the stairs. He stops dead on the last step when he sees Alex. "What are you doing here?"
"Why aren't you dressed?" Alex demands, putting his hands on his hips.
"I'm not going, remember?"
"You are. You're going."
"I'm not, but you're going to be late to pick up Sylvie."
"I'm not going with Sylvie."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Henry says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Sylvie's your date."
"You're my date."
"Don't be stupid, Alex." Henry frowns, standing in front of Alex now. "What happened to Sylvie?"
"I told her I couldn't go with her, and I found someone else to be her date."
Henry's silent for a while, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "But you like Sylvie," Henry says quietly.
"I like you more," Alex argues.
Henry's face crumples before he quickly fixes his expression, looking unconvinced.
"These are for you," Alex says, holding out the bouquet. "Would I be getting Sylvie your favorite flowers if I was going with her?"
A smile threatens to tug at Henry's lips. "Maybe, if you wanted her to know you were obsessed with me."
Alex beams. "Now you're getting it."
In the end, it had taken the combined efforts of Alex's puppy dog eyes, Catherine laying out his suit—because of course he already had a suit in his closet—Arthur insisting he'd regret it if he didn't go, Bea lovingly bullying him into it, and Philip practically yelling at him to go so that the house could be free of his moping—but they did it. When Henry steps into the gym at Alex's side, he's in a black suit, with matching yellow daisies clipped to their lapels.
Everyone's happy to see them, and Henry almost immediately gets pulled into a conversation about the new poem his class has just been assigned while a couple of Alex's lacrosse buddies grill him about what happened to Sylvie.
On the other side of the gym, Sylvie is giggling at something Jordan is saying, their heads bent low towards each other. Henry meets Alex's eyes every so often, cutting from him to them, but Alex surprisingly can't find himself caring that much about her, not when he keeps catching Henry mouthing along to an old 90s hit they're playing through the speakers and laughing when one of Alex's teammates makes a crude joke.
In another timeline, Henry's holed up in his room, probably starting a new novel he's going to spend the entire night finishing. In this one, he's at Alex's side, and Alex wouldn't have it any other way.
A slow love song starts to play. Alex watches as girls pull their unwilling dates onto the dance floor, each boy looking more unenthusiastic than the last.
"Let's dance," Alex says eagerly, pulling at Henry's arm.
Henry shakes his head, wary. "We really don't have to."
Alex looks at him meaningfully. "Come on."
Henry lets out a resigned sigh as he reluctantly lets himself be pulled to the dance floor. Alex drags him to a corner, not wanting to make him feel more anxious than he has to be. He clasps their hands together and places Henry's hand on his shoulder.
"And why are you leading?" Alex has to lean closer to hear Henry's murmur and uses the opportunity to wrap his arm around Henry's waist.
"I'm the one who dragged you here, aren't I?"
"Yes, but I'm taller," Henry says with a raised brow, clearly baiting him. Alex rolls his eyes.
"Tell you what," Alex says conspiratorially, "if you agree to dance to one more song with me, we'll switch."
Henry smiles at him. "Deal."
They sway on their corner of the dance floor as the song plays. Every so often, Alex will spin them around just to make Henry laugh and slap his shoulder in admonishment. The gym's shitty lighting doesn't look so shitty here, reflecting off of Henry's shiny hair and bouncing off his cheekbones.
He thinks about kissing Henry, of leaning forward and pressing his lips against his. It would be his first kiss, and the idea of it being with Henry is a surprisingly pleasant one. But he knows Henry is a romantic—he probably wouldn't appreciate his first kiss being with Alex of all people. Henry could get anybody he wanted, regardless of what he thought. Henry probably knows exactly what he wants his first kiss to be like. There's probably rain and fireworks and a sunset, like every single romance book come to life, and if Alex only had a day or two to prepare, he probably could've accomplished it too.
But Alex is just a boy in a rental suit, holding his best friend under cheap, multicolored streamers as a cheesy Top 40 hit plays through the speakers. Alex can't give him that, so he just tightens his hold on Henry's hand and gives him another spin.
Alex is fourteen years old and doesn't think he'll ever marry anybody.
Marriage is a social construct anyway. Why did people even get married? Didn't they know that the vows they were promising to each other were bound to be nothing but lies in a few years? Didn't they know that they could love each other so much to have children with them one day and then leave them without so much as a warning the next?
They were so in love. Weren't they? Were they ever?
Alex used to curl up in bed with a pillow over his head, praying that the screaming would just stop. He hadn't considered that the silence would be even worse.
Alex ignores his mom and barely talks to June. His dad doesn't even call.
He's never missed a day of school in his life, but he doesn't go to school for three days. He doesn't even leave his room, and nobody makes him. June leaves meals outside of his door, though, which he picks on uninterestedly, but the plate gets replaced at every meal time anyway.
On the third day, there's a knock on his door. Alex ignores it like he usually does, staring up at the ceiling with vacant eyes. The doorknob rattles for a second before it stops. There's a pause, then a scratching in the lock.
Alex frowns and raises his head. The scratching continues for a few moments before there's a click and the door swings open. Henry gets to his feet, delicately brushing off his knees, and steps into Alex's room, stopping by his bed.
Alex stares at him. Henry stares back.
"Did you just pick my lock?" Alex says incredulously, his voice hoarse from disuse.
Henry simply nods, then holds out his hand. "Come on."
Alex doesn't move. "Why aren't you in school?"
"Why aren't you?" Henry counters, but his tone is light. Henry wiggles his fingers.
Alex looks at his outstretched hand for a few moments. He takes it.
Henry doesn't let go the entire time it takes them to walk the three blocks to his house. Alex is glad for it; at this point, they're less holding hands than Alex is desperately gripping it, hoping Henry doesn't let go.
He doesn't, not even when Alex trips on the pavement or when they finally reach Henry's house. Alex is the one who releases it when Catherine steps out of the kitchen to greet them, his face flushing with embarrassment. But his hand feels startlingly empty, and he regrets it immediately, wishing he had kept holding on.
"I've got a quiche in the oven if you're hungry," Catherine says with a warm smile. "We're having a bit of a late lunch today; we'd love it if you could join us."
Though her tone is light, Alex knows Catherine well enough to know that it's less of an invitation and more of an order. Alex nods his head anyway. "Okay."
Catherine beams at him, and he gets the sense that if she were within range, she'd have pinched his cheeks.
Henry powers on Mario Kart in the living room while they wait. He lets Alex have Yoshi without complaint, which is the biggest indicator that this is all for his benefit, but Alex is too tired to argue. At the very least, Henry's competitive streak doesn't dim just because Alex is upset; he still sabotages Alex any chance he gets, trying to nudge and jostle the controller out of his grip.
When it's time for lunch, it's Arthur that comes to get them. "The quiche is calling your name, boys."
They sit around the table, chatting amiably. Every so often, they'll include Alex in the conversation too. They're thinking of catching a movie at the cinema this weekend; would Alex like to join? Arthur's coworker's dog just gave birth to the cutest puppies—if Alex could get a dog, what kind of dog would he want? Catherine's been trying to teach Henry how to make this quiche for months, but Alex is a pretty good cook, isn't he?
They don't ask why he's here, why neither he nor Henry is at school. Alex is sure they already know, but he doesn't know how—he hasn't even told Henry.
He's thankful for it regardless. He doesn't even know what he'd say if they asked.
After lunch, they migrate to the living room, where Arthur drags Henry over to the piano. They sit side by side, discussing in low, hushed tones as they shuffle through a folder of sheet music. Catherine sits down beside Alex and nudges his arm with hers. "You know you're always welcome here, right?" she asks softly.
"I know," he says, just as softly.
"Not just when Henry's here," Catherine reminds him.
Alex gives her a lopsided smile. "I'm not coming over for Philip, if that's what you're suggesting."
"I don't know why you wouldn't," Catherine says lightly. "He's a hoot."
At Alex's incredulous expression, she laughs, a twinkling thing. "What I mean is: we'll always be here for you. If you ever need to go somewhere, you can come here."
Alex looks at her for a moment, at the way her eyes crinkle in the corners exactly like Henry's do, and nods, his smile growing bashful. "I know."
"No," Henry says suddenly, and Arthur immediately launches into a jaunty, upbeat tune, shoulders bobbing up and down with the melody.
Henry groans as Arthur cajoles him into playing along, and Alex watches, delighted, as Henry does exactly that, a reluctant smile spreading across his face.
"Take over, my boy!" He swings a leg over the bench as Henry continues playing, barely missing a beat. Arthur crosses the living room and pulls Catherine to him by the hand, earning him a delighted yelp.
"Afternoons are for dancing!" Arthur exclaims, dipping her.
"You say that as if you don't dance all the time," Henry says over his shoulder.
"Every moment is a moment for dancing!" Catherine calls out, grinning.
They aren't wrong—Alex has been coming over for seven years now, and he could fill a book with the amount of times Arthur has spontaneously pulled Catherine into a dance. And it never fails to make Catherine break out into a smile, regardless of how happy or annoyed or stressed or angry she might be when she gets roped into one. They've danced to symphonies, rap music, the background noise of their video games—they've even danced to Bea and Philip's arguing once.
Alex still thinks marriages do nothing but crash and burn—how could he not, when the two people he was convinced would be together forever spent the last few years of theirs hurting each other?
It's not for him, and he doesn't think it would be fair for him to subject someone else to marriage with him, not when it's bound to end in disaster. But as he watches Arthur and Catherine as they spin around the living room, he thinks that maybe, maybe marriage wouldn't be so bad after all, if it was with the right person.
Alex is nineteen years old and still isn't completely sure if marriage is something he wants, but he can see himself marrying Nora, maybe.
She's the vice president of their college's Queer Students' Association, and they had met for the first time when Alex was lingering in the hall while waiting for Henry to finish a meeting.
It was getting harder for Alex and Henry to see each other, even while attending the same college—pre-law keeps him pretty busy, and Henry has enough on his plate trying to juggle his readings, book club, being a volunteer accompanist, and these association meetings, so they try to meet up whenever they can.
Henry and Pez had stepped out of the auditorium arguing about something or the other, and Alex had just been about to follow in their stead when he saw Nora slip out behind them, typing something on her phone.
Alex slowed. He let Henry and Pez head on in front of him—Henry would stop for him anyway once he realized Alex hadn't chimed in with his opinion yet—and fell into step beside her.
She had blinked at him owlishly. "Can I help you? Are you gay?"
"What? No."
She gave him a brief once-over, skeptical. "Okay."
"My name's Alex," he said, holding out a hand. She took it without hesitation, shaking it firmly. "I'm pre-law."
"Nora," she responded. "Computer science."
"Cool," Alex said, letting his mouth tilt in that way he knew girls were into. When Nora's eyes flickered to his mouth, he whooped internally. "I hope I'm not crossing any lines here, but I think you're gorgeous, and if you're single, I'd love to give you my number so we could go out for a coffee or something."
The corners of her mouth twitched. She glanced to the side, where Pez and Henry had stopped walking to watch their interaction. Alex couldn't make out Henry's expression—he hoped he wasn't violating some Don't-Date-A-Member-Of-My-Gay-Club code. "'Those your friends?"
"Yeah, Henry's my best friend," Alex said brightly, pointing at Henry. "He's doing English Literature, been my best friend my whole life—and that's his roommate Pez."
"They've been helping us a lot with the brunch we're planning next month. They're good guys." Nora gave him another assessing look. "Okay, Alex Pre-Law."
Alex's smile widened. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. You can give me your number."
Nora is whip smart and funny, and whenever she grins at him, Alex feels his cheeks heat. They can talk for hours on end about anything and everything—Alex thinks she's probably the only person who can outtalk him. They've only been dating for a couple of months, but it's the first time Alex has ever had fun with a girlfriend.
It's also the first time both Alex and Henry are dating someone at the same time.
Henry's seeing some guy in his brother's class, a tall chess player named Preston whose face is always screwed up like he's just swallowed a lemon. He's also adamant about Philip not knowing—about anyone knowing, really. The only reason Alex knows is because Henry is incapable of keeping anything from him. (And that Alex had caught him with a hickey and pestered him for three days straight into telling him.)
Their dates—if you can even call them that, which Alex patently does not—consist of Henry smuggling himself into his dorm and eating cold pasta on his twin bed.
"But it's really romantic," Henry assures him.
It doesn't sound romantic, and Alex has half a mind to tell him it doesn't even sound friendly, let alone like anything from the romance books he's so obsessed with. Hell, Alex is this close to barging into the guy's dorm and threatening him to kingdom come if he even thinks of treating Henry any less than what he deserves.
But it's Henry's first boyfriend, and Alex doesn't want to ruin it for him, even if privately, he thinks that Henry can do so, so much better.
Alex is twenty-one years old and knows for a fact that he's not marrying Nora, but he thinks maybe his sister will.
It's definitely too early to say—they've only been dating for four months, but Nora already looks so much happier than she ever did when she was with him, and June just generally seems more content with the world. His sister looking so visibly in love would be nauseating if he wasn't so happy for her.
Meanwhile, Henry's dating Elliott, a guy with floppy brown hair who he met at a bowling alley at the QSA's annual bowling competition. Apparently, he had been getting nothing but strikes until he spotted Henry a couple of lanes over, after which he kept, quite literally, going spare. It's a sickeningly sweet story, one that Elliott never tires of telling, if only because Henry flushes shyly every time he does.
Elliott is nice on paper, Alex supposes. He's studying philosophy. He gets Henry flowers. He reads all the same books Henry does, so half of their dates are them assigning books for the other to read, watching book-to-film adaptations, and discussing what the filmmakers had gotten wrong.
Elliott is... fine. After the human shit bucket that was Preston, Elliott is a fucking godsend. He actually treats Henry like a person, and Henry really likes him.
Alex should be happy for Henry. He is. Isn't he?
It doesn't explain the tightening in his chest, though, whenever Henry talks about dates they've just gone on. Or the way his jaw clenches whenever he overhears Henry talking on the phone with him. And it definitely doesn't explain the caveman instinct within him that growls Mine whenever he sees Henry with Elliott together.
It's probably because Alex isn't dating anyone himself. He hasn't been on a date in a while, after all—since Henry's first date with Elliott, as a matter of fact, but who's counting?
And if his eyes follow the curve of Elliott's arm as it wraps itself around Henry's waist, if they track the way Elliott's eyes drop to Henry's mouth every so often, if they stare just a little too hard when Henry presses a kiss to his cheek, then that maybe just means he really, really cares for Henry's happiness.
Alex is twenty-two years old and isn't thinking about marriage at all, because it's midnight on his birthday and Henry's kissing him within an inch of his life.
He doesn't exactly know how they got here. One second Alex is slipping out onto the balcony for some fresh air, and the next Henry is out here too, stepping into his space and murmuring, "I think it's time we both did something about this, don't you?" before kissing him.
The nerves in his brain are short-circuiting—he can't cobble a sentence together past what why fuck wow. What's left of his awareness, the only coherent part of him, has him leaning into the kiss, hand raised to grip Henry's sweater. That's what does it for him—all at once, he remembers that this is Henry, he's kissing Henry, and jerks himself away.
Henry's mouth is pink and wet, and someone makes a small sound like they've just been punched in the stomach, and it takes Alex longer than usual to realize it came from him. A white screen appears whenever Alex tries to form a coherent thought, his ears ringing with a buzzing, staticky sound that would usually drive him insane if it weren't currently keeping him rooted in reality. A reality in which Henry just kissed him. What the fuck.
His internal freakout is short-lived when Henry steps away from him. Alex still hasn't fully regained control of his motor functions, if the way he unconsciously leans into him is any indication.
Henry simply smiles and tucks an errant curl behind his ear.
"Happy birthday," Henry murmurs, before letting him go and slipping back inside.
Alex does nothing but stare at the empty spot Henry has just vacated. He stares until his fingertips go cold and his eyes start to burn. He stares until he hears the party die down, June yelling something incomprehensible that has everyone else groaning. He stares until the house is silent.
It's only then that Alex steps back into his room, legs remarkably steady, and crashes into his bed. He can't be bothered to change out of his clothes or even turn out the lights. His mind is racing a million miles a second, so he closes his eyes, trying to force himself to sleep, but the image of Henry's soft eyes and soft lips wishing him happy birthday plays beneath his eyelids on a loop, so it's only several hours later that he finally does.
The first person he tells is June, simply because she's the first person he sees the next morning, pouring her disgusting raisin cereal thing into a bowl. She doesn't exactly react the way he expects her to.
"Well, finally," she says, rolling her eyes.
Alex stares at her. "What?"
"I always thought you would be the one to actually kiss him, but I should've known you'd be too oblivious to do anything."
Alex wonders if he's still dreaming. Or drunk. He only had a beer last night, but you can get drunk by proxy, right? "Are you even hearing me? Henry kissed me. How do I—why did he—what the fuck?"
"Why?" June snorts. "Because he's been obsessed with you forever, maybe?"
"He's—what?"
"And you've been obsessed with him too."
"I haven't—" Alex stops, trying to think of a better word than obsessed to describe how he feels about Henry, but finds himself coming up short. Alex sputters instead. "But not like that!"
"Dude, you used to talk about marrying him all the time," June says incredulously.
"I was five," Alex hisses.
"And it continued till you were seven," June hisses right back.
"But that was—we were kids," Alex insists, floundering. "I don't—I'm not even gay."
June gives him a look. "You don't have to be gay to like Henry."
"I know that." Alex fists a hand in his hair, frustrated. "But I don't even know if I like—"
He stops himself. June's eyes soften. She grabs his mug—a lumpy red one Henry made for him during his pottery phase when he was ten—and fills it with coffee before sliding it over to him. Alex doesn't drink it right away, too lost in thought.
"I think you do," June says, not unkindly.
Alex does. If it were anybody else, Alex would've stepped up to them right away and demanded an explanation and another incredible, heart-stopping, life-changing, world-altering kiss. But it's Henry. And everything Alex thinks he knows blows up in a cloud of smoke.
How did Henry even do this? Fundamentally change the fabric of their relationship? Alex would be lying if he said he'd never considered the possibility of him and Henry together, but he had always squashed every thought down as quickly as they came—Henry has never given him any inclination that this was something he even wanted, after all. Has he?
Alex doesn't know how to do this—how to figure out if this is something he genuinely wants.
In the end, he doesn't have to. When Alex steps into Henry's bedroom that afternoon, prepared to pace a hole in Henry's carpet to get to the bottom of his feelings, it's Henry who stops his fidgeting by pressing gentle hands to his face.
"Do you want to kiss me?" Henry asks simply.
The answer that comes out of him is so immediate he doesn't even have the time to think about it. "Yes."
"Do you want to keep kissing me?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me to kiss anybody else?"
It's the easiest answer he's ever given. "No."
Henry smiles. "Then I think we're in agreement, don't you?"
Alex stares at him. After a long, long while, he nods, dumbfounded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, what the fuck."
Alex is twenty-four years old and is still very much unmarried, despite what his coworkers might think.
He's never once called Henry his husband, so he isn't entirely sure how word got around that he had one, but Alex hasn't exactly denied it.
The first time it happened, he had been incredulous. He was a few months away from turning twenty-three; what made anyone think he could have a husband? The second time, he figured they were just saying it as a joke. But then months went by, and everyone kept asking after his husband with a straight face, and Alex was forced to admit that he was, for better or for worse, married.
Alex mentally combed through every single conversation he had ever had with his coworkers where he'd mentioned Henry and slowly began to realize that he had never actually called Henry his boyfriend. His heart lodged in his throat when he remembered what had happened the very first time he mentioned Henry:
"You got a partner, Alex?" One of his coworkers had asked.
"Yeah, Celia." Alex nodded at the redhead he'd been partnered with. His eyes went wide. "I mean—law partner. Not real—I have a partner in real life. Named Henry. Not—yeah."
Another one of his colleagues grinned at him, eyes twinkling. "We did mean law partner. But good to know."
It didn't matter that he wasn't wearing a ring, or had no framed wedding pictures displayed at his cubicle, or never, ever called Henry his husband. Henry simply was, and Alex found that he didn't mind it. In fact, he actually really, really liked it.
At least, until Pez came by his office one day and overheard it.
The non-profit he was working at had sent him to Alex's law firm to ask for legal advice, and while he was waiting around for Alex's boss to wrap up her meeting, he sat by Alex's cubicle, impulsively sorting Alex's papers in neat piles. They had been chatting in low tones when one of Alex's coworkers, a man with a full head of gray hair but who couldn't be Alex's senior of more than a few years, popped his head over Alex's cubicle wall.
"Alex," he said with an arched brow, "you made a new friend?"
"I've actually been following him from the Dunkin' Donuts three blocks away," Pez answered primly.
Alex rolled his eyes. "Daniel, Pez. Pez, Daniel. Pez is one of my best friends. He was Henry's roommate back in college."
"No shit!" Daniel said, his eyes lighting up. "Your hubby's old college roommate?"
Pez straightened up as though he had just been electrocuted. His wild eyes slid over to Alex's horrified ones, his lips curving into the beginnings of a maniacal smile. "Your hub—"
"Yep, shared a dorm and everything, before we even started dating too," Alex interrupted, the panic coming off of him in waves.
"So, were you Henry's best man or Alex's?" Daniel asked, oblivious as fucking anything.
Pez opened his mouth, looking way too delighted to answer to Alex's liking, but was immediately interrupted by Daniel's phone ringing.
He gave them an apologetic smile. "Sorry, boys. Hey, it was great to meet you, Pez. I hope I get to see you around sometime."
"See you," Pez echoed as he walked away. As soon as he was out of earshot, he turned to face Alex, his grin growing bigger and bigger like something out of a horror movie.
"Don't tell Henry," Alex begged.
Pez shot him an imploring look. "Alexander. How can you drop something so delicious into my lap and expect me not to share it with the class?"
"I don't want to freak him out, please."
Pez arched a brow. "If you don't think that man doesn't already have baby names picked out, you're more hopeless than I thought."
Alex heard baby names and almost slid out of his chair. "I—what?"
"Wait, so does everyone here think Henry's your husband?" Pez started to look around in delight.
"Henry wants to marry me?"
Pez stopped to look at him. "Does the earth not move around the sun? Is Ayo Edebiri not a national treasure? Am I not the most devilishly handsome man in just about every room I walk into? Of course he does."
Alex slumped back into his chair, his head reeling.
Pez looked at him carefully. "Don't you?"
Alex's head jerked up towards him. "Well, duh."
"Duh," Pez echoed, the corners of his lips tugging up. He reached forward to slap Alex's cheek lightly. "You're lucky you're adorable."
Alex is twenty-five years old and walks into Arthur's office with clammy hands and his stomach filled with lead.
He isn't sure why he's so nervous—he knows Arthur loves him; he's told anybody that would listen that Alex is like a son to him. But maybe Arthur doesn't really see him marrying Henry. Maybe he thinks Henry could do better. Maybe he still hasn't gotten over that time Alex threw up on his suede jacket when he was seven.
Arthur envelops him in a tight hug when he meets him in the den. "Alex, my boy," he exclaims, thumping him on the back. After he lets go, he flops down onto the couch with a boyish grin. "What brings you to my humble abode? Come now, sit down." Arthur pats the seat next to him.
Alex fidgets for a second before sitting down haltingly on the worn leather. He fiddles with the strings of his hoodie. Why is it so hot in here? "I wanted to ask you something."
"Ask away."
"You see..." Alex hesitates. God, he's boiling. "I..." The hoodie now feels too constrictive, choking him, so he rips it off desperately and inelegantly, the sleeves getting stuck at his wrists. When he finally gets it off, he's breathing heavily, and Arthur raises an amused brow at the spots of sweat sticking his shirt to his skin.
In the end, he's so frustrated he just slips the ring box out of his pocket and flips open the lid. He shows it to Arthur wordlessly.
Arthur's eyes gleam at him. "I'm afraid I'm a little too old for you, Alex."
Alex lets out a loud groan and flops back onto the arm of the couch, simultaneously relieved and annoyed.
"Alright, alright, I'll be serious," Arthur says, chuckling as he pulls Alex back up by the arm. "It's gorgeous. He'll love it. Is that why you wanted to see me? To get my opinion on if he'd like it?"
Alex gives him a weak glare. "I'm asking for your blessing," he grumbles.
"My blessing for what?" Arthur's tone is incredulous, but his gaze is tender.
"You know what."
Arthur pulls him to his side. "I really don't. Because if you're asking me for my blessing to marry Henry, then that means you didn't know that I had already given it back when my son came home from kindergarten asking if his new friend Alex can marry him."
"I was five," Alex protests feebly.
"You've wanted to marry him since, haven't you?"
Arthur's gaze is unflinching, and Alex is helpless to do anything but nod.
"You've always had my blessing, Alex," he continued, grasping the side of his face. "You've always been my son."
Alex is twenty-six years old and marrying Henry tomorrow.
They're doing the traditional thing of sleeping in different rooms. Both of them had agreed it was a stupid tradition, but since Alex's family is religious and Henry's entire family is made up of romantics, they were heavily outnumbered. They've even put them in separate houses to make absolutely certain that they won't sneak into each other's rooms.
Alex tries to look at the bright side: there is something romantic about not seeing each other until they're at the altar. It's the last night they'll ever be apart—he doesn't ever have to be away from him ever again, not if he has any say in it. They would be able to mark it on the calendar, say this was the last time we were ever not together.
But at half past midnight, Alex is still wide awake, and he's already forgotten what was romantic about any of this. He doesn't know how to sleep without Henry beside him, for one thing. He's sure that if he turned this way and that for long enough, he'll fall into a restless sleep at one point, but goddammit, he doesn't want to.
Which is how Alex finds himself hidden in the bushes outside Henry's window for the first time in a decade. Climbing up the side of his house is more difficult than he remembers it being when he was a kid, and he almost loses his grip and falls to his ass twice, but he makes it to Henry's window anyway. He cranks the window open with a soft grunt and climbs in, careful to avoid the bookcase and Henry's pointy baseball trophy by muscle memory.
When Alex has steadied himself, he looks up to see Henry sitting upright in his bed, hair mussed and eyes bright in the warm glow of his bedside lamp.
"You leave your window unlocked often?"
"Just in case future husbands want to climb in."
And when Catherine wakes him the next morning, swatting her fan against his arm, tutting at how she knew they should've locked that bloody window, Alex blinks awake at Henry's side with a bleary smile and thinks, worth it.
Alex is forty-six years old and has been married to Henry for twenty years, and at least once a day in the past twenty years, he gets hit with the bone-deep knowledge that if he could marry Henry again, he would.
On their bookshelves, alongside battered paperbacks and a box set of C.S. Lewis novels, sit books with Henry's name along the spine. There's always a fresh bouquet of yellow daisies in a vase on the living room table.
They take each other out on dates, and Alex still delights in leaving him hickeys in places other people can see. They have a beagle that Henry names and a cat that their daughter does. They adopt a son when she turns four and move into a house in the suburbs that has a garden and a yard and a Henry-sized bay window. Henry has finally mastered his mother's quiche, which he makes whenever one of them falls sick. Alex pulls Henry into a dance as often as he can, much to their children's consternation.
When their eldest turns sixteen, she tells anyone who'll listen that she'll never get married, because she doesn't want anybody telling her what to do, and a stupid husband is only going to mess up her life.
Though Alex and Henry are all for it—Alex himself is dreading the day any of his kids decide to get married and decides it's too early to even think about it—Alex sees the way she talks to the boy living next door. He sees the way she crosses her arms and bosses him around and the way the boy lets her, smiling like there's nothing else he'd rather do, and Alex bites his tongue and says nothing.
He'll let her figure it out.