Chapter Text
Henry’s totally given up on the whole Alex-thing. It also almost convinced him it has no use talking to the visitors, but as the Christmas craziness slowly reaches town, and more and more of the old faces come back for a chat, he feels alive again, and less heartbroken. What is there to grieve, really? Just a kiss and some good talks?
But what a good kiss was that, though, he sometimes thinks before he goes to sleep, and makes dinner, and takes out David to pee.
“What’s weighin’ on your mind, boy?” Eustace asks just a week after Alex managed to lose himself within the walls of their cemetery. So Henry tells the old man about his adventure of rescuing this amazingly gorgeous, annoying asshole, and all Eustace has got to say after hearing the story is, “Sure, he’s lost… but you ain’t found yourself none either. How’s that book of poems or whatevr’ comin’?”
And this makes Henry think. He hasn’t written anything usable in at least a year, not for lack of trying. The best poems he wrote are the ones he wrote consoling Alex – or because he was mad at him. What does this mean then?
But it’s December now –one of the, if not the most magical months of the year, and he still loves this job, and loves the people who come by these times, so he decides this question is a 2026 Henry-problem.
He can’t help but look at apartments, though. And jobs. Jobs that are challenging, more so than writing poems for the dead and taking care of a little garden. He can’t blame himself, really – he read through the poems and other books he had on his reading list, and the temptation of a new, different life seems irresistible now. And he can’t help but see himself at a little apartment with someone he loves so much, that is much shaped like Alex, more than he would like to admit.
He turns off the computer. No more looking. It’s just a burst of motivation, a burst of flame that’ll eventually die out. He needs to focus on what he came here for in the first place: the book. David stares at him judgingly from the couch.
“Yeah, I know, buddy. We have it too good here, don’t we?”
He takes the direction to the kitchen to find a pack of Cornettos he hopefully hasn’t consumed, very convenient at half past ten on a Monday night, when his phone dings.
Alex: hey. sorry for disappearing. do you wanna meet up @ the last porch
He makes sure not to answer too quick.
Henry: Yes.
And it takes him all the willpower he has to add, I would love to see you.
***
It’s just shy of 5pm on the 24th of December. Henry will be off from work in just a matter of minutes: he closes the gates earlier to the recommendation of Eustace’s.
“Let’s shut it down early. I can see you’re itchin’ to be done.”
Henry smiled at the old man with gratitude. They were both sitting in front of Henry’s residence on their designated bench, waiting for the shift to be done. Henry was already half-ready in the bathroom in his mind. “If you say so, old man! Thank you.”
“Lord knows we earned a rest — it’s been one hell of a year,” said Eustace, taking the route to the changing rooms. “Merry Christmas. Don’t spend it dyin’, makes extra work for me.”
So Henry takes the opportunity and goes over his drawer of clothes in a panic, realising he practically has nothing to wear – it’s the byproduct of having to go down only to the store and the bookshops. God, it’s embarrassing, but he wants to look as nice as possible. Not that it matters. Alex is… he’s just one of them lost souls, isn’t he?
In the end, Henry decides on a simple blue button up shirt with black jeans, the only thing he owns that isn’t trousers or some of its kind of pants. It’s well after dark, only the faint, old streetlamps leading his way to the outskirts of town. Snow quietly starts falling. Henry exhales: his breath colors the air white, a puff of smoke, and he immediately feels the taste of cigarettes against his lips, but no, he can’t think of Alex kissing him just before they meet. Highly unprofessional, as he once said. And he already knows what Alex wants to say: a general apology, telling him he’s been miserable and not paying attention to anyone, including him, business as usual with the mourning. And it’s alright it’s just that. People usually just knock on his door to tell this, but again, most people haven’t slept on his couch, wore his clothes, hell, most of them haven’t even met David, for the dog sleeps all day.
The snowfall, unlike Texas weather, gets heavier as he gets to The Last Porch, the town restaurant near the cemetery, famous for “not sucking as bad as it should,” right on time. And Alex is not there.
Henry stands there for a bit – five or ten minutes? – before he decides to turn back on his way. Taking the third or the fourth step, a warm hand reaches for his hand.
“Henry, why haven’t you come in?”
The touch is electric, and Henry knows too well who’s holding his hand now, not letting go. He turns his way.
Alex is wearing a black trench coat, no hat to cover his head from the cold. Snowflakes are settling in his dark dark hair, and Henry can’t help but reach up to clean it for him. “I thought you changed your mind,” he answers softly, not looking into Alex’s eyes, still staring at the snowflakes that are piling up on his hair again.
“Wouldn’t for the world. Come in then? Please?”
Henry nods.
The restaurant is probably in its worst shape ever. Only a few tables are lit with electric candles, most of them don’t even have cutlery, and the smell of used vegetable oil fills the place. Alex leads the way to a table – the only table with a vase on it, a bouquet of white tulips. He gestures, “Let’s order something. You hungry?”
“I could eat,” Henry says and sits down so he can still see the growing layer of snow covering the streets. Alex waves to the waiter, and asks for two menus.
“Oh, hey there, Hen!” she cheers when she sees him. It’s Lorrie. “Didn’t know you were waiting on him,” she says as she turns to Alex, and Henry could swear he sees him go pink, but that might be just the lack of lighting.
“Yeah… we have some things to talk through.”
“Well look at you, you never come out! Good to see ya here. Y’all just holler when you’ve got an order in mind – I’ll be right back in the kitchen.”
Alex takes the menus from Lorrie, and hands one to Henry. There’s not much to choose from – most of the things are either crossed off, or sound straight up sketchy. Alex looks up from the menu. “What about we have something to drink instead?”
Henry lets himself smile a little. “Sounds good.”
Alex slams the menu on the table, like this was the cue he was waiting for.
“Hey, Lorrie, can you get us your best bottle of wine?”
“You sure ‘bout that? Pickin’ the best one’s a mighty tall order.”
“I am sure. He deserves the best,” Alex says, winking at Henry, and Henry prays this time the lighting is on his side.
“Damn right he does – comin’ right up!”
And there they sit, in silence, Henry adamant he won’t open this conversation, and Alex probably lost in his thoughts. This was a mistake, Henry thinks, he never should have agreed to meet up with him in the first place. But then the wine arrives, Alex takes a glass, and pours some to Henry, then to himself, and downs the whole thing in one.
“Now I have the courage to talk. Though I definitely won’t be telling the alcohol part to the support group. Or to my shrink.”
“You have a what now?” Henry’s eyes go wide.
“Yes, I know. I have both. I’ve asked for help. This is what I wanted to tell you. You don’t have to look out for my sorry ass anymore and save me from the ghosts in the graveyard,” Alex says, bitterly laughing at himself. “I know I was – I am a mess. And I am sorry for putting you in such situations.”
Now, the alcohol was a good idea. Henry takes a sip. It’s sweet, and you can practically taste the barrel it was stored in, damp and stuffy. Truly a terrible wine, matching a terrible place like The Last Porch.
“I’m happy you got help,” Henry says at last. “Truly. Once cannot do this alone, but you have so many people who would put their hands in fire for you, Alex.”
“I know,” Alex nods. “Do you have anyone like that, though? Whom are you spending Christmas with?”
Henry downs the rest of the glass. Damn. He wasn’t ready to talk about himself in this conversation. “Just the usual,” he says, trying to sound casual. “Alone. Will probably have a conference call with my sister and my mom. Someone has to feed the strays y’know.”
Alex doesn’t look at him. Well, here it is. Whenever Henry tries to share himself with someone, they don’t know how to react – and it is not their fault, not at all. Henry just has plenty of package. But that’s alright.
“You remember what I asked last time we spoke?”
“I don’t?”
“If I could read one of your poems some day.”
Oh.
Oh.
“I was tired,” lies Henry. He’d never been more alive than then and there getting Alex out of trouble. He’d be willing to do that for the rest of his life.
“Anyway,” Alex continues, “I got this idea. That I would write a poem. And then, maybe, I could read it out to you? Because I found this poem at mom’s… grave. And it helped me a ton. White tiles of suffering.”
“I am glad it helped,” says Henry in a monotone voice, after all, this is the designated answer. What else is he supposed to say?
Alex looks at him concerned, but goes on. “I will read what I wrote now. If you don’t mind. But first, more drink?”
“Sure.”
And Alex pours for both of them. Then reads.
Light blue afternoons, the watermelon’s smell,
I hate you accusing me of not remembering you well
Should I be watering your garden, or bake a stray of bagel?
Or you want something greater?
I’ll whisper you a prayer
I might have been rambunctious, -- don’t be angry at me, Mom,
I keep sitting at your grave wishing you weren’t gone
I don’t know where I stand,
The heavy takes my hand,
You’re lying way below while I still walk this land
You asked me to be stronger,
But I can’t hold on any longer,
I need arms to fall into when life is getting harder
Will the grief ever pass? do I even feel it?
Or is it something that cannot be forfeited?
The other weekend I finally washed your favorite sweater,
I’m not giving up on you. I just don’t want to remember.
Alex looks up from his phone. Henry’s staring off into the distance, but says, “Well done. I don’t think I could have said it better. But what does this have to do with me?”
Alex sighs and takes a sip from the wine.
“Well, what I wanted to say, that even though I am sorry for being an ass and saying all that I have said to you, and how I acted, especially with Lorrie, I think I am right in one thing: you are wasting yourself here. And I just wanted you to know that your poems could have the potential to heal the crowds. From the lonely to the wounded to the suicidal, and give a warning to those who haven’t suffered an ounce. Is that, if you did write White tiles of suffering. Which I know for a fact you must have.”
Henry just sits there, and stares at the piling snow. The streetlamp’s orange light reflects back from the snow and bounces inside the restaurant, painting the tables and the cutlery to a faint orange. And Henry doesn’t say a thing. He can’t.
But Alex waits for him. As long as he needs to.
All the thoughts are racing in Henry’s head: he can’t let himself fall for this man, he surely can’t, he just started his grieving journey, and yes, it’s always an honour to be part of one, but he’d got so much part of this one that it became personal to him, and no, he can’t do this again. And yes, he knows, he knows Alex is right, this situation is exactly the showcase of why he needs to leave this job as soon as possible. He needs more connections. And he needs them to not be grievers. He needs life.
When he first arrived here, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be alive himself. But as the seasons came and went, as he got familiar with the weather, the schedules of the gravediggers, the priest, the mourners, the teens painting the walls, he grew fond of staying alive.
The revelation hits.
He can’t write new poems if he’s stuck in old places.
“I know I am,” he says finally. “Working on a solution. But this is about you and your healing.”
“No,” Alex shakes his head. “This is about something else entirely.”
They lock gazes. Alex reaches for Henry’s hand, but he flinches away.
“No,” he says, stern. “I am not –”
“I know.” Alex stands up. He leaves a banknote on the table for Lorrie. “You wouldn’t have been.”
And just like that, he leaves.
Henry exhales.
It wouldn’t have been convenient. What would they have been to each other? All unclear and hazy territory he shouldn’t explore, no matter how much he wanted to. It’s all in the past now, isn’t it? And this way, well, he can look for an apartment in any city if he decides to accept another job. Something that pays better and is challenging, and all the bullshit he’d been deceiving himself.
Is this what he wanted? No.
But is this what he needed?
“Hey… why did he leave, if you don’t mind me askin’?” Lorrie walks in. He didn’t even notice her coming in to collect the money.
“I don’t know,” says Henry, his voice cracking. “People tend to do that.”
“No, sugar, they don’t tend to do that…” she objects, the sweet Texan drawl rolling down her lips, the one Henry’s grown to love so much. “Only if you let ‘em, and that’s somethin’ you got to mind.”
Shit. Isn’t she right?
For once, it’s not Henry saying the consoling words that open up an eye.
He runs out the restaurant, hoping he finds Alex somewhere, but then remembers – he must have driven away. Lorrie yells after him, “Just so you know, he brought you those flowers! Make sure you take ‘em!”
So he bolts back, for a second, the vase breaks, but he doesn’t care. He runs outside: it’s not snow falling anymore, but cold, winter rain, that sticks to every car window and road, and oh my god, did he get going in such weather? Henry looks around. No sight of Alex.
The snow under his feet is turning into slush, tinted brown with the dirt of the road. He must be gone. That’s it. The dream comes to his mind: even his dad said it would be okay. Why wouldn’t, why didn’t he listen?
Then he sees him.
To be exact, he smells the cigarette. Then spots the car. And there he is, leaning back to it.
“No, Nora, I am an idiot. He told me he would never be with a griever. He spits the word like it burns his tongue or something,” he sniffs. “I have no idea what to do now… Yeah, good idea, look for a hotel. Sure they’ll have space for me on fucking Christmas Eve. No, my plan… no, my plan was, no… June! No, you’re right, I didn’t have a plan. But can you please come pick me up? I swear I will make it up to you.”
Henry can’t listen to this anymore. He runs to Alex, almost slips on the slush, and closes up to him, his hands automatically resting on the nape of his neck.
“Be my fling,” he says hastily, “be my griever, be my whatever, Alex. I want all the bad and all the good. I am sorry I’ve been closed off. And now I will kiss you.”
And he does.
The phone slips from Alex’s hand, instinctively getting in Henry’s hair, but god, he’s kissing him back, and nothing had ever tasted as sweet, no Keats, Poe, Blake, T. S. Elliot, carrots, parsley, lettuce or spinach he made himself, or Earl Gray, than the taste of cigarette against Henry's mouth, and something that is very much so Alex. Henry slides his hand down to Alex’s waist and this is the moment Alex decides to flip him against the car.
“Alex?” shouts a woman’s voice from the phone. “Are you here? Is something happening?”
Alex laughs into the kiss. “Just the best possible thing,” he whispers, and continues kissing Henry. And it’s still not huge fireworks and all that one reads in a romance novel, but it’s also everything. Natural and a game and makes all the nerves tingle in Henry’s body.
“God, I could so fall in love with you.”
“Please, do, if you haven’t already.”
“Maybe I am,” and Henry is kissing Alex again. He needs him like water, my god.
“Hey? Helloooo? Is someone there?”
Alex laughs and breaks the kiss. “Sorry,” he says apologetically. “I hate it, but I have to answer my sister and my best friend.”
“Wow, the whole council present?”
“You’re the case of my life.”
Alex kneels down to find his phone, and as he does, he speaks directly to Henry, not even to his sister. “Hey, June, hey, Nora. I think the question’s solved.”
Henry hears shrieking through the phone, but he also can’t not pay attention to the fact how good Alex looks kneeling in front of him. His thoughts are getting the worst of him.
“Yes… No. I will call you tomorrow, okay? Sleep tight, Bug!” He stands up. “Where were we?”
“Why didn’t you go?” asks Henry bluntly. And Alex snickers.
“We drank a bottle of terrible wine, baby. I can’t drive back to the city now, can I?”
“You surely can’t,” nods Henry in agreement. “But my couch…”
“Yeah, your couch,” Alex continues. “It’s quite…”
“Uncomfortable?”
“Horrendously.”
“Hm, well. There is a bed up the gallery. But it has a problem.”
Alex is resting his forehead against Henry’s now. He whispers, “Does it?”
“Yeah,” Henry bites his lips. “It has a very bitter cemetery clerk in it who’s been terribly alone and yearning. And he’s wasting his talent by writing poems for the grievers.”
Alexs pecks him on the lips. “I think that part is not the waste. I quite liked all seven of your poems.”
“I only planted six,” Henry says. “You found a fourth?”
“I trim my dreams like men their beards,” Alex cites. Henry can’t take it and shuts him up with a kiss. “That’s such a bad poem.”
“It was funny. I liked it,” Alex admits. “I like most things about you.”
“Most?”
“I don’t like you live in a cemetery in the middle of nowhere.”
Henry sighs and reaches for Alex’s hand. “Let’s take a walk to mine?”
It’s still raining as they are walking past The Last Porch, hand in hand. Lorrie sees them from the window and waves. They wave back, and Henry squeezes Alex’s hand.
“I’ve apologized to her too, by the way,” Alex says nonchalantly.
“She told me you brought these yourself.” Henry lifts the crumpled bouquet of flowers still in his hand. “Thank you.”
“God, I want to kiss you again,” he admits, licking his lips. Henry smiles, but he knows better. It’s gonna get real cold real soon.
“We have to get going.”
“Right.”
“And I want to talk now. You can kiss me all later. Especially if we’re gonna live in the same city.”
Alex turns to Henry. “What now?”
“I’m thinking of quitting. I love this place, don’t misunderstand me, but I need change. To be able to write again. And you are change. And I want you. And maybe I want a different job in a city, and an apartment close to you. I have to be brave sometimes and not let people get away when they actually show up.”
Henry is suddenly spun in front of Alex, and he’s kissing him again. He smiles. “I would love that. I would love that very much.”
People want easily digestible things: while that may be true, it doesn’t mean some of us don’t crave depth. All that seems bright and light might be it for someone, but for Henry and Alex that’s definitely not the case. Wanting the bad as well as the good, the sad as well and the happy, the drama as well as the peace – it makes it all human. And while it is true that death is the most visited subject of disaster tourism, love can be a spectacle just as, if not