Chapter Text
The sound of an incoming call woke him, his mother’s name lighting up the screen.
“Mom?” Alex yawned when he answered.
“Can I ask where you are?” her southern accent was thicker, as it always was when she was mad.
“Mom, it’s midnight. Where else would I be but in my bed, asleep?” technically, it wasn’t even a lie, he was in a bed. He just didn’t specify which of the two he owned.
“And where were you all day?”
“Home. Busy.”
Again, not a lie. He and Henry had gone at it for quite a while. Stopping only long enough for Henry to call his sister and reassure her he was safe, and for them to sleep, eat, and then go right back to each other. Alex loved make-up sex.
“Is something wrong? I had a long day and I’d really like to go back to sleep…”
“What exactly were you doing?” his father’s voice asked next.
Alex blinked, suddenly more awake. “Dad? What are you…?”
“Emergency family meeting,” Leo replied, joining the conversation. “So? You gonna tell us what you did today or not?”
“I already told Mom. I was really busy. Working. At home.”
“Interesting,” Ellen took over the phone again. “Because a deranged old lady showed up yelling at me that — and I quote — ‘my deviant son paid to have her grandson kidnapped’. Her grandson who was supposed to get married. In a church.”
Alex sighed. Well, Henry’s grandmother was fast for an old hag.
“You got anything to say for yourself, Diaz?”
“I didn’t pay anyone to kidnap somebody’s grandson,” neither of his parents said a word. “I kidnapped him myself.”
“Alexander Gabriel!”
“Are you out of your mind, Claremont?!”
“I knew it!”
Alex winced as three different voices yelled at him. He quietly slipped out of bed to avoid waking Henry. Suddenly he wished he had lied and dealt with this in the morning, preferably after a cup of coffee.
“Mom, Dad, Leo, can we talk later? It’s midnight and I’m tired…”
“Of course, one gets very tired after committing a kidnapping.”
“It’s not kidnapping if Henry agreed to come with me.”
Once again, silence fell on his parents’ end and Alex used the opportunity to end the call. He wanted to get back in bed with Henry and fall asleep beside him. He wanted Henry’s face to be the first thing he saw when he woke up again.
“Look, I know what I did wasn’t right,” he stifled another yawn, the situation hadn’t robbed him of sleep at all. “But Henry and I… he’s it for me, okay? We’re on the same page.”
“Are you?” Oscar asked, his tone serious.
Alex opened his mouth to answer, but another voice — one he’d recognise anywhere — interrupted him.
“We are,” Henry wrapped his arms around him from behind, pressing Alex’s back to his chest and resting his chin on his shoulder. The noise must have woken him, Alex needed to learn not to answer calls on speaker. “Mr. and Mrs. Claremont, Mr. Diaz, I apologise for anything rude my Gran may have said to you and for any inconvenience this situation may have caused. I assure you the love Alex and I share is real, and I’m prepared to fight for it. I promise I will fix all of this, please don’t worry about anything.”
Alex sighed, utterly charmed by how decisive Henry sounded. He had never felt Henry so sure about them as he did in that moment.
“Apologizing to us as if Alex didn’t literally kidnap him from a church,” Leo muttered.
“Hearing him now, I can’t say I’m surprised they’re in love,” Oscar agreed.
Alex cleared his throat when he didn’t hear anything from his mother.
“Mom?”
“There are still… many things to discuss. A lot of things to explain,” Ellen said, her voice calmer now. “Starting with the fact that you were seeing someone and we didn’t know, followed by the part where that someone was engaged, and finishing with you kidnapping that someone.”
Alex bit his lip. “You don’t care that Henry… you don’t care that he’s a man?”
“God, no. I’m just worried my son is a homewrecker,” her tone sounded almost offended.
“No home to wreck here,” Henry assured her.
“Get in touch with your family, Henry, let them know you’re safe so they can stop worrying,” Ellen advised. “Then go to sleep. You two have a lot to sort out, but you’re not alone. You have us, all of us.”
Alex and Henry said their goodbyes, and soon the call ended. Neither spoke for a moment, the sound of the nighttime forest filling the comfortable silence between them.
“Do you think… do you think they’ll like me?” Henry asked, his voice small, uncertain.
“Are you kidding? They’re gonna love you!” Alex grabbed his hand. “My mom’s gonna obsess over you the same way June and Nora do. Leo loves reading the same novels you do, and my dad’s a total history nerd. Of course they’ll like you, Hen.”
Henry nodded, though he still didn’t look entirely convinced. “Let’s hope they forget the tiny detail of my engagement.”
Alex waved it off. “They’ll forget as soon as they remember I kidnapped you.”
Henry snorted, and Alex smiled, glad to coax a laugh out of him. But the good mood faltered when Alex dared to ask Henry the same question.
“And do you think your family will like me?”
Henry shook his head and Alex felt his heart drop straight to the floor. Henry noticed immediately and tightened his grip on their intertwined hands.
“Listen, my dear, my Gran is never going to like you… but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t even like me.”
“Crazy lady.”
Henry didn’t correct him. “My mother, on the other hand, will adore you the moment I tell her how much I love you. She’ll be obsessed with you, and Bea and Pez even more so. Philip, however…”
“He’s Philip, you’ve told me about him,” Henry nodded.
“You don’t have to worry about them. You don’t have to worry about anything,” he said, kissing Alex’s knuckles. “Now let’s go back to sleep. We have to go back to the city later and fix this whole mess.”
“Our mess.”
“Our mess,” Henry agreed. “Let’s hope Amelia’s family isn’t too offended that the poor girl didn’t get married.”
Alex actually scoffed. “They should be offended that your grandmother tried to marry her off to a gay man.”
“They don’t know I’m gay, though she wouldn’t be the first person to do it. And she definitely won’t be the last,” they both knew it, that was how the world Henry came from worked. “Either way, I have to talk to her. Tell her the truth – I’ll skip the part where we were together during the entire engagement – and apologise.”
“I wouldn’t skip anything.”
Henry pressed a kiss between Alex’s eye and nose.
“She doesn’t deserve for me to humiliate her more than I already did by not jumping out of a moving car,” Alex shrugged, unbothered. “I’ll tell her you’re my ex, the one I broke up with to get engaged to her.”
“You’re supposed to apologise for almost marrying her, not boost her ego,” Alex snapped as Henry guided them back to the bed.
“My love, I don’t think anyone’s ego skyrockets after being dumped for you.”
Alex rolled his eyes and curled up with Henry under the blankets. Moonlight bathed the room, giving it a fairy-tale glow.
‘This is what it feels like when it comes to Alex,’ Henry thought, burying his nose in his boyfriend’s curls.
This was how it should always feel.