Chapter Text
It’s the angriest Alex has seen Henry in a while. Possibly since the principal's office with Himari and that hadn’t been directed at him.
Henry paces, the bridge of his nose pinched tight between finger and thumb as he makes an attempt at slow breathing. Alex tries not to interrupt. He watches Henry from his place on the sofa, eyeing him like a semi-feral dog who may still bite if provoked. Alex can tell Henry is trying not to react, to take a moment to do the deep breathing his therapist has suggested.
It doesn’t look like it's doing much in the moment.
“Henry -”
“Don’t.”
Alex snaps his mouth shut.
“I am trying really hard not to - to -” Henry struggles to find the word and Alex supplies it in his head.
Attack.
Henry’s been doing better, working on that instinct to bare his teeth and bite in an effort to protect his most vulnerable scars. Alex can see the tension rolling off him in waves, the tightness of his neck so taught it might snap.
“Do you want space?” Alex asks quietly. If that’s what Henry needs then he can give it to him. He might go and have a cry to himself in the park like the mature adult he is, but he’d do it. “I can go back out… If you want?”
“I - Christ, Alex!” Henry lets go of his nose, only to run a savage hand through his hair instead. “No, just - fuck. I’m trying really hard not to do that thing where I - but it’s not - fuck. You come in here with a prenup and expect me just to nod and sign on the dotted line? Are you crazy? Do you really not think we’re going to last? Shall we change the vows? Get rid of ‘until death’ and add in ‘until we get bored’?”
That? That hurt. Henry doesn’t mean it. Alex knows he doesn’t but it still hurts.
“I wouldn’t have proposed if I didn’t think this was forever,” Alex says around a lump in his throat.
“Then why come home brandishing some contract about our apparent impending divorce?” Henry threw the papers savagely on the coffee table.
“That’s not - Henry I asked you! I got down on one knee in front of you and, more importantly, Elody. Do you think I’d mess with her emotions like that?” Alex tries his best to keep his voice level and mostly manages. The mention of Elody seems to snap Henry out of the worst of his anger. Alex’s eyes float up to the silver ring on Henry’s left hand as he continues. “Do you think I’d have asked if I wasn’t sure that it’s us forever?”
“Then why does it matter?” Anger seems to bleed out of Henry, replaced with a bone deep tiredness quite out of place in the morning light of the window. “Why even put it into the universe that divorce is an option? Why start our marriage with one foot out the door?”
“Because - because otherwise I’m going to look like a gold digger and people like Angus are gonna’ think they’re right!” Fuck. It had come out louder than Alex had meant. Letting that bastard's name out of his mouth felt like losing, as if Alex had somehow let that a spector into the room and he was already infecting it.
Henry’s mouth drops open. It should be comical if it wasn’t so fucked.
Alex can feel the damp of those rotten words already seeping into their beautiful new home, the cutting barbs and sharp insults scratching themselves into the woodwork.
“You know what?” Alex shakes his head. He grabs the paper from the table and crunches it up like some kind of legalese snowball. “Nevermind. Forget it.”
“That’s what he’s after, I assume? Granny’s money?”
Fucking. Hell. How is the voice getting louder after he’s tried to fix it? That’s not fair. Alex has done the right thing, the mature thing, and now Henry’s hurt and the voice still hasn’t stopped.
So what had been the point?
“Forget it,” Alex repeats. Without looking at Henry, he stands and flees towards the stairs. “It’s a stupid idea. I probably just need some sleep - long shift, you know?”
He takes the stairs two at a time (which would have gotten Elody scolded if it was her) and disappears before Henry can get out a word.
By the time Henry finds him, Alex has stripped to his boxers and buried himself under the blankets of their bed. Their bed in their beautiful new bedroom with its beautiful walk-in closet, in the beautiful new house, paid for by Henry’s inheritance which the world is going to assume is Alex’s primary motivator for their marriage.
Great.
So Angus and all the other Angus-like assholes can sit around drinking champagne or whatever rich assholes are currently drinking and gossip about Henry and his little latino boy toy.
Fucking. Great.
The door squeaks to announce Henry’s arrival but Alex doesn’t look round. He’s not burrowed himself completely out of sight but his shoulders hunch just a little more as if to protect his sensitive neck from attack.
“Alex? Can I come in?”
“It's your room too…”
Alex listens to the footsteps and feels the other side of the mattress dip. After a beat of indecision, Alex feels Henry’s hand slip into his curls. Despite himself, Alex feels his shoulders relaxing. Even in the middle of a fight, his body knows that Henry is his safe place.
“I didn’t…” He hears Henry sigh, “Well I didn’t know you felt like that.”
Alex shrugs at the wall.
“I’m sorry.”
“S’not your fault…’
The rustling starts again and Alex feels Henry curl in fully clothed behind him. A happy shudder runs down Alex’s spine. The way Henry’s large hands splay across his bare stomach, wide shoulders eclipsing Alex’s. Fuck. Henry is the only person who can make him feel like this. Warm. Small. Safe. Alex is a perfectly normal sized man (5ft 9 is the national average - he's googled it!) but Henry makes him feel tiny and protected in a way he’d never admit to anyone on the planet. Somehow being his little spoon can make even the worst voices in his head calm from a roar to a grumble.
“No one who matters will ever think you’re a gold-digger…” Henry murmurs next to the shell of Alex’s ear. “Not your family. Not our friends. Certainly not my family who love you. Seriously. I think Martha is planning a way to run off with you and leave us Mountchristen-Fox men behind.” Henry’s lips drift along Alex’s skin until he touches a kiss to the knob at the top of his spine. “We don’t need a prenup to prove that…”
Alex knows that everything Henry’s saying is true (well apart from the Martha stuff which is something to revisit later) and yet… It feels like it does matter. The way Alex is perceived by the world matters to him. Henry doesn’t get it, but that’s okay. Henry’s never been looked up and down and measured to see if he belonged. Never been followed round in a store by some snotty sales assistant who watches his pockets with suspicion. He’s never had some inbred asshole in a red ballcap call him ‘José’ and tell him to go ‘back where he came from’. Which is even more ridiculous considering Henry’s the immigrant, not him. He’s just an immigrant of an acceptable colour.
And Alex loves that Henry’s never had to deal with that, adores that there’s at least one hardship which his partner doesn't have to shoulder, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt him just as deep.
“Do you know how many times people think I’m Elody’s babysitter?” Alex whispers into the room. It’s easier to admit while he’s not watching the sadness form in Henry’s eyes. “Or the nanny? And then when they see the three of us together they get this ‘uhh huhh’ look on their face which…” A shudder runs through Alex’s torso and Henry’s hug tightens. “It just sucks. A prenup would… Well it would be proof that this isn’t about money. Like, undeniable proof that this is love and not anything else…”
Henry sighs, his warm breath tickling the soft little hairs at the nape of Alex’s neck. “Can I ask you a question?”
Alex nods.
“How long has that shit Angus said been eating away at you?”
The answer will hurt Henry, Alex knows that, but he deserves a partner who tells the truth.
“Since we started looking at houses and I realised it would be in both our names.”
The hurt little sound Henry lets out stabs at Alex’s soul.
“Then it's been -”
“Months. I know. I’m sorry.”
Henry takes a chance and places the gentlest of pressure on Alex’s hip to encourage him onto his back. Alex lets himself be rolled until his shoulders hit the pillows and Henry’s blue eyes, concerned and bottomless, hover above him.
“Oh, Alex…” Henry runs a thumb across his cheek bone, cupping his face as Alex nuzzles against the warm skin. “You don’t need to carry this alone. You know that…”
“I thought I could handle it myself,” Alex admits, “Sort the prenup and then it wouldn’t matter. But if you don’t want one then I don’t quite know what to do…”
Henry takes the time to kiss Alex, gently as if to prove the anger had been left in the living room, before he settles down on his back. He gathers Alex into his arms, letting the younger man find a spot against his chest so he can hear Henry’s heartbeat. Alex mourns the fact that Henry’s still in a tshirt, but he can’t have everything.
“I, well now that you’ve explained your thoughts behind it, it makes more sense…” Henry’s fingers begin to stroke up and down Alex’s spine, happy shudders rippling through Alex as if he's being played like a guitar. “But, the one you printed off? If I understood the jargon correctly, in this hypothetical situation you’d be leaving the marriage with nothing.”
Alex can’t stop himself from shrugging again. “S’not mine…”
“But it’s not mine either,” Henry points out gently, “I didn’t earn it, didn’t win it, didn’t steal it. Do I deserve it because I share a last name with a woman who hated me? Why shouldn’t I share it with you? You contribute to our lives in so many ways beyond money. I’d go as far as to say the childcare ratio tips in favour of you during school time. You do every morning drop off and any pick up you can manage. So, according to that prenup, despite all the work and effort you put into the family, you’d walk away with nothing? That’s not fair.”
“It’s not the same…”
“Well I agree with that,” Henry’s hand continues its slow strokes up and down Alex’s tanned skin, “I’d argue that taking on a parental role of a child I brought into the relationship is endlessly more important than an inheritance which is strongly considered handing over to Pez.”
“That’s still giving it to me…” Alex points out with a small smile, “I’m due a pay rise.”
Henry laughs and kisses his curls. “Menace.”
Alex returns the kiss to the material which covers Henry’s heart.
“Look…” Henry doesn’t pull back from Alex’s hair, revelling in the smell of his partner. The shampoo and mousse scents are long gone after the nightshift, but the ever present smell of Alex is still there. Of dinnamon and coffee and chaos. “If you think a prenup is something which will make you feel more secure, then I’m willing to consider it. We could ask Himari for a recommendation. But, love, it will be 50/50. That’s my stipulation.”
“But -”
“That’s my hard line I’m afraid…” Henry softens the boundary by nuzzling his nose further into Alex’s hair.
Still? Alex wants to argue. Debate. He wants to make a Powerpoint and lay out all the reasons why Alex doesn’t deserve access to Henry’s money.
Deserve.
Alex can almost see Shaan’s raised eyebrow at the slip of the tongue.
He does deserve nice things. He deserves the happiness which Henry wants to give him, no matter the shape it comes in.
So he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t agree but he doesn’t argue.
“If you stay here I’m going to sleep on you,” Alex grumbles, snuggling down against Henry as if daring him to try and move. “You’re gonna get stuck…”
“Well there are worse fates,” Henry reasons. He stretches over just enough to hook his book off the bedside table and opens it awkwardly against his thigh. Throughout it all, Henry’s hand never falters its gentle strokes to Alex’s spine. “Have your nap, ridiculous boy. I’ll wake you up in an hour.”
“Kay…”
Alex feels a final kiss against his curls. It shakes loose the last of the anxiety which has been stuck to his ribs like tar for over a month. It feels good.