Chapter Text
“I’m sorry, you did what ?”
Alex is laughing, they both are, have been for a while, since Alex got bored of smoking in silence, and half-casually, half-threateningly announced that he’s going to attempt being a decent host one more time, and he is now going to tell Henry a story about the first time he got high, and Henry better appreciate it. It was back in Texas, first year of high school, after the trials for the lacrosse team. His sister had to smuggle him home so his mother wouldn’t notice. It was a very random piece of personal information to share, but Henry loved all about this, from the way Alex tried his hardest to make it funnier than it actually was, to the way his eyes shined with nostalgia by the end of it. It only felt right to share the story about his first joint, overpaid trashy stuff on his dorm room floor in eighth grade, and they’ve been tossing these semi-embarrassing stories ever since, and each one seems even funnier than the former. Henry has quite a few ideas as to why.
Henry doesn’t know, nor does he really care, what time it is, but the room grew dark a while ago - which, given that it’s end of December in New York, in the middle of a blizzard, could mean anything from 4pm to 8am. If he were to guess, it’s closer to the prior. Either way, Alex’s living room is only lit up by a, quite extensive, if Henry was to judge, number of one-dollar christmas lights, which makes the space feel unexpectedly cosy. Or maybe it’s just pot. Probably pot. Alex’s christmas playlist is softly humming in the background, and Henry managed to calculate this must mean he has it downloaded, but only smiled to himself at the thought, and refrained from commenting. They’re lying on the floor, both on their backs, staring at the ceiling, and it’s Henry’s turn to be the entertainer, so he goes for the story of how he got so high he lost any sort of sense of time and didn’t realise he has an afternoon class in a minute, so he went to that absolutely smoked.
“High as a kite, mate, eyes so red I looked like I were fucking bleeding,” he says, and his voice breaks into laughter. “My professor was thrilled .”
“What did they do?” Alex chuckles out.
“Formally, not a thing,” Henry says, and he takes a deep breath to form a longer sentence. “It was one of those wildly overrated boarding schools where one could probably kill a man on the front yard and walk away unbothered if the board knew they had could pay themself out of it,” he realises that he’s talking a bit too slowly, dragging the words out, but he doesn’t care. It’s all on weed now. “They didn’t even call my parents.”
“What the fuck? Is that even legal?” Alex keep asking, and then adds, as if that was not obvious: “Meaning, in England?”
“Of course it’s not,” Henry admits. “But London reeks of it anyway.”
Alex makes a long, exaggerated sound of realisation and laughs to himself again.“Smells like home, huh?”
“Literally why I haven’t had it since I left,” Henry blurts out, still giggling, before he can think about it.
“ Oh ,” there’s a blunt irreverent note in Alex voice now. “Does weed make you homesick?”
“Homesick,” Henry snorts, truly humoured. “The smell is my major PTSD trigger.”
“Woah, that bad?” Alex asked, also clearly humoured, and somewhat intrigued.
“No words.”
“And to escape it you came to fucking New York ?” Alex laughs, but stops quickly, once he notices that Henry does not join him, but goes silent, his face falling.
“Ah, right,” Alex says, turning his face to look at Henry. “Sorry. I forgot about the no prying thing.”
Henry forgot, too, and now that he is reminded, he cringes at the memory.
“Look, I am perfectly aware that I overreacted,” he attempts, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “And I apologise.”
“Good,” Alex puffs, and bends his hand in some ungodly angle to smack Henry on the shoulder. “I was just trying to make a conversation.”
“I know. It’s just-” Henry throws in a deep sigh to give the thought a minute to form in his head, not exactly certain what he’s about to say. “Not really a small talk topic, I suppose?” he tries, his eyebrows furrowing, and he forces his head to turn to Alex. “And I was hungover, and on edge already, and I let it take the best of me.”
“Hey, it’s fine,” Alex smiles softly, a small, soft movement of lips so close to Henry’s face. The skin around his cheek is fumbled from the angle at which he turned his head. Henry’s melting. “Just, for the record: I really wanted to know. I actually find that super interesting.”
“You did?” Henry more says than asks, shamelessly staring into Alex’s wide blown pupils, his eyes so dark they seem to reflect every single tiny lightbulb in the room.
“I do ,” Alex emphasises, and Henry isn’t sure, but it almost seems that he’s staring back. “But I get it if you don’t want to share it.”
“No, it’s not that,” Henry says gently, and realises he means. Those few hours ago it was that , it was exactly that , but now it’s not - now, that his head feel so much lighter, and Alex is so much kinder to him, and they’re so physically close again, he really wants to share it. There is this distant thought at the back of his head that he would probably share everything Alex would want him to. “It’s just a real bummer,” he says, and draws his eyes from Alex’s face back to the ceiling. A small pause follows, when Henry is considering and gathering his lazily gravitating thoughts, and Alex doesn’t rush him, doesn’t push, which further cements the belief that he should tell him. He takes a deep breath. He will. He’ll get it out, fast, so that this one thing is explained, and they don’t ever have to talk about it again.
“I was 16, certain I was gay, terrified of it, and yet obvious enough for my family to start to notice,” he blurts out, as fast as his stoned brain allows him to, hating the way his voice cracks a little. “My dad seemed to be understanding, so I was bracing myself to come out. And then he died. Pancreatic cancer.”
“Oh, shit. Henry, I am so sorry-”
“My mum shut us all completely after that,” Henry continues, knowing that once he lets himself stop, he’s going to get stuck on it for much longer, and nobody needs that now. “She’s only starting to coming back to her right mind about now. I have a sister who’s always been my friend there, but she was on her first tour then, and got into hard drugs. So, it was just me, my tolerant as he can be, but- brother, and my diabolic ultraconservative grandmother.”
“That one?”
Henry’s eyes shoot back to Alex, to see him nodding at the blizzard outside of the window. He cracks an involuntary smile at that. He’s surprised he can do that.
“Precisely. I got into Oxford, but by the time my finals came the only thing I cared about was getting as physically away from there as I could.”
Alex nods, showing he’s following. “So, New York.”
“Plus, you don’t have an undergrad law programme here, so it took me over the Atlantic, earned me some respect back at home and bought me three years. Four, now it appears.”
“Oh, no,” Alex’s brows tie together, indicating he might have just stopped following. “Did you fail?”
“No. I’m-” Henry swallows, looking for a right word for it. “On a gap year.”
“I see,” Alex nods again, but the wrinkle between his eyebrows is still there. “Your fam’s fine with that?”
“They are.”
“That’s wholesome.”
“Cause they think I’m working for a law firm here.”
Alex’s face crumbles into one big wrinkle. Henry hears a bemused hum.
“Without a law degree?”
“Unpaid?” Henry offers, very uncertain. “Valuable work experience.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“They don’t know that.”
“One, unpaid internships are a capitalist scam. The worst sort. Don’t do that-”
“We established that I do not.”
“Two, what kind of story is that even. What do you do?”
Henry bites the inside of his cheek, shoots a quick glance at Alex who is still attentively watching him, glances back at the ceiling.
“What if I said that it’s none of your business?”
“I’d say you’re being an ass again, and I’d assume you’re very pathetically spending your days on getting wine drunk and reading Jane Austen?” Alex says, and Henry’s eyes grow wide as he turns them back to him, because there is no way Alex would just guess that.
“You couldn’t possibly-”
“I still don’t get it,” Alex cuts him off, intellectual effort clear on his face. “Why are you spending so much time fixating on not being a lawyer?”
“Because I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Henry says, slightly surprised that wasn’t obvious at this point.
“Oh, right. Actually, not right, left, wrong , hold up,” whatever spins in Alex’s head now, he’s getting defeated by it. “But there are so many other ways of not being a lawyer”
“Oh,” Henry realises. Lack of context. A conversationalist obstacle. “Not for people like me, I’m afraid.”
“You mean, English?”
“Yes. What? No. It’s just, how do I put it without sounding like a total arse,” eyes back on the ceiling. Henry so wishes he was better at maintaining eye contact. “We’re an old family. A royal branch?”
Alex takes a frustrating moment. “So like, a prince?”
“A prince’s third cousin, of sorts” Henry says, and he can hear his voice is soaked in bitterness. “I've been to his wedding, though."
"Was is the one when some US diplomat fell into the cake?"
"This one exactly."
"That man's my hero."
"I imagine. Anyway, this prince's third cousin. And his future lawyer, seventh generation of crown lawyers. The only family allowed to handle Monarchy’s legal issues since William IV.”
“What sort of fucking nepotism - Sorry. I mean, we’re talking literal monarchy, you’re obviously full of shit. But, still. Man.”
“Yeah,” Henry admits, not daring to look at Alex. “So, me being gay was a hard pill. But refusing to study Law would probably strip me of citizenship.”
There’s a small chuckle. “What’s the con, then?”
Henry breaks a small smile. “It’s a bit more complex.”
“Man, I get it,” Henry hears Alex move, and with a corner of his eye he can notice him shift back on his back. There’s a new note in his voice. Henry doesn’t like it. “I grew up half Mexican in fucking Texas. I majored in love-hate relationships with your hometown.”
“Really?”
“No, in government, actually-”
“I mean the hate part. You-” Love Texas , Henry wants to say, because that’s what he gathered from Alex’s social media entries. Luckily, he manages to bite his tongue just in time. “Seem pretty positive about Texas.”
“Eh, kinda,” Alex says, and now Henry’s the one to turn his head to watch the speaking. “I mean, you know, it’s home,” Alex shrugs. “It’s, where I grew up. Did lots of cool things. But, it’s where I grew up half-mexican. So, you know. It could be better.”
“I can only imagine,” Henry says, trying to sound supportive. “Growing up gay is hard enough.”
“Oh, I didn’t do that,” Alex just says dismissively.
“No?”
“I didn’t grow up gay,” Alex repeats with confusing certainty. “I mean, I probably did, given,” he gestures around chaotically. “Well. But I didn’t know until very recently.”
“Oh,” Henry just says, feeling as if there was a thick wall between him and any information thrown his way. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Alex assures him quickly, still watching the ceiling from under furrowed brows. “It’d probably be better to know, sure, but I’m bisexual. So, the self-closeted misery wasn’t that huge. I just, you know, focused on girls, and no homo-ed guys.”
“Oh.” Henry says again.
“Yeah.”
Henry watches his face, and is fascinated by the view. Dark curls fell back from his forehead, exposing the sure outline of cheekbones under caramel skin, the sharp cut of his jawline. His dark eyes are raised up high, and in his white t-shirt and the light of the christmas lights, he looks almost angelic. Henry focuses on a song in the background for a second. He knows this one. It’s Sam Smith’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”
The view, however, is disturbed by the lack of a certain spark that was in Alex just a second ago. A part of Henry knows that it’s none of his business, and he shouldn’t ask, but, still: “Are you alright?”
Alex nodds, and tries to smile, before he answers. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks, I am. It’s nothing. Just. You’re literally the fourth person I told this to.”
“Oh,” Henry is willing to kill a man for the slightest improvement to his conversationalist skills. “I’m flattered, really.” Alex chuckles a little, which strikes Henry with thin sense of pride. “How did they take it?”
“Awesome,” Alex answers instantly. “One of them was the guy I hooked up with last week, though. So.”
“Oh, I’m sure that one didn’t mind,” Henry says to that, and Alex turns his head to look back at him, and raises his eyebrows, and smiles, and this time, it seems genuine.
“Right. You know who might, though?” Alex says, and his face falls again. “My Catholic dad.”
“Alex, listen-” Henry hurries, even though he doesn’t really know where he’s taking this sentence, but doesn’t get a chance to finish.
“I mean I’m sure he won’t mind! He’s definitely not this type,” Alex goes on. His eyes lose focus, and Henry realises he’s not exactly talking to him anymore. “He campaigned for gender neutral bathrooms in schools in California. He’s great. So’s my mum. I’m so mad at myself for ever doubting them, but. Everytime I think about telling them I get a gag instinct. It’s fucked up.”
“No,” Henry says quickly, as he turns his entire body towards Alex. “No, no, no, no. It’s perfectly okay. It’s normal that you’re stressed.”
“They never gave me a reason to.”
“Well, the society did,” Henry says, and he’s both too invested in and too high to cringe over how cliche it sounds. “And you can't blame yourself for being fed the narrative that not conforming to heteronormative expectations changes who you are in the eyes of those you care about. And they know that, too.
"See? That's what I'm talking about. They're awesome."
"Then I’m sure they’ll get it, Alex," Henry assures him. "It’s a big thing. You should take all the time you need.”
Alex looks at him in silence for a while, but hen he nodds slowly again. “I’m sorry you couldn’t,” he says, and Henry’s heart must have flown all the way up to his throat, because suddenly, he can’t breathe.
“Oh, I’m years over that,” he lies smoothly, smiling weakly, and Alex smiles back.
“Thanks, Henry,” he says after a bit. “For listening to that.”
“After what I put you through, it’s nothing.” Henry says, and notices that their faces are very close to each other again.
“Yeah, thanks for that, too,” Alex’s eyes are fixed on his now, steady, calm, sparkling, mesmerising. “You know, for sharing that with me.”
“Of course,” Henry says, a bit more quiet than he did before. As if involuntarily, he shifts a bit closer to Alex. Alex's lips pout a little, and Henry can swear he heard his breath catching. He knows his brain is working much less sharply than usual, but when he searches for a reason not to lean it and see what happens, he finds none.
Sam Smith’s voice tunes out, and the air is cut by an unsynchronised chorus of drunken voices, acapella butchering “Deck the Halls”. Henry jumps up and leans back sharply, the way people do after they put their hands into open fire. His heart is racing as he nervously looks around.
Alex, on the other hand, tilts his head to the side, listens attentively. The chorus is drown out by aggressive electric guitar, then the drums, and Alex shoots up, face bright.
“Oh my God, Henry” he says excitedly, running around the room, looking for his phone. “This fucking song.”
Henry sits up to watch him better, feeling ridiculously out of context. “Is that still your Christmas playlist?”
Alex found his phone, and now he turns the song up, aggressively shaking his head to the rhythm. “Dude, this is a fucking bop. What the fuck did you listen to on Christmas 2009?”
“Frank Sinatra memorial, probably?”
“Come on, dance with me,” Alex says, already throwing himself around the room in a terrifying attempt at an imitation of what seems to be disturbingly similar to early 2000s My Chemical Romance.
“How do you even dance to that ?” Henry says, both fascinated and terrified.
“Come on,” Alex repeats. “Like this.” He puts his hands on Henry’s arms, and Henry shivers at the touch, but them he’s being violently shaken back and forth.
“Did he just say I grab my baseball bat ?” Henry chuckles out between the shakes. Alex lets go of him and resumes his chaotic movements, now completely ruining an air guitar.
“ You people scare me ,” he screams, timing the shakes of his head with the tugs he gives to his imaginary guitar strings. “ Please stay away from my home if you don’t wanna get beat down- ”
The song breaks into an instrumental and Alex throws his guitar away and his arms up, he moves his hips and shakes his head from one side to the another, making his curls violently fly back and forth. Primary shock starts to leave Henry, and before the second verse starts, he’s laughing with his whole chest, and awkwardly attempts to imitate the way Alex moves. Once Alex notices, Henry gets a loud scream of approval that gets him all in, and they both fully commit to making a real punk rock show out of it, running around without any coordination, jumping on furniture and knee-sliding on the floor.
“ I won’t be home” Alex screams to Henry, desperately trying to gesture him into joining. “ I won’t be home for Christmas!”
“ I won’t be home” , Henry screams back, hoping he’s reading him right, and relieved to hear the frontman sing along. “ I won’t be home for Christmas!”
“I won’t be home-” Henry goes one more time, and then he stops abruptly and covers his mouth with his hands because there’s no third time, and the song breaks into instrumental. Alex laughs so loud he almost drowns out the drums, and then the're dancing again - altough Henry's very conflicted about calling it dancing.
The song tunes out, and they both fall on the couch. In the background, Sinatra’s good old “Let It Snow” starts playing.
“What the fuck was that?” Henry manages, a bit breathless from unexpected exercise, and Alex starts laughing again.
“My absolute Christmas favourite. A true modern classic.”
“You’re mad,” Henry decides.
“You loved it,” Alex flashes him a wide smile, and all Henry can do is lean his head back on the back of the couch, and laugh. He’s trying to make sense of the position they’re in, but all he knows is that his legs are tangled with Alex’s, and Alex’s hand rests thrown carelessly on his tight. They’re both grinning like little kids after a run. He loves it, but he knows he has to ruin it.
“Okay, so, now,” he starts after a bit or two, nervous, but sadly aware that he can’t avoid going there forever. “I have a question I would very much like to avoid asking, but I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Mm, nice,” Alex says. He sits up straight and cross-legged, so that he’s facing Henry. “I’m ready. Go for it.”
Henry really doesn’t want to. He straightens his back and mirrors Alex. “Given our situation, as of now,” He starts, uncertain. “With all the developments of the last twelve hours or so. If one would have a very strong need to make use of a bathroom. Namely, a proper toilet bowl. How could one possibly accomplish that?”
He takes a deep breath, and he waits.
“Stop fucking smiling.”
Alex very obviously does not make any effort at that.
“That’s actually a great question.”