Chapter Text
Sweat, heat, and booze ruin the hard work of countless designers at the Young America New Year’s Eve Gala. Contrary to what the black, silver, and gold decorum may lead you to believe, it was not a classy event. Or at least, it wasn’t for very long.
Alex has been telling Henry about the planning for this event since the week after Ellen Claremont won the presidency. The food, the music, the lights. It’d be a big deal, he said to him, and a nice way to up our approval ratings from the get go. Always politics with him, it seems, but he’s more than happy to go.
Right now, Henry nurses a drink at the edge of the dance floor while Alex throws his body far more than what’s appropriate for the song the DJ is playing. He’s been trying to get him on the dancefloor since he arrived. It doesn’t seem like a bad idea, honestly. But, if Henry lets his eyes drift more than three inches to the right or left of Alex’s face, he’s reminded why it is a bad idea. Bodies push and press against other bodies both because of the proximity and because of the fact that nearly everyone is grinding. Alex included. It isn’t Henry’s idea of a good time.
Alex seems intent on trying to convince him otherwise. The bite of his lip and thin beads of sweat and the subconscious lick of his lips makes it hard for Henry’s eyes to drift those three inches away from his face. Piano chords bring the overplayed but still catchy tune of “Closer” to an end. The DJ was really planning on playing almost everything from 2016’s Top 40.
People are just starting to fall from the rhythmic high that you get while dancing, wondering when the next song will come. Alex catches his eyes and saunters over and tries to get Henry to meet him halfway with a hand on his hip and beckoning hand gesture that makes Henry’s mouth go dry. He downs his alcohol and looks for the nearest server when Alex gives his wrist a tug.
“You have to,” he pleads, still holding Henry’s wrist.
“No, I do not.”
“Why not though! It doesn’t matter if you’re good or not, you just need to let go!”
“Alex, this isn’t my thing I can’t just―”
The volume of the crowd rises, and their movements are picking up. Over the speakers, the drum beat of another generic pop song that was probably on the radio for a month is starting to play, and Henry is hauled onto the dance floor by Alex with a renewed determination.
“This isn’t hard, you royal prude. Just move your hips and act like your having a good time!” Alex is leading Henry through the crowd, not to the middle, but somewhere deep enough where it’s too much of an effort for Henry to just step out.
Henry can’t help but point out to Alex that there is literally a couple making out a few feet away from them, and that maybe this isn’t the great experience Alex has been trying to sell it as all evening. As he says this a particularly enthusiastic dancer bumps Alex from behind. He stumbles forward a bit, and to Henry’s absolute horror, into his chest. Even more terrifying, Alex grabs onto Henry’s hips as if to push him away, but instead of pushing him away, he just holds him. Henry clutches onto Alex’s hands on impulse and now he’s standing there with Alex holding him and bouncing to the music.
Alex doesn’t apologize for his fall. Alex is slowing his sway as Henry keeps looking back and forth at the hands on his hips and him . The song picks up and people are jumping with the beat and twirling with the melody. He’s letting go of his side, and drunk and unashamed, Henry holds on to the hands that pull away. Alex with devilish smirk and wink pulls them chest to chest. Henry’s side is freezing now without that touch, but his chest is burning where he can feel the heat from Alex’s chest.
Finally, Henry says fuck it and lets him self slowly, so slowly, unwind.
It’s… It’s good. He becomes another body in the crowd. Alex is cheering him on, hyping him up on the more reckless songs, and guiding him through line dances. The energy is restless; he could move his body and awkwardly try and move his limbs forever if Alex kept looking at him with his delirious smile.
The two of them power through songs for most of the night, taking a drink from every passing server they find. Henry is hazily aware of having a leg between Alex’s thighs while he grinded down on it to Rihanna’s “Work”, but he isn’t certain. At some point though, Henry is sure that someone slapped his ass. Alex staring them down and getting in their face afterwards feels like a fever dream. Somewhere in his head is the image of Alex licking rimming sugar off his lip as he came back to him.
Later on, he’s going to remember the feeling of calloused fingers laced behind his neck. In the morning, he’ll vividly recall gripping onto Alex’s waist like his life depended on it while Alex did what would be considered a lap dance if they were just sitting down. He’s going to wake up hungover having a dream where the night goes basically the same, except they have sex at the end. Because of that, he’s going to doubt most of those events and brush it off.
Whatever. They’re wasted, and it’s almost 2017.
It’s five minutes until midnight when they finally leave the dance floor, and if he thought the alcohol had hit him earlier, it’s using him as a punching bag right now. Alex unceremoniously pulls him down by the collar and says, “I don’t wanna’ do this anymore” before they stumble through the crowd. He lets himself be guided to a sofa and drops next to Alex with an arm over his shoulder.
“Where’ve you guys been?” June asks, considerably less drunk than they are. She’s draped over Nora with her legs in Pez’s lap on the matching loveseat.
Henry makes unintelligible sounds that he assumes are words while Alex looks to her excitedly and points to him.
“This guy! You should’ve seen him! Dancing! It was great.” Alex drops his head back onto Henry’s chest and closes his eyes. “Wake me up at eleven fifty-eight.” A shock radiates from the point his head makes contact, but Henry is too drunk to feel it.
From the love seat, Pez gives Henry a sly look. He’s holding his phone in a way that would probably concern or annoy him if he were sober. “How’s that?”
“He doesn’t…” Henry murmurs before he pulls out his phone and stares at the clock, waiting for the one minute and thirty-seven seconds it would take until 11:58. Pez, Nora, and June are discussing something, and Henry’s practically going cross-eyed at the screen. Alex asked him though, so he intends on following through. He can make out the conversation just barely, select phrases like “not yet” and “in time” and “eventually”. They say his and Alex’s name a lot.
Once 11:58 does roll by, he gives Alex’s shoulder a little shake. There’s a quiet “thanks”. They don’t say anything to one another. They’re both tired out, most of their fire is gone, and something new is coming.
If Henry were in England, he’d probably be in… Not England. In some vacation home, the New Year having already passed, and himself asleep in a plush bed. He prefers where he’s at now. A warm body next to him with no intention of giving him anything more than company, and a few more friends nearby chiding them for putting so much alcohol in their systems.
The countdown begins, and the expensive lights are flashing in unison with each number. Henry leans forward to pick up a cheaply made silver paper horn. Even at a White House New Year’s Eve party, they’re a must.
He’s looking at Alex who’s shifting under his arm at five.
At four, Alex reaches for his shoulder and pulls him forward so that they’re nose to nose. Henry’s holding his breath.
Alex is cupping his cheek with his hand at three. “I wanna’ kiss someone on New Year’s,” he tells him. Henry drops the silver paper horn.
The clock is at two seconds left, and Alex is chuckling. He’s making the quietest noise of amusement as he hears June say to their right “Wait, oh shit, guys―” to Nora and Pez.
It’s the last second of 2016 and Alex says, like it’s no big deal, “I’m gonna kiss you, so be cool, alright?”
At zero fucking seconds, everyone’s either screaming or making out, and Henry didn’t think he’d be part of the latter, but Alex is pressing forward and playing with Henry’s bottom lip. He gasps, and his mouth is open, and he can’t process a single goddamn thought. Alex takes it as an invitation, and Henry can taste every drink they shared. He wonders if the heat of his body will set the alcohol in his veins on fire.
What a way that’d be to go.
Cause of Death: Spontaneous Human Combustion
Cause of Spontaneous Human Combustion: Alex Claremont-Diaz
Alex kisses him for only a few fleeting seconds as people say “Happy New Year!”, and Henry is stupidly chasing his lips as he pulls away. His hands are still in Alex’s belt loops. The first bits of confetti have just reached them from the high ceiling.
He receives a little pat on his cheek and a silly, “Thanks, man!” before Alex completely falls asleep on him. Henry, dizzy and more pathetically in love than usual, lets him stay there and falls asleep himself.
He doesn’t know what the hell he was doing last night. There was definitely dancing, but it wasn’t dancing? More like dry humping, he thinks with a shudder. Definitely way too many drinks. He woke up in his clothes from last night and had a dream that Alex was grinding on him to Rihanna’s “Work”, and that Alex was giving him a blowjob when the countdown hit zero.
Yeah, probably not. How did he even get home? He spends his morning trying to piece together the events of last night.
Pez texts him some vital evidence as he’s boarding his jet that afternoon. He includes a message. It simply reads “;) good job!!!”
There’s one poorly lit image, a video with a blurry thumbnail, and a video which clearly depicts Henry being walked to his ride in a drunken stupor.
Image: A blond young man in a white button shirt with the sleeves pushed up under a deep purple vest with a champagne gold bow tie is reclining. Once upon a time there was a black suit jacket. Henry knows because this is him. He slouches back on a black suede sofa, an arm is slung over the shoulders of another man.
It’s a curly brown haired hottie in what was probably a sleek black three piece suit with a gold tie. The suit jacket and vest are gone. The black button up sleeves are rolled up and the top button is undone. The tie is loose. That’s Alex. His head is on Henry’s chest. Though it is dark, dim gold mood lighting shines over them.
Video one: A snapchat video has the caption “why did you have to steal my moment :(((((“ in the default text option towards the bottom of the screen. Pez is vlogging as the countdown begins on at ten. He’s making different winky kissy faces with each number. At six, he turns the camera to June and Nora; they do the same as he did. At two, June’s attention is caught by something off camera. She says, “Wait, oh shit, guys—!” and points. The camera turns to Henry and Alex on the sofa. Alex is holding Henry’s hand in his face with one hand, the other concealed, likely on Henry’s waist. Alex says something, and Henry’s eyes go wide before Alex kisses him at zero. Confetti begins to fall, and Pez shrieks in delight.
The camera pans up to watch the shiny black, silver, and gold flutter down. The quality drops. When it pans down, Alex has just pulled away, giving a feather light tough to Henry’s face before falling to Henry’s shoulder with a light thud. Henry then leans back to lay down on the couch, ever so slowly before his head hits a decorative pillow. He too falls asleep. With Alex still on his chest, he wraps an arm over his back. Alex shifts. It looks like a snuggle.
Video two: A snapchat video with the eyes looking up emoji at the bottom right of the screen. The video is sped up faster than normal, but not the fastest option. Pez follows behind Shaan and Amy. Each have one of Henry’s arms over their shoulders. They woke him up to escort him to his ride, and he’s just mumbling. Sort of sounds like “no” over and over again. Pez behind the camera is scolding him. A drawn out “stay” bounces through the hall they walk down.
Pez turns around, cackling. The camera zooms in on Alex slumped against the wall trying to follow them with Nora and June at his side. They don’t look nearly as helpful to Alex as Shaan and Amy are to Henry.
Well, shit . The first thing he fucking did in 2017 was kiss Alex. He doesn’t even remember it. Henry fights the urge to smother himself with his travel pillow.
He turns to Shaan, who sits watching him.
“You saw what happened?”
“No. I stayed on the other side of the room, sober ,” he adds, “and mostly just checked in. I only helped you out of the building, into the car, out of the car, and into bed.”
Henry groans. He checks back to his texts with Pez. Pez has sent him “that countdown video was going to be so good on my story ://////“
And then immediately after, “but noooooo jefjdkcks you had to get. kissed.”
And after that, “i didn’t even get kissed that’s not faaaaiiir”
Henry wants to leave it at that. He doesn’t have read receipts on, Pez would never know. But, even over text, Henry can hear his congratulatory tone, as if he really accomplished some sort of progress last night. He types out to him, “I doubt he even remembers! I didnt know that happened until you sent me that!!!!!!”
He puts his phone down. Finally, he tries to smother himself with his travel pillow before settling for sleeping on it instead.
He’s only known Alex for about a few months. Alex is witty, caring, and endlessly dedicated. He ignites like a firecracker. It’s sudden. He burns bright at the first contact with flame, but he keeps going. He grows and sparkles with life until the final charge shoots into the sky.
Alex is like that, except he’s like an infinite amount of firecrackers all set in a line, each one brighter than the last.
You’re not supposed to touch firecrackers, Henry thinks. Besides, everyone remembers the light show. The pizazz, the pop, the smoke, and the sparks. No one gives a damn about the match that lit it.
When Henry wakes up from his sulking nap, he notices a text from Alex. It’s a picture of them kissing from a slightly different angle, likely taken by June or Nora.
The message says “lmao we got wild lol ¿¿¿new tradition?? eh?? ;)”
It’s followed by, “sorry if that made you uncomfortable though if you hated it (but like you didn’t come on i’m alex hello heartthrob of the #whitehousetrio)”
And Henry is surprised the weight in his stomach doesn’t immediately cause the plane to start losing altitude.
Henry swallows his heart and shoots back “No its fine we were both shitfaced lol. It can be a tradition IF we remember. which you wont”
“haaaaah you WISH ohohohohoooo but trust me. i w i l l”
And Henry sincerely from the bottom of his heart hopes he does remember, that he does have some slight chance of kissing Alex again.
This is fine. Yeah. It’s fine.