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The future started with a red state turned blue and a kiss in his childhood bedroom.
Alex watched Henry glide slowly, curiously through the small space. He looked out of place here, a golden boy in a too-small cage, yet all at once like he belonged. Or, at the very least, like he wanted to. He ran his elegant fingers over the bare mattress Alex had left behind after the move to DC, scanned the assortment of tacky posters above the bed, frowned at a dent in the wall by the window which Alex did not care to elaborate upon. (Skateboarding incident. Yes, in his bedroom. No, he hadn't known what he was doing in the slightest.)
They hadn't bothered to switch on the lights on their way upstairs; the glare from the streetlamps outside was bright enough to illuminate the room. It made Henry’s hair look strangely silver and Alex found his heart beating a bit too fast. Fireworks still went off in the far-off distance every now and again, an occasional boom-boom-boom that Alex felt echoed in his chest.
Henry was here, in Austin, in the very room where Alex had first dragged his greasy little fingers over the glossy pages of that particular magazine centerfold. And now Henry was his, miraculously, impossibly, forever and ever. Nothing stood in their path. There was nothing to stop Alex from pushing off the wall where he lingered and crossing the room in four determined strides to corner Henry by the window. He nudged him backwards against the sill and leaned forward, bracketing Henry’s legs with his own, and kissed him hard. His hands went to Henry’s face, thumbs in the hollows of his perfect goddamn cheeks, and Henry pulled him closer by the lapels of the atrocious bomber he was still wearing.
They parted too soon. Alex rocked back on his heels but Henry kept his fingers wound tightly in the fabric so that he couldn't stray too far.
“You look happy,” Henry observed.
Was he happy? Sure, yes, definitely. Happy had been them fooling around in the Red Room, texting and chatting across cities and oceans, getting on his knees here and there and gazing up at those wide blue eyes that watched his every move. This—this was something else.
“That doesn't even begin to cover it.”
A lone firecracker went off a block away, squealing as it rose into the sky, and burst into a web of blue. It lit up the world behind Henry and Alex couldn't help but stare openly. He wasn't one for superstition, but he had to admit it all boded well. Blue, blue, blue. His mom had won, Henry was his and so fucking beautiful and so close, leaning in to kiss Alex again, and Alex promptly lost his train of thought.
Three months later had them waking up together amidst crisp sheets, intertwined, tangled like a pair of headphones that’d been shoved haphazardly into a too-full bag. Alex would know.
After the inauguration, he’d packed a suitcase and set out to chase his forever. He still spent time in DC every now and again—worked on his pet projects, upheld his reputation as a notorious nuisance, wasted time until he started at law school come autumn. But whenever Henry touched down in the States, Alex was in Brooklyn waiting in their brownstone with dinner (i.e., various bits and bobs of takeout) and liquor, and looking forward to not keeping his hands to himself for the nearest foreseeable future.
Now, he woke to the bright glare of morning light soaking in from outside, a sure sign that another heap of snow had fallen overnight. He dislodged his foot where it’d gotten caught in one of many blankets and twisted onto his back, shoving against something warm and soft in the process. Said something wasn't too happy about this.
Henry let out a low grumble and yanked himself out from under Alex. He pulled his end of the comforter more snugly over his shoulders to escape the biting cold, then snuffled indignantly, sleepily, and his nose twitched so adorably that Alex sort of wanted to die.
“Hi, baby,” he murmured. He rearranged himself to face Henry as the bed creaked and protested beneath him and Henry scowled halfheartedly at being so cruelly disturbed. He kissed Henry’s stupid nose and the stupid grimace curling at his lips, and all those tiny freckles one didn't really see until they got close enough.
Henry shivered, burrowed closer, reached out to maneuver his frozen hands beneath Alex’s t-shirt. Alex yelped at the sudden spark of cold and sprang up into a half-sitting, half-flailing position.
“You’re evil,” he informed Henry.
“I’m cold,” came the response.
“Not mutually exclusive.”
Henry made another tired sound, then stretched his legs out, curled his toes, unfolded himself and shook off his lingering drowsiness. He hauled himself upright and flopped back against the headboard, sheets pooling in his lap. His hair stuck up left and right, some falling over his eyes, some poking up around his ears. The sky outside was gray, the blankets around them baby blue, Henry pale and perfect and unreal in the middle of it all. Alex felt his insides melt.
He looked at Henry and Henry looked back.
“Warm me up?” he said softly, suggestively, and Alex wanted to kill him. Wanted to die for him. Wanted to do anything and everything Henry asked of him.
Instead, he matched Henry’s seductive tone, all casual, no melodramatic Romeo and Juliet die-for-each-other nonsense. “You have something particular in mind? Weighted blanket, spooning, my dick in—”
“Tea?”
“My dick in what now?”
“Earl Grey, two sugars. Your dick stays safely in your pants.”
Again, Alex wanted to kill him. He crawled over the sea of tangled sheets and blankets and hovered over Henry, held his face in both hands and pressed a quick, magnificent kiss to his lips.
He said, “You’re absolutely insufferable,” and kissed him again, and Henry kissed back, his horrifically cold fingers wriggling their way against the patch of bare skin where Alex’s shirt rode up.
He squealed in protest and jerked back, vaulted smoothly off the bed and winked lopsidedly at Henry on his way out of the room.
He would love him, cherish him, give all of himself to reassure and protect him, shield and support him, even brave the cold tundra of the downstairs kitchen to fetch an early morning cup of tea. Anything and everything Henry asked of him.
They vacationed twice that summer. First, a rerun of the lake-house. Then, a long weekend in the Maldives.
It was only the two of them in Texas this time; their security teams lingered at a safe distance, never in the way. Alex tried his hand at cooking without his dad’s supervision and succeeded in not burning the house down. They drank cheap beer, lay flat on their backs on the dock with their toes in the water, watched the stars, watched each other.
Henry got to his feet first with a little stumble and held out a hand for Alex to take. Alex let himself get pulled upright and then squawked in outrage as Henry spun them around and tossed Alex over the edge. The lake rose around him with a thunderous splash and he felt more than heard Henry leap in after him. He emerged and sputtered, pushed his soggy curls out of this face. Henry popped up beside him, goddamn stunning in the moonlight, and Alex flung an armful of water at him. Henry reciprocated halfheartedly, like there was something else on his mind, then Alex dealt him one more watery blow, then they were inches apart and Henry closed the distance between them and pushed his hands into Alex’s hair and kissed him like it hurt. Like it was an apology.
There was a glimmer of something solemn in his eyes when he looked at Alex, soaked and breathless, and said, “I fucking love you.”
Alex’s heart did a backflip and his voice broke when he muttered back, “I fucking love you, too.”
They forewent the bunk bed that night and slept curled around each other despite the sticky heat, skin on skin and nothing in between.
Then came three lonesome weeks—him in DC doing nothing of importance and Henry attending to princely matters back in England. There was a gap in his chest the size of the Atlantic. He went to the movies, flipped idly through books like nothing mattered, bugged June about it, and so on.
Time dragged on. He went stir-crazy, somewhat.
When the wait was over he flew to London and promptly spent a few hours in Henry’s bed doing unspeakable things to him. From there they flew to Malé.
It was three days of sun and heat and sand, of white sheets and fresh air, of Henry’s mouth between his legs and his fingers in Henry’s hair, his thighs around Henry’s waist and Henry’s lips on his.
For what felt like hours, Henry floated on a pool mattress in the crystalline water as Alex sipped frilly drinks and snapped photos; he uploaded a select few that broke his Instagram record within minutes. Still, the public only got to see one side of it all—the glamorous, picture-perfect, enviable getaway. The other side wasn't for them:
Henry worked his way through two tubes of sunscreen yet still burned his nose and the tips of his ears, and later droned on about his unflattering shedding skin. Alex almost died in the midst of a snorkeling attempt, having assembled his gear in all the wrong ways, much to Henry’s amusement (and perhaps a touch of genuine concern). Henry reclined on a hammock with a battered paperback and Alex snuck up to flip him to the ground; they kissed on a paradise beach with sandy hands around each other and a complete disregard for propriety.
It felt like a lifetime and all at once like it wasn't enough.
Law school turned out to be a classic nightmare. Not that it was awful, but rather because Alex’s nightmares had always consisted heavily of academia-related trauma. Now, he dreamt of case files and court transcripts that never ended, then woke and drowned in case files and court transcripts that never ended.
He had a favorite cafe on campus where he sat sometimes during free periods, where they served two dollar coffee that tasted of wet cardboard but got the job done. He grew accustomed to strange looks from passers-by and starstruck ogling from his classmates, and was both pleased and dismayed by the fact that his professors failed to fork out any special treatment on account of his mother being the sitting President of the United States. He dragged lines of neon yellow across pages and pages of legislations until his highlighter ran out, stopped by Staples with Nora one evening to bulk-buy a handful more.
When he came home to an empty brownstone, he reheated leftover pizza or dialed the nearest takeout. He read his notes until his eyes bulged out of his head and crashed unconscious on the sofa at three in the morning.
When he came home and Henry met him in the doorway, Alex threw his arms around him without hesitation, both stumbling backwards in a mess of limbs and Alex’s too-heavy shoulder bag.
Henry held on tight as Alex tucked his face into his neck, breathed in the smell of him and pressed his lips to warm skin. It felt blissfuly familiar, like home. The house felt so much more like home with Henry here. Alex felt weeks of tension bleeding from his shoulders, from his head, his heart. He’d needed it too much.
“You weren’t supposed to be here ’til Saturday.”
“June said you were spiraling.”
Alex frowned at him. “June’s not here.”
“She told me you’d sent her a snap two nights ago of you in kitchen eating the ramen flavor packet. Dry. The powder, Alex.”
“I couldn’t call Uber Eats in the middle of the night.”
“Might you consider a regular groceries schedule?”
“Might you consider,” Alex fired back in an awful imitation of Henry’s accent, “tossing my bag somewhere wherever so that I can change into sweats and drink a gallon of coffee and then kiss you stupid?”
“No coffee after eight,” Henry said sternly and Alex barked a laugh.
“I have an essay due tomorrow,” he countered.
“Fine. Ten, then,” Henry acquiesced, and pulled Alex’s bag off his shoulder with a displeased grunt. “Scoliosis before you’re thirty.”
Half an hour and two cups of coffee later they were on the sofa, pressed together from head to toe, Henry’s stubble scratchy against Alex’s cheek, Henry’s weight pressing him down into the cushions. They kissed like they had all the time in the world, open-mouthed and languid, Henry propped up over Alex on one elbow, the other hand dipping beneath the hem of his sweater.
Henry wedged a thigh between Alex’s legs and Alex answered with a grunt and a mangled gasp of the word, “Essay,” because he couldn't afford to have sex when his future hinged on a 2,000 word paper he was yet to start.
He craned his head up inasmuch as he could with Henry pinning him down and gave him one more quick kiss before pushing him away, like the responsible student he was.
“Later,” he promised. “Later.”
Henry had first kissed him in the garden just past midnight on New Year’s Day. That was two years ago, now.
The countdown in the ballroom was loud and chaotic, Henry’s lips on his as the crowd roared and confetti rained from the ceiling. Bottles were popped and the music blared on. They pulled apart and shared a look, a silent understanding between them, and escaped the party.
Fireworks sparkled through the dark, dotting the night sky with red and blue and pink and gold. There was no snow this year, but the air was frigid around them. The frost crunched beneath their fancy shoes as they made their way across the tidy lawn.
The liquor churned pleasantly in Alex’s stomach when they stopped and he turned to look at Henry—face reddened from the drinking and the dancing and the kissing, the swoop of his hair impeccable despite it all. He assumed he himself painted a less pretty picture, with the glitter around his eyes that Nora had insisted on slopping on him earlier in the night now smeared by sweat and numerous bouts of giddy, hysterical tears.
“Far nicer out here than in there,” Henry said quietly. He was looking out at the garden, at the treetops, remembering another night.
“Well, aren't you sentimental.”
“You came out here with me,” Henry pointed out.
Alex stared at him. This was forever. Henry was forever, forever, forever. The sharp lines of his deep green suit and the dark circles under his eyes that never quite went away. The way he stepped closer and grabbed Alex by the lapels of his jacket, yanked him roughly forward and leaned down. Alex made a filthy sound and let Henry tilt his head back, parted his lips, wrapped his arms around Henry’s neck and thrust his fingers into his perfect hair.
The faint sound of booming music in the distance faded out and all Alex felt was the heat. Of Henry’s hands on his waist. Of the mouth on his. Every inch of his body aligned with Henry’s. Something tugged at his chest, foreign yet welcome, like a compass insistently pointing him in the right direction. He wanted Henry to be his forever, undeniably and completely. His heart skipped a beat as the realization swooped in—he wanted to goddamn marry him, and fuck, if that wasn't a grand realization to have mid-kiss in the freezing cold with a raucous White House gala raging mere feet away.
He stumbled back and broke into a slightly manic laugh. He grinned at Henry and got a wide smile in return, both of them too drunk to really question anything. He stood still and tried not to wobble as Henry stared at him. His blue eyes were red-rimmed from exhaustion and strenuous physical activity of the partying sort, but bright and attentive and gentle and loving and Alex really, really wanted to marry him.
He opened his big mouth and forced out, “Stay in my room tonight?” instead of another too-rash question that he didn't think he was ready to ask just yet.
“Madam President wouldn’t approve,” Henry said, amused, teasing.
“What Madam President doesn't know won’t hurt her.”
He laid Henry out on the mattress and took him apart slowly like he meant to savor every moment, every second. Henry held onto him like he felt forever, too.
They nodded off just after four swathed in the thick comforter on Alex’s bed, Henry’s head pillowed on his chest, one of his hands around Henry’s shoulders and the other intertwined with Henry’s, their fingers knit tightly together—stupidly in love, inseparable, inextricable, two halves made whole.