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Henry has been living in a two-story brownstone in Brooklyn for 3 years, and for the past 2 years Alex has shared the address. Since moving to New York Henry has learned the ins and outs of the household chores he never had a reason to learn while he lived in Kensington Palace. Dusting shelves, making the bed, cleaning the dishes, and his favorite task of all - doing the laundry. He’s not completely sure why it’s his favorite, but he suspects it may have something to do with being able to smell Alex in every aspect of the endeavor. The perfect mixture of his natural musk and how it dances with the lingering scent of Santal 33 as it wafts against Henry’s nose while he loads the clothes into the washer. Or maybe it’s his ability to fully appreciate the things that bring his boyfriend to life at the beginning of each morning, when he goes from Alex, the doe-eyed sappy lover, to Alexander Claremont-Diaz, the confident and determined lawyer. Whatever the reason, the one thing he knows at this moment is that maybe he should stop trying to do the laundry.
“Oh , shit.” Henry says to himself as he pulls the cashmere jumper out of the dryer.
He holds it up against his own torso, the sleeve now barely reaching past his elbow. He might love doing the laundry, but this is the 4th piece of attire he’s placed in the wrong batch. In his defense, he was in the middle of loading the washing machine last night when Alex entered the room with nothing but socks on (it was laundry day, after all), and Henry truly had no choice but to shove the remaining clothes into the appliance all at once.
He gathers the rest of the clothes in the laundry basket and heads towards their bedroom. Passing through the kitchen along the way, he places the jumper on the island. “I’ll deal with you later.” he says at the garment, as if he were expecting it to unshrink in terror.
In the bedroom Henry begins sorting the clothes and putting them away. It’s a wonder how they managed to fit both of their wardrobes in a single walk-in closet, but they make do. He carefully folds the socks and underwear, and he can’t help but laugh when he gets to a pair of striped boxers that are vaguely reminiscent of the ones he had once tried to sneak on in the closet of a hotel room not even 2 miles from where they currently reside. From there he moves on to their array of pants - ranging from the loungewear they bought during an impromptu trip to the Maldives, all the way to the designer polo pants that he still occasionally wears because of how much Alex loves his ass in them. Lastly he begins hanging up their tees and overshirts. He’s nearly finished when he trips over the now-almost-empty basket and attempts to catch himself on a shelf full of Alex’s shoes… The shelf had other plans.
He tumbled to the floor, the shelf clattered beside him. Alex’s shoes practically rained down until all 22 pairs surrounded him. Henry let out another deep sigh - this laundry really will be the bane of his existence. He got up, readjusted the shelf, and got to work putting each sneaker, loafer, and oxford back in its place. The shelf had scraped him on his way to the ground, but by the time he noticed his mind was elsewhere, because as he was reaching for the match to the trainer in his hand he saw it - there on the ground, amongst the mess of leather and suede, was a small box. It stopped Henry dead in his tracks.
Before he could even give himself time to register what he found he had already grabbed the box and opened it. Normally making lists is Alex’s thing, but given the circumstances Henry decides it’s his turn to give it a shot, and this is what comes to the forefront of his mind:
- He’s ruined several loads of laundry, but refuses to give up until he can get it right.
- He lives in a beautiful house with the man he was destined to love since 2016.
- Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz is the love of his life.
- He definitely just found a fucking engagement ring stuffed in the heel of one of Alex’s shoes.
He gingerly closes the box and places it on the tabletop of their shared vanity before finishing the task of cleaning up the shoes that were still strewn about the rug in their closet, though it takes twice as long as it should as Henry stops time and time again to eye the box that is staring him down from across the room. Once every shoe is back on the shelf he walks out of the closet and into the main area of the bedroom. There are other chores to be done, but for the life of him he can’t remember what they are.
He plops down on the bed for a brief moment before ultimately deciding to take a seat at the vanity. After opening the box once more, he crosses his arms on the table and places his chin in the dip of his wrists. His eyes are mere inches from the ring and he can’t help but admire its beauty - a simple gold band with 2 small diamonds side-by-side in the center. It’s only after he’s brave enough to pick it up that he realizes the interior is engraved - “History, huh?” - a phrase that 5 years ago wouldn’t have meant anything, but as of 4 years ago means everything.
Henry’s heart is so full of love at the thought of marrying Alex, but there's something else there too. He knew he and Alex would get married someday, but it’s not something they had ever actually talked about yet. The prospect of officially being the first member of the royal family to ever tie the knot with someone of the same-sex scared him. Alex had been his official suitor for years, but some part of him never expected they’d actually make it this far. Between the anxiousness, nervousness, excitement, and fear of the future, Henry’s mind was running at full speed and his heart was beating just fast enough to match it. He almost didn’t hear Alex enter through the front door, and was only brought back to reality when he was able to comprehend the words of his boyfriend (soon-to-be fiancé?) calling from the first floor “Henry, baby, I’m home!”. In a panic Henry quickly closed the box and shoved it in his pocket. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it just yet, but he knew it’d be happening tonight - there is no way he was letting Alex keep this secret all to himself for another day.
“Babe, again?” Alex says as he picks up the shrunken sweater off the counter. “It’s a good thing I’ve got the Ralph Lauren to spare. We can afford a few casualties, and I’m sure our closet thanks us for giving it more room to breathe.”
Across the kitchen island Henry takes a moment to process the sight of Alex comparing the now child-sized item of clothing to his own chest in the same way he himself did barely an hour ago, only against Alex the sleeves of the jumper fall just shy of his elbow. Henry laughs as if to say ‘we’ve lived together for 2 years, do you really expect anything less?,’ but there is something else hidden beneath his exhale, and Alex picks up on it immediately.
Tossing the sweater to the side, he tries to lighten the mood when he says “Alright, what’s going on? Because this-” he makes a hand gesture encompassing all of Henry “is not the vibe.” Despite Henry’s light chuckle Alex can still tell something is on his mind. He slides behind Henry, weaving his arms around the waist of his own personal statue of David come-to-life. Henry remains still, bracing himself on the kitchen counter, as Alex lowers his head until his chin is resting on Henry's shoulder and the crown prince feels the faintest kiss placed just behind his ear, and a light brush of eyelashes on his helix. Henry turns his head to return the gesture and they remain this way until he finally twists himself out of Alex’s embrace to see him face-to-face.
Alex takes Henry’s hands in his own. “Henry, what’s going on?”. Henry is no longer the only one who can feel that the mood in the room has shifted. Alex hasn’t even been home for 5 minutes, but Henry knows this is inevitable and figures he may as well get it over with.
He removes his hands from Alex’s grip and places one on the side of Alex’s face, his pinky hooking just under his lover’s chiseled jawline while his thumb caresses his temple. “I love you so much” Henry says when he leans in and rests their foreheads together before closing the gap between their lips with a single tenderhearted kiss.
As he pulls away he takes one last chance to look at the man he loves - now standing full of worry and confusion - before he changes everything by forcing them to have this conversation here and now.
“I love you so much that when you’re gone I ache for the moment you return and I can feel your skin on mine. I yearn for your lips to cover every inch of me, body and soul. From the second I met you I was in love with you, and from the moment we first kissed under that tree in the Kennedy Garden I knew I was done pretending that wasn’t the godawful truth.”
“Henry, I-” Alex began before quickly being interrupted.
“I never thought Henry Fox was someone worth fighting for, but you showed me he is. You tore down the walls I had built so high like you had a personal vendetta against them, and you used the fallen bricks to build a home - to build a life here, with me.”
Alex is finally able to get a full sentence out, “I love you, too. And don’t get me wrong I adore it when you go on your love tangents, but I know you well enough to know they come about when something's been on your mind. So, what’s eating Henry Fox?”
Henry never breaks eye contact with Alex as he reaches into his pocket and places the box on the counter. It’s not until Henry drops his gaze that Alex gives himself permission to turn his attention to the source of the faint click he heard just a few seconds before, and upon realizing the cause of the sound his face quickly goes flush and he reaches a hand behind his head and into his own hair.
“You, uhh… you weren’t supposed to see that yet…”
“Well, I did.”
Alex reaches for the box, but Henry beats him to it. For the third time today he opens the container and is greeted by that damn aureate band. Both of them stare at it on the counter for what seems like an eternity - standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder as if to mirror the two dainty diamonds gawking up at them from the marble countertop - until Henry turns to look at Alex once again and finally breaks the silence.
“What the fuck is this?” He asks while pointing to the very small elephant in the room. His tone isn’t angry in the slightest, but it's not something Alex has heard in him before. Though there’s never been an engagement ring on the counter before either, so several elements of this conversation are bound to be uncharted territory.
Alex takes in and releases a deep breath before beginning.
“First let me tell you what it’s not.”
“It’s not a promise.” He intertwines one of his pinkies with Henry’s. “I made a promise to you years ago that we would do this together, and the day I break it will be the day I leave this Earth.”
“It’s not a declaration of love.” He adds their ring fingers to the small clench. “I have loved and will continue to love you with every fiber of my being everyday."
“It’s not a secret to be divulged.” Their middle fingers join the others in the grasp. “I would shout from the rooftops everyday to let the world know you are mine and I am yours.”
“It’s not some ‘daft prepubescent fantasy’.” He says with a light laughter shared between them at the use of Henry’s own words from so many years ago. Alex adds their pointer fingers to the clutch and finally is able to use his thumb to caress Henry’s knuckles. Only then does Henry realize that Alex is doing what he does best, making a list. He's counting the numbers on their fingers, and they’re about to run out of digits.
As Alex approaches the fifth item on his list he releases the grip and raises Henry’s left hand to place it on the center of his own chest, setting his right hand on top and intertwining their fingers together once more. Henry has closed the space between them again, to the point where if you were an outsider looking in you wouldn’t know where one heart stopped and the other began.
“But what it is…” Alex finally continues, his breath careening over Henry’s lips, “is a culmination of everything we have done and will do together. We fought like hell to get here, and I’d continue to fight like hell if it means we stay standing side by side for the rest of our lives. I want to wake up next to you every morning like it was the dawn after the election and it didn’t matter who knew we were together. I want to be nitpicky about your ties and I want you to roast me about my questionable taste in celebrity crushes. I want to know your body like it’s mine and memorize every hill and valley in the topography of your skin, and I want to hold the image of your impeccable lips in my mind like a polaroid picture passed down through generations.”
By this point Henry’s doubts and fears have subsided and left his body in the form of the steady stream of saltwater cascading down his face, replaced with nothing but hope and love for the man that stands before him. Henry retrieves his hand from Alex’s chest and quickly captures his suitor’s head in an all-encompassing grip. When he finally slams their lips together they can both taste the salt from Henry’s tears. Alex once again encapsulates Henry’s waist and in one swift motion lifts him up to be sitting on the island. They’re so enamored with the fact that 4 years later they’re still doing the same trick they used in the tack room during the polo match in Connecticut, they almost don’t notice the box inching closer and closer to the edge of the counter. The high probability of knocking it to the floor and sending the ring to the no-man's-land that is under the stove snaps them out of it just enough for Henry to finally spit out a response.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Alex says. He wouldn't dare separate their bodies right now, but he pulls his head back just far enough to meet Henry's gaze.
“Yes, I will marry you.”
“I don’t recall asking, Your Majesty.” Alex responds with a smirk, old habits die hard.
They both flip from serious to playful in a matter of seconds, and while Henry is distracted rolling his eyes Alex snatches the ring off of the counter and shoves it deep within the pocket of his blazer. “Now that I know what your answer will be, you’ll get this back when you behave, mister. Didn’t anyone teach you not to go snooping around other people’s things?”
“What’s mine is yours, darling.” Henry bats back
“Well in that case I think this sweater belongs to you.” Responds Alex as he retrieves the item from the living room floor and tosses it at Henry. “It’s a jumper, actually.” Now it’s Alex’s turn to roll his eyes at how Henry still insists on using British vocabulary despite having lived in New York for 3 years.
Henry is still sitting on the island and he can feel the warmth from the blood that has rushed to his cheeks. Alex kisses him right in the middle of the dopey, toothy, grin that is plastered across his face. They both smile into it and as Alex pulls away Henry nearly topples off the counter in his attempt to remain tethered to what are surely the softest lips on the planet. With that, Alex gathers his briefcase and heads upstairs to their bedroom to change into something a little more reasonable for a night spent watching “The Great British Bake Off”.
He still can’t believe it took Henry 7 months to find the ring, even if it was by accident. And now that he knows it exists the next hiding place has to somehow be even more clever.
It’s been 10 days since Henry found the ring. 10 days since Alex re-hid the ring. 10 days of Henry waiting anxiously for Alex to officially ask him to be his husband, and 10 days of Alex watching Henry wanting to crawl out of his skin and enjoying it just a little too much. Henry has attempted to find it, which Alex knows. But what he’s managed to stay completely oblivious to is that the very next day Henry went out and bought a matching ring in silver, inscribed with “Bet we could make some”.
When Alex leaves for work Henry is immediately on a mission. He knew the night before that today would be the day he was going to find that ring if it kills him - he would tear the brownstone apart brick by brick if he had to.
Surely Alex wouldn’t put it back in the closet, but it was still the first place he checked. He looked in every shoe, under every hat and tested every coat and pant pocket but came out empty handed. Surely the socks and underwear drawer would be too cliché, and he was correct as that yielded no results either. His next attempt was every drawer in the dressers, bathroom, nightstand, and vanity. Nada. It was then that it dawned on him - If Alex was truly trying to hide something why would he put it in the room he knows like the back of his hand?
But, Henry also knows how much Alex loves reverse psychology… and then it hit him.
He ran to the laundry room and threw open every cupboard. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until he took a closer look at the box of dryer sheets on the bottom of the stack - it was open. He tossed the boxes on top to the side and pulled out the suspicious carton. Lifting the flap his intuition was proven correct - the dryer sheets had been removed and sitting in their place was the same small velvet box from a week and a half prior. Henry cleaned up the mess he had created and retreated to the kitchen, ring box in tow. He took the ring out and slipped it onto his finger.
When Alex got home that evening he entered the kitchen to find Henry leaning against the counter, lightly sipping on a cup of tea, holding it in a way that was clearly orchestrated to show off the shiny gold band as it rests in its new permanent home. Without saying a word Alex approached him and took the mug out of his hands and placed it on the counter behind him. He gathered Henry’s hands in the same way he had the week before, but this time he placed the back of Henry’s left hand on his cheek, feeling the metal against his skin - it’s warm so he knows it must have been found hours ago. He kisses Henry’s hand where the ring now lives before looking up into those perfect brown eyes staring back at him. Hand-in-hand they make their way upstairs. Alex enters the master bathroom while, unbeknownst to him, Henry sneaks back out of their dwelling to the music room. He lifts the top of the piano bench and reaches inside to pull out his own little box and then slides back into the room with Alex being none the wiser. When he emerges back through the doorway he knows three things to be true:
- Henry George Edward James Hanover-Stuart Fox is the love of his life.
- He’s definitely adding “The way a ring looks on your finger” to the incomplete list of reasons why he loves him.
- There is a silver ring with 2 small diamonds sitting in a box that has been propped open on the nightstand closest to his side of the bed.