Work Text:
Henry Fox asks Alexander Claremont-Diaz on a date on an otherwise unassuming Tuesday morning.
They’re in the library, faces buried in their respective work. Alex, highlighting what seems to be entire paragraphs in his law textbook that could very well be a weapon; Henry, only ten pages into another first draft of another novel, staring at the blinking cursor. There’s a comfortable silence between them, something Henry cherishes, even if it doesn’t help him get a word down. Alex has been his best friend for months, his acquaintance only barely longer, his safe space in a world that seems intent to beat him down.
“Fuck,” Alex whispers now, squinting at his coffee cup like it’s personally offended him. His expression is more adorable than it has any right to be. “I’m out,” he explains, poking his cup like he can magically make coffee appear. Henry simply has to smile.
“Alex, you got it fifteen minutes ago.”
“I’m tired.” Brown eyes meet his, marred with sleeplessness, bags under them. “I swear I’m cutting back on my caffeine intake.” It’s a bald-faced lie, but Henry can’t call him out on it, not when he’s on his third cup of Earl Grey. He watches instead as Alex rubs his eyes and pushes himself away from the desk. “I’m gonna get another cup,” he says; the coffeeshop across the street is shitty but it’s cheap, and even with his law school scholarship money trumps taste. Henry wonders how much money Alex left in his bank account, how much he’s been spending on cheap coffee.
He grabs Alex’s arm before he can think about it. “Alex,” he asks, meeting those tired eyes. His best friend. His safe space. His love. The question slips. “Would you let me buy you coffee?”
Alex blinks. Searches Henry’s face like he’s trying to decide if it’s romantic, and he must’ve found what he wanted because his grin turns brilliant.
“Yeah,” he says, almost dazed. “Yeah. I would.”
i.
It’s been five years since Henry cut ties with his family and moved to the States.
At the time, it was a difficult decision. He knew what that would mean—knew he’d be leaving behind the wealth he grew up with even if it gave him the chance to be himself. He spent a year debating, applying to colleges, to scholarships, to financial aid for a chance of freedom, and eventually picked Oberlin College for its creative writing department, packing all his belongings into two suitcases to move across the ocean. Managed to scrape a full ride and got part time jobs in college to pay his way, and when it came time to graduate, he applied to Ph.D. programs all over the country and moved to New York City on a whim, a cramped graduate student apartment within NYU, his laptop in his backpack and his work tucked into multiple folders.
That’s where he met Alexander Claremont-Diaz—where Alex quite literally crashed into his life, spilling coffee all over his shirt and tugging his own sweater off at an attempt to make up for it. Henry still remembers the mussed up curls from that day, the softness of the second-hand sweater tucked over his head. He’d asked for Alex’s number then, using the sweater as an excuse.
It took him a few months more to properly ask Alex out in that library. To hold his hand openly in public. He paid for Alex’s coffee that day with the stray bills in his pocket, and at the end of the day kissed the taste of it from his lips, a stolen touch in front of Alex’s door, with fingers sliding into his back pocket and Alex’s curls tangled between his fingers.
That was two days ago. It’s a Saturday now, a rare day even Alex has off in his busy law school schedule, and they’re going on their first proper date.
In a dream, Henry rents a limo, takes Alex to a fancy restaurant. They have a candlelit dinner, walk hand in hand to Central Park, rent a carriage for the night. Indulge themselves with dessert before he takes Alex home, presses him in every corner of it until even the walls remember him. In a dream, Henry has money to do all of that.
Instead, they’re in the subway, taking a ride to American Museum of National History, free for all New York residents. They’re squashed between a large husky that’s definitely banned and a man that smells more like hot dog than human, slimy bodies shifting them around every time the car jerks, their chests pressed together. “Sorry,” Henry whispers when he stumbles into Alex, crushing him against a pole. Alex laughs.
“You could’ve just told me if you were falling for me.”
They make it out of the car eventually, climb the stairs to the street. Enter the museum with a brochure in hand, Alex studying the map with a furrow between his brows. “There’s an exhibit for gems,” he whispers as if the museum is a sacred place and he’s trying to preserve that. “We should see the gems.”
Henry smiles. Takes Alex’s hand in his and nods. “Okay.”
So they do. They walk along the expensive jewelry, the raw cuts of gems, worth more than Henry’s entire life displayed behind glass cases. He lets Alex position himself until the necklaces reflect onto his neck, traces the color of the gems in the air. “Like a rainbow,” Alex says, a small smile on his face. “All the colors.” Blue and purple and pink shine behind his eyes, like the flag Henry knows he keeps in his room, and Henry steps along him until green and yellow and red and orange shine along his skin, until their hands meet.
“Do you think they’d let us take some of the pieces if we asked nicely?”
Alex laughs. Meets Henry’s eyes with a twinkle. “I’m sure they would.”
They walk along the other exhibitions, linger under the T-Rex statue just long enough to feel the true weight of it. See the rest of the fossils, bones from a time no human was around, a simpler moment in time, an easier period without humanity trekking along the soil, simply nature and the space and the swirling ball of light in the sky feeding the cycle on this sphere. They walk along displays of extinct animals, Henry laughing at every big cat Alex calls “kitty”, telling him with no doubt that if his death comes early, it’ll be because he pet an animal he shouldn’t have. Sit on the floor away from the guards as Alex hunts videos of cheetahs meowing and purring and doesn’t let Henry leave until he admits he might pet them, too. Promises, somehow, that he’ll get Alex a cheetah cub if he ever becomes a millionaire.
Then, humanity, bit by bit bleeding into the exhibitions. Cultures far from the States with the proximity of time and space. Alex lingers longer in the Hall of Mexico, tells Henry in hushed tones how he wished he would’ve learned more about that part of him and Henry remembers that when Alex was barely a teenager his father left him one summer, didn’t give him more than a month of his time every year.
“We could go to Mexico,” he offers, though it’s an impossibility. “Travel to all the places they talk about.” Yet it puts a smile on his face.
“We could see my abuela. See where my dad born.”
“As long as he doesn’t cook as spicy as you do.”
Alex’s smile widens into a smirk. He squeezes Henry’s hand. “Can’t promise you that.”
The sun is setting by the time they’re out. They walk through Central Park, sit under the shade of a tree to watch the sun disappear behind the buildings. Henry tucks two bags from his tote bag—a free one he got from one book festival or another—and hands one to Alex. “Got it from the taco stand in front of my place,” he says. “It’s just some tacos if that’s… If that’s okay. I know it’s not much.”
“Henry,” Alex whispers, reaching for his hand. Squeezes it tight. “It’s perfect.” He’s smiling that unhindered smile, the one that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle and makes his eyes shine like the sun is still in the sky. He puts the bag aside and leans forward, captures Henry’s lips in his.
The tacos taste all the sweeter with the feel of Alex’s lips still lingering on his.
ii.
“Move in with me,” Henry says when Alex’s lease is coming to an end.
He lives in a shoebox apartment, barely enough space for any adult man, yet he doesn’t hesitate. “We’ll replace the bed with a sofa bed,” he continues, already planning before Alex even agrees. “I don’t have a lot of clothes and…and we can share. You can have my desk, I don’t mind working in the kitchen island, and I have a lot of space on my shelves for textbooks—”
“Baby.” Alex shuts him up with one word. Smiles when he catches Henry’s eyes. “You don’t need to try so hard to convince me.”
And it’s a deal.
Alex still has a month left on his lease. He puts most of his furniture on Facebook Marketplace, along with Henry’s love seat and coffee table. They buy cheap bedside tables as a replacement, find a convertible couch for a good enough price and borrow a friend’s pickup truck to lug it thirty minutes. Carry Alex’s stuff the same way, packed haphazardly into boxes, and pile everything inside the small living space until they can barely see the window. Alex says goodbye to his old space and gives the key back to his landlord.
That night, they celebrate with five dollar Trader Joe’s wine. “To us,” Alex says, and Henry’s heart flutters. He clinks his glass to Alex’s—he’s sure he’s heard wine tastes better in proper glassware but all he has is mismatched water glasses, so it does. The wine isn’t supposed to taste good anyway. But Alex does.
The next day, they throw themselves into unpacking.
It’s impossible to split the closet properly so Alex’s clothes go next to Henry’s, filling the empty spaces on the racks and on the shelves. Their sweaters mix, their jeans squeeze next to each other. The textbooks go in a box under the desk until they can figure out an alternative, his laptop finds a permanent place on Henry’s desk. They place the minimal kitchen supplies he brought into drawers, put the coffee machine next to Henry’s kettle and his coffee container next to Henry’s tea bags. Paste the faded band posters he must’ve kept since high school onto the walls, hang polaroids on a string. Treat themselves to grilled cheese from the bodega around the corner at the end of the night.
“Never again,” Alex says, mouth full of his food. “I’m not fucking moving again.”
“Staying at the shoebox apartment for the rest of your life.”
“Yeah.” His eyes meet Henry’s. “Enough fucking place for both of us, and everyone else would only be annoying anyway.” It’s a joke, yet Henry melts at it anyway. Captures the bit of bread that sticks to Alex’s lips, and then kisses him right there on the street.
“It’s a deal.”
iii.
On the morning of his birthday, Alex wakes Henry up with kisses all over his face.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” he whispers in his ear. “We have plans.” Henry grunts, tries to escape his boyfriend until Alex tilts the bed to convert it back to the sofa and forces him up.
“I hate you,” Henry says as he tries to rub the sleep off his face, drinking the scalding Earl Grey Alex placed on the kitchen island. Alex laughs.
“Happy birthday, baby.” He places a plate of pancakes in front of Henry, topped with enough strawberries that Henry has to arch a brow. “They were half off at the store and I wanted to treat you,” Alex explains. A splurge no doubt and Henry wants to chide him for it—wants to say he shouldn’t spend this kind of money on Henry of all people but he bites his tongue. This is Alex’s love language, sacrificing himself just to treat Henry to something special, and Henry can’t be mad about that.
“Thank you.” He digs in, lets the pancake and sugar syrup melt on his tongue with the strawberries. “This is… This is amazing.”
Alex beams like he won the lottery.
They have the whole day in front of them. It’s a weekend, so Alex takes him out, to the subway and all the way to the edge of Central Park and the museum they had their first date in. “I thought we could walk down memory lane,” he says with a smile. “And I wanted to kiss you in every exhibition.”
He keeps that promise. Kisses Henry in the corners, presses him to the hidden walls of the museum, drops pecks on his lips in front of the richest gems and the oldest skeletons. Looks up at the T-Rex and goes, “Could probably ride him,” and grins when Henry flushes. And then they’re out on the steps, sharing a Chipotle bowl, heads tilted towards each other.
“I got you something,” Alex says. Henry looks up at him.
“I thought you got me strawberries.”
“Something else. Something small,” he amends when he sees the concern in Henry’s eyes. From his tote bag, he produces a small package. A store-bought muffin, a singular candle, and a box of matches. He carefully places the candle on the muffin.
Henry laughs. “Where did you get the candle from?” he asks, and Alex smirks.
“May have pretended it was my birthday when June took me out to dinner and swiped it from the restaurant.” He lights it, drops the match aside, and looks so excited Henry can’t be mad about the theft. “Make a wish, baby.”
Henry looks at the candle. Looks back at Alex. Closes his eyes, and wishes he never has to find out what life will be like without him. And then blows.
iv.
It’s coming up to a year since Alex moved in with him, and Henry has an idea.
The library is a beautiful resource—he sits there, scrap paper in his hands, staring at a computer screen until his eyes feel like they might be bleeding. He folds and refolds pieces of paper, gets more paper cuts than he has in his entire life, until he manages to get one of them to look like a ring with a diamond on it. It’s not perfect—it’ll never be perfect, not for how much Alex means to him—but he hopes it’ll be enough.
“That’s a beautiful piece of work,” the librarian tells him when he goes back to return all the paper he didn’t use. Henry flushes and smiles.
“It’s for my boyfriend. I’m… I’m thinking it can be our promise ring.” Henry stares at the thing, wishes he could’ve done more. Wishes there were more than a few hundred dollars in his bank account, all of them spared for groceries. But the older woman takes it in stride.
“I’m sure he’ll love it.”
Henry tucks the ring in his pocket as he leaves the library, makes the short trek back home, holding it carefully between his fingers. It’s almost fall, coming up to Alex’s third year of law school and his third year of grad school. Another year for Alex, and he’ll have a job, a decent enough pay that he might be able to splurge every now and then. Another year, and Henry might even finish one of his manuscripts. Another year before an unknown future.
All Henry knows is that he wants Alex in it.
His boyfriend is away when he comes back home. Studying, most likely—the bar exam isn’t easy, even if there’s months left to it. It’ll be a tough year—Henry hopes tonight will be a bit of a break from that. He puts the paper ring into a small paper box, places a fake candle and hand-picked flowers on the kitchen island, takeout dollar pizza on fancy plates. He checks in with Alex, and when Alex says he’s close he heats up the pizza and everything is ready for his boyfriend once the lock turns.
Alex stares at the island. Looks up at Henry. “Please tell me I didn’t forget something,” he says, and Henry just snorts.
“You do realize I don’t need a special reason to treat you, right?”
If Alex seems suspicious, he doesn’t say a word. He lets himself be led into the small kitchen island, sits on one of the stools. Almost melts on the surface from exhaustion and munches on the edge of his pizza. Henry places a glass in front of him.
“RedBull vodka,” he says quietly. “Just this one.” Alex smiles gratefully and takes a sip, letting his eyes flutter closed. Part of Henry wishes he could simply cuddle Alex until he’s okay. “Studies?” he asks instead and Alex chokes out a laugh.
“I don’t fucking know how I’m gonna survive this year.” He stares at the kitchen island, pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “I can’t fail the bar, Hen.” He doesn’t outright says it but Henry knows that for Alex, it’s almost equivalent to failing Henry. Failing their future, as if Henry would simply leave if Alex couldn’t provide.
The ring feels heavy in his pocket. With one hand he reaches out, holds Alex’s. “I believe you’ll pass,” he says without any hesitation, “but if you don’t, it’s not the end of the world, love. We’ll figure it out.” Wet eyes meet his.
“You sound so sure,” Alex chokes out. Henry smiles.
“I am. I don’t doubt that you’re my future, Alex. Whatever that looks like.” He searches Alex’s face, presses a kiss to his knuckles. Slowly, he takes the small box out of his pocket. Presses it on Alex’s palm. “I want to promise myself to you.”
Alex blinks. He opens the box, and there it is—the white ring Henry made from paper, imperfect yet beautiful. His breath hitches in his throat. “Henry, is this—”
“I want to do it properly,” Henry says before Alex can get far. “When I have the money for it. I want to get you a proper ring and…and whisk you somewhere beautiful. But until then this is what I have, and… And I want you to have it. So you know this is it for me. Whatever happens.”
Tears cling to Alex’s lashes. One falls down, and another, and he doesn’t even wipe away as he meets Henry’s eyes. “I don’t need a proper ring,” he whispers. “It’s a yes. It’ll always be a yes.”
Henry’s heart threatens to spill out of his chest, to fill the crevices between Alex’s ribs. “Yeah.”
“Yes.” Alex gingerly puts the ring aside, takes Henry’s face in his hands. “Yes. Forever. Yes—” The words dissolve on his tongue when Henry kisses him, his body pliable under Henry’s hand, lips parted to let him in. To let himself be loved, even if all Henry has is a paper ring to show for it.
One day, Henry promises, it’ll be more than that.
v.
Henry finishes his first book halfway through his third year.
It’s a work of blood and tears, but most of all it’s a work of love, of all the support Alex offered him, of late nights they both stayed up together with arms pressed against each other as they did their respective works. It’s a letter to the love of his life, a book he’s stitched together to press everything he felt for this man in his chest into the pages. It’s a romance book but it’s a lot more than that—it’s a book about queer joy, a book about acceptance and self-discovery, a book about finding happiness in the small things.
Henry finishes the book, reaches out to his professors for connections, and in a few weeks he has an agent. He celebrates it with Alex, though they’re drinking nothing more than water.
Another two months, and he has an actual book deal.
It comes as a surprise. It’s an email he almost deletes at first, thinking it’s spam, until he actually reads it. Then, he calls his agent with tears in his eyes, finds the closest bench to sit down and tries to process the news. A book deal with St. Martin’s, eight thousand dollars in advance. More money than Henry has seen at once in years. It turns his head.
He navigates to Alex’s contact the moment he’s off the phone with his agent. The first person he wants to share the news with. The person he wants to celebrate with. Only at the last second he stops and looks up.
Trader Joe’s, right across from him. He puts his phone away, walks in, and for once lets himself splurge just a little bit. Texts Alex then, asks him to meet Henry at Central Park after school, their usual location. He already has the picnic set up by the time Alex walks in.
“Henry,” he breathes, letting his bag drop to the ground. “What the fuck did you do?”
A grin spreads on Henry’s face. He takes Alex’s hand, tugs him forward until Alex tears his eyes away from the food and looks at Henry. “I got a book deal.”
Alex blinks. “For real?” he asks, and Henry has to laugh.
“For real.”
Another second, and then he’s almost knocked back by Alex. “Holy shit,” he whispers in Henry’s ear, “holy fucking shit you made it, you fucking made it,” and he sounds so proud Henry almost cries right then and there, clinging to his boyfriend-slash-fiancé, eyes shut just so he can imagine the future. The money in their accounts. The ring he’d finally get for Alex. The book signings, and Alex smiling at him from the crowd. All the strawberries they’d buy, the authentic Mexican food they’d be able to afford.
“They’re giving me eight thousand dollars,” he whispers in Alex’s ear. “I wanted to treat you.” Alex pulls back, stares at Henry like he doesn’t give a shit about a singular dollar. Takes his face in his hands and shakes his head.
“I love you so fucking much.”
Henry’s heart fills so much it feels like he’ll burst. He squeezes Alex close to his chest.
“I love you, too.”
The kiss feels like the best treat he could have.
+i. first valentine’s day after henry’s book is published
The book is a success.
Even after the praises of early reviewers, the sheer love that pours in on publication day takes Henry by surprise. In his first event as a lead author, he expects the small local bookstore he booked with to be empty. Instead, there’s a line outside, his voice shakes as he speaks about his work, and his hand hurts by the end of the day with the sheer number of books he has to sign, flying off the shelves quicker than his publisher can keep up with.
That night, Alex massages his knuckles and kisses his Sharpie-stained fingers, pride in his eyes and love pouring out of smiles. “I’m so fucking proud of you,” he whispers, and in that singular moment Henry thinks he’s never quite been loved like Alex loves him, to take time off just to come watch Henry speak and kiss him at the end of the night even if he has a bar exam to prepare for.
Henry is right there with him when he takes the bar, walking with him to the test, waiting outside until he comes out. Alex melts into his arms when it’s all over, face tucked into the crook of his neck, crying from the stress of it all. Henry stays through that, too, ready to wipe his tears away.
Alex passes the bar. Henry doesn’t even pretend to be surprised by the result.
Now, it’s four months later. Alex is settled in his career as an associate in one of the big law firms, making enough money that Henry had to reign him in so he didn’t blow his first paycheck on frivolous purchases. Henry is in the process of drafting his second book while the royalties for his first one come in. Their joint bank account has crossed five figures, inching up every month even after all their monthly expenses. Their personal accounts have never seen this much money. For once, they don’t have to budget to make ends meet, don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck.
The reality of it hits Henry hard when he finds himself in front of a jewelry store on his way back from the library and realizes he could afford most of the displayed rings.
It’s not a conscious decision, when he walks in. Not a conscious decision to ask for engagement rings for his boyfriend, to let his fingers hover the different colors, different hues, different shades. Lets himself linger on a gold band with a brown circle in the center, the exact shade of Alex’s eyes, simple but beautiful.
“Can you engrave something inside?” he asks the woman helping him. She arches a brow when he tells her the phrase but notes it down anyway, gives him a date to pick up the ring. A week before Valentine’s Day.
Henry starts planning.
He makes reservations at a nice restaurant; it’s not high-end but it has silk napkins and actual tablecloth and it means something. Calls ahead to make sure they have a private booth to themselves, orders a decent bottle of wine to share. Gets himself a nice sweater and a pair of trousers, picks an outfit for Alex at the same time. And when the day comes, he hangs the outfit and waits for his fiancé to come home.
Alex arches a brow at the sight. “What the fuck did you do?” he asks, and Henry simply smiles.
“You’ll see.”
If Alex suspects anything he doesn’t say. He dutifully puts on the shirt, the suit pants, the jacket. Takes Henry’s hand as they head out and walk the short way to the restaurant. Even takes the bottle of wine in stride, though he lets the liquid swirl around the glass, takes a long sniff before he even sips it.
A laugh escapes his lips then. “I want to be fucking mad at you,” he says, “and then I remember we can afford things like this now. I’m still not used to it.”
Henry remembers standing in front of that same jewelry store a year ago, aching to treat Alex. Remembers a couple of weeks ago, when the price wasn’t a concern. Reaches to take Alex’s hand in his, brushes his thumb over his ring finger. “I know, love.”
The food is good. Alex’s laugh is even better, ringing around the restaurant, loose and happy the more he sips the wine. He’s two glasses in by the time they’re done with food and order dessert, leaned back in his chair, smiling that crooked smile to Henry like even now, three years into their relationship, he still can’t quite believe he gets to live a love story like theirs.
Henry is right there with him.
When the plates are cleared, Henry puts their wine glasses aside so he can reach for Alex’s hands. “I promised you something last year,” he whispers. Alex arches a brow, head tilted aside.
“You promised me a lot of somethings, baby.”
“I promised I’d do this. Properly this time.” Henry smiles and takes Alex’s ring finger in his. Traces a circle until Alex’s breath hitches in his throat. He stares at Henry, searching his eyes.
“You fucking didn’t.”
Henry’s smile widens. He reaches for his pocket, takes out the small velvet box. Slowly, he gets up from the table and gets down on one knee. “Henry,” Alex chokes out again. “Henry, you didn’t.”
“My love,” Henry starts, voice hushed. He searches Alex’s eyes, sees them glimmering with tears. “I know you said you didn’t need a proper ring and a fancy proposal to say yes but I can’t imagine a world I wouldn’t give you all I can afford, simply to see that smile on your face.” Alex laughs, crinkles around his eyes, and Henry thinks, there. That’s the love of his life. He opens the box, squeezes Alex’s hand. “Will you marry me, Alex?”
“As if you don’t know the fucking answer.” Alex’s voice is merely a whisper. His fingers are shaky when Henry takes the ring out but he slides it easily, let it slot against his skin. A perfect fit.
“I knew,” Henry says with a shrug, “just wanted to hear it for the sake of the restaurant.” He stands up, Alex’s hand in his, and there’s applause behind them, ringing in his ears. He takes his fiancé’s face in his hand and kisses him, properly, rightfully. Finally.
Next week, they’re back at the store, picking a matching ring for Henry, a circle of blue and silver. Inside, the same engraving Alex’s has.
Always, yes.