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There’s been a shift.
Four years of friendship and it takes dancing together at the end of the night to a slow song in a practically empty bar for them to come face to face with what they’ve been avoiding this entire time:
They’re in love with one another.
The entire walk home, Alex could still feel Henry’s hands digging into his hips; his warm breath on his ear. The quiet introspection in his eyes when they’d flickered back and forth between Alex’s before he’d gently pulled away—the kind of movement that said if he didn’t; if he didn’t then everything would’ve changed on the hardwood floor of a bar they’d randomly chosen to run into to avoid the rain.
As it is, there’s a quiet electricity flickering between them; a currant keeping them close and at arms length all at once. He can feel Henry behind him as he slides the key in the door. Watches him from beneath his eyelashes as he quietly steps aside so Henry can step into the apartment before him. And when he closes the door, Henry’s there, still damp but in no rush to change that state; standing in the center of the living room, staring at Alex with those big blue eyes, a question timid and aching hidden beneath them.
Alex smiles softly at him, steps forward, takes his hand, and then guides him down the hall to one of their rooms. It doesn’t matter which they land in; Alex’s is closer, but Henry’s door is open so he goes for it. Ease of access feels smartest; no fiddling with the janky knob to his own room, no kicking clothes out of the way so Henry can sit on the edge of his bed.
Henry lets himself be guided, and when they cross the threshold into his room, it’s Henry who closes the door behind them, as if they need the modesty. Alex drops his hand and moves to sit on the edge of the bed; watches as Henry quietly heads for the closet and pulls out a dry shirt. Alex watches him change; almost feels guilty for the damp spot he’s leaving on Henry’s comforter, but he has a feeling that maybe neither of them will be sleeping in this bed tonight if they don’t have to.
He’s hoping they don’t have to.
Henry pulls on a pair of comfort blue and white striped pajama pants and finally turns to Alex, reaching up with one hand to fiddle with the ring on his finger. If Alex didn’t know better—he’d think he’s nervous. But, this is Henry, and this is Alex, and there’s nothing to be nervous about. They’d been flitting around these feelings for years.
It’s just.
Time.
Alex smiles softly at him, an echo of earlier in the night, when Henry’s gaze had caught his beneath the tarnished lighting in the bar. It’d clicked, then. Standing there in each others arms, the ghost of laughter crackling through their throats, rain dripping down the length of their bodies as they splashed through it to dance to an old country song Alex remembers his dad singing along to on the radio. It’d clicked.
This is what they’re meant to be.
Not at arms length, pining and aching and wanting but too afraid to act.
They belong within one another’s arms. Happy. Free.
Loved — and not by just anyone. By each other.
Henry sniffs, gaze flitting around the room.
Alex scoots to the side of the bed. Quietly, he reaches out and pats the spot next to him.
Henry tilts his head at him, before rolling those big blue eyes and marching across the room to take the place of Alex’s hand on the bed. Once seated, he rolls his lips; Alexs watches the motion, a smile tugging at his own, as Henry turns to look around the room again as if this isn’t going where it is.
Alex huffs a laugh, “Henry,” he says, soft.
Henry nods, eyes rising heavenward.
Smiling, Alex turns his body to face him, reaching up with his right hand and cupping it along the cut of Henry’s jaw. He brushes his thumb along the slight evidence of a day without a shave, before dragging Henry in to him; there’s no resistance, Henry leans into the touch, the pressure, let’s himself be directed to where he belongs.
Alex manages to take in a quick rush of air before Henry meets him in the middle.
It’s different, he thinks.
Imagining your best friends lips on yours, and actually having them there.
It’s different.
It’s . . .
fucking transcendent.
He leans into the press of their lips, breathing in through his nose and pushing, pulling, until Henry’s hands come up too, finding that place in the dip of his hips for his thumbs to rest perfectly; firm and secure, right where he fucking belongs. Alex’s free hand reaches for the other side of Henry’s jaw, drawing him in as close as he can get him.
Alex has kissed people; many of them.
He’s never been kissed like this. Raw and open and reeling. Warmth sinking into him from each place their touch—the palms of his hands, the clack of their knees between them, the thumbs digging into his hip and waist.
And then—
Henry.
Makes a noise at the back of his throat; soft and sweet and aching, and Alex drags himself away to look at him, his thumbs sweeping over the rise of his cheekbones. One of Henry’s hands rising up over Alex’s back, hooking on his shoulder, fingers clenching through the damp fabric of his shirt, clinging tightly, as if he’s afraid of what might happen if he lets go.
And Alex can’t have that; can’t have him believing he’s ever likely to let go.
He smiles, something burning and bright and true burning through his chest. “I love you,” he says, softly, voice crackling with emotion.
Henry’s eyes flick back and forth between his as if reading for any signs of deception; his blossoming lips quirk upwards, and he’s nodding, nodding, nodding, and then leaning in, “Me too,” he breathes right against Alex’s lips as he dips his chin and knocks his nose against the side of Alex’s. “I love you, too.”
And then he’s closing the distance, and there’s warmth radiating down Alex’s spine as he finds himself drowning in sense and oblivion; Henry’s lips guiding him between the two. Hands finds their way into his hair, gently tugging on his waves with promises of more, while Alex’s hands slip down to the length of Henry’s throat, carefully holding him as if something precious.
Because he is.
This is.
Precious.
Theirs.
Alex loses himself to the kiss; the feel and sensation of the perfect dream colliding with a reality that surpasses even his wildest imaginings. Henry’s firm and sure beneath him; solid and yielding in his kiss; in the glide of his lips; the draw of his tongue; the cut of his jaw beneath Alex’s wandering fingers. He’s demanding and giving and open and sinking, and Alex loses track of time and space and reality in favor of the place their lips meet.
Drifting.
Aimless.
Wonderful and real and so steeped in years of love that nothing could pull them apart—literally or figuratively.
This is a forever kind of kiss.
This is the future; waking up with morning breath and drawing one another close nonetheless; falling into bed at the end of a long day, week, year, life; clinging to one another beneath the weight of thunder and rain and whatever may come or has already gone.
Slowly, they come back to reality. Kisses linger, slow and meandering. Drawn out and meaningful, until it all settles it on a chaste press to the corner of Henry’s mouth; Alex’s lips crowning that little mole there with his love and adoration, before he pulls back and finds hooded blue eyes blown out and beautiful gazing down at him.
“Perfect,” Henry whispers to him, his hands drifting to Alex’s cheeks. He wipes at the corner of Alex’s mouth, the corners of his own swollen, wet lips quirking upwards. “You’re perfect.”
And, Alex, never one to miss an opportunity for a quip, says, “I’ll remember that next time you call me a demon miscreant with a penchant for stealing your pens.”
Henry wrinkles his nose. “Two things can be true at once.”
Alex laughs, full and open and real; it drifts between them until it settles into a low chuckle as he presses his forehead to Henry’s. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, fondly. “I’m so glad you’re mine.”
“Am I?” Henry asks, his hands drawing lower to Alex’s back. “Yours?”
“Life changing kiss aside,” Alex says, making a face. “Was there ever a time, really, where I wasn’t yours and you weren’t mine?”
“You were quite the prick when we first met,” Henry murmurs.
Alex huffs, pulling back to give him a faux glare. “Only after you—”
“But I think not,” he interrupts, raising his voice and smiling; the special smile. The one that not everyone gets to see; bright and full and gummy and brilliant. “I think even then.”
“Yeah?”
He nods; swallows. “You and me,” he says. “Sounds a bit like destiny, don’t you think?”
Alex smiles, heart fluttering like a hummingbird in his chest. “I like the sound of that.”
Destiny.
Alex and Henry woven into the fabric of the universe; an inevitably not stopped by the stupidity of fear or young adulthood or expectations or anything in between.
Yeah.
That sounds right.