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Henry isn't really paying attention as the door opens, digging through his unfortunately messy desk to try and find his favorite pen. Alex had gotten it for him as a joke years ago, but despite the questionable branding on it and the unfortunate disembodied heads of One Direction, it worked well and he enjoyed using it.
"Hey, H?" Alex asks and Henry waves to show he's heard. "Quick question: Your new book..."
Oh, dear. That sounds somewhat ominous, so he looks up from his desk to see Alex holding a copy of Affectionately Yrs, one of the advance author copies he'd received.
"What about my new book?" he asks, trying not to be distracted by how ridiculously well-fitted Alex's shirt is. "Something the matter with it?"
"Not exactly. I was just wondering why the love interest happens to be described exactly like me," Alex says and Henry freezes. Oh.
Oops.
"And the main character happens to look an awful lot like you."
He hadn't even realized it until now, is the thing. But Adam and Jeffery are described as looking like them. Personality-wise, they're different, Adam's personality more in line with Henry's own than Alex's and vice-versa. But it's undeniably still them in some ways. Damn it.
"Placeholder appearances," he bullshits, looking back at his desk. "That somehow didn't get caught in editing. I should email them about that—"
"Henry. Did you mean to write about us falling in love?" Alex asks and the question's so unexpected that Henry can't say anything in his surprise. Something in his face must give away that it wasn't meant to be quite so them but that's how it ended up. "When you wrote about Adam and Jeffery caught in the rain and Adam pressing him against the wall of the alley, were you imagining us?"
And that is unfortunately far closer to the truth than Henry wants to answer.
"Alex–"
"H," Alex interrupts him, stepping fully into the office now and kicking the door shut behind him, presumably to keep David out. Henry finds himself pinned in place by Alex's gaze, especially when Alex's hands grip at the back of the chair, Alex bent over to make sure Henry meets his eyes. "When you pictured Adam on his knees, were you thinking of me? Did you imagine me dropping to my knees for you? Or maybe me saying–"
To Henry's immense embarrassment, Alex begins reciting the book. He thought the worst thing he'd ever experience would be hearing Alex quote Austen at trivia night. That was nothing in comparison to the sound of Alex quoting his own bloody book at him.
"'You told me once, J, that you thought you found the love of your life already. You never gave me details, but can I talk to you about mine? His eyes are so blue, it's like the sea near my grandmother's,'" Alex quotes, one hand coming up to cradle Henry's face, and Henry leans into the touch, even as the brush of Alex's thumb over his cheekbone makes him shiver. "'He's passionate and kind and so beautiful, I don't know what to do with myself. The way he gets lost in his books, the way he chews on a pen while working, the way his glasses are the slightest bit too big for his face and he keeps having to push them up. The fact that he's loved me since the beginning. I hope he'll let me love him just as much.' Will you?"
It would have been easier to say no, to lie and say it was nothing but fiction, if Alex had quoted one of the dirtier passages or one of the jokes. But no, it had to be one of the most romantic speeches in the entire novel, one that Henry admittedly thought of being spoken with Alex's drawl behind it.
"Yes," he whispers before he can think better of it, before he can talk himself out of it, out of letting Alex love him the way he apparently loves Alex. "I used to dream about you saying that speech to me."
"Well, sweetheart, any other parts of the book you want me to quote for you? Because I was particularly fond of their first kiss."
Henry isn't a complete idiot, so he fists his hand in Alex's shirt and pulls him in, pressing their mouths together in a kiss that lives up to and outstrips every single one of his fantasies by miles. Kissing Alex is familiar in a way that it shouldn't be, kissing like they've done it all their lives.
"You didn't have to call me out, you know," Henry murmurs when they break apart. "I was quite content being ridiculously in love with you and you not knowing."
"'I would rather know you inside and out and risk losing you eventually than never take that chance and leave us comparative strangers.'"
Alex really needs to stop quoting his book at him. It's doing ridiculous things to Henry's heart.
"Perhaps I should quote my favorite part? It's one of Jeffery's lines, rather than Adam's, but... 'I've dreamed of your body, your touch, your kiss, every day since I first saw you across the hall. Grant me the opportunity to see how little those dreams compare?'"