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It was supposed to be a surprise when he came home early. Alex had been swamped with work for weeks now, pulling long days and longer nights, the glow of his laptop and the glasses perched on his nose near-constant companions in their bed well past the time that Henry fell asleep beside him.
But it was their anniversary this weekend, and Alex had plans . Plans that didn’t involve him practically chained to his desk or missing dinners, or kisses that were too exhausted on both sides to lead to anything more. Henry deserved his full attention. Deserved more than Alex could ever give him, really.
Fuck, he missed him, even if he knew their distance was a poison of his own making. He was no less head-over-heels for his boyfriend than he’d ever been, even after more than a year of domestic spats and morning breath and waking up in the middle of the night to let David outside.
Alex had thought that he and Henry were on the same page.
He’d meant to sneak through their bedroom to where he could hear the shower running and meet the man he loved with a kiss before he took him apart against the tiles. It had been ages since they’d had time for anything but a quickie before bed, or a kiss goodbye at the front door, and Alex wanted to worship Henry. Wanted to kneel at his feet and let the water absolve their exhaustion, let the heat of the shower steam soothe any of the lingering ache of weeks spent as nothing more than passing ships in the night. Wanted to curl up together afterward and refuse to leave their bed until the sun rose again.
He hadn’t expected to see Henry’s suitcase splayed open on their bed, half-packed.
So now, instead of pressing skin against skin and a kiss to the nape of his boyfriend’s neck, Alex is frozen. Chilled to the bone. Feet rooted to the floor, staring at that stupid fucking suitcase and the only thing he can think is that Henry’s leaving him.
He must make some sort of sound. Maybe he’s crying, or maybe something shudders or crashes when he sinks to the floor, limbs leaden and oh-so heavy. Far be it from him to register anything other than the buzzing that’s quickly overtaken any capacity for rational thought, any awareness of his own body. All he can do is press his back to the wall, tuck his knees to his chest, and stare at the suitcase that signifies the end of the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
Henry’s favorite sweater — “ jumper, darling” , Alex can hear him saying in that achingly fond tone, the one that means that Alex is ridiculous but Henry loves him anyway, the one he’ll probably never get to hear again — is rolled up nice and neat next to an NYU shirt that used to be Alex’s, but that Henry had stolen long ago. A pair of jeans that Alex recognizes because they were the least formal thing he’d ever seen Henry wear peeks out from beneath them, tucked up against the novelty beagle socks Alex had bought him last Christmas. The sight of them makes him choke back what he thinks might be a sob.
Distantly, he registers the fact that the water in the ensuite has shut off. He doesn’t think he can stomach what comes next.
Henry emerges from the bathroom wild-eyed. It only takes a second for his gaze to land on Alex, and he’s immediately scrambling across the room to reach him, no matter that he’s only in a towel and his blonde hair is still dripping on the hardwood.
He drops to his knees, reaching out to touch him, but Alex flinches instinctively, unconsciously. Henry’s face falls.
“Alex? Love, what —“
“I’m so sorry,” Alex blurts, the first words that he can manage to force past the lump in his throat. “I — I know I’ve been at work a lot lately, b-but I swear the case is almost over and then I’ll be better.”
Henry is still just staring , like he doesn’t understand, and Alex’s heart is beating a mile a minute. He only registers the fact that he’s crying because his eyes are starting to burn.
“Is — is that it? D-did I do something else? I know we were arguing about where to spend Christmas last week but I promise it doesn’t matter. We can go to England as many times as you want, o-or if you would rather go without me that’s okay too, just p-please come home , please tell me what’s wrong. Whatever it is, I promise I can fix it,” he pleads, his gaze darting frantically between the man in front of him and the suitcase on the bed. “Please don’t go,” Alex finally whispers, desperate and broken and small.
Henry follows Alex’s eyes to the suitcase splayed open on the bed, but Alex is too keyed up to notice. He’s digging his fingernails into his palms, and all he can think of is being twelve years old and coming back from summer camp to find his father gone. To find all of the sports memorabilia Oscar had promised him one day suddenly missing, to see the pullout couch finally tucked away and neat as a pin, to find an empty desk in his parents’ shared home office.
To find nothing left for him, not even a note.
“ Alex ,” Henry is saying, but his words are murky through the furious beating of Alex’s heart, through the muddle of memories and heartbreak and hurt.
June, he would learn later, had gotten to say goodbye. Had been sat down at the ice cream parlor next to the elementary school and had the news broken to her gently, as if being plied with a double scoop of mint chip could make up for the fact that their dad was, as she put it, “fucking off to California”. She’d stormed out and abandoned Oscar there, until he found her angrily crying on a too-small swing set and she’d let him stroke her hair and promise holidays and a weekend a month.
Alex remembered thinking she was selfish. That the whole thing was so unfair that it made his stomach hurt. That she got one last day with him and spent part of it hiding, when he got nothing at all. He’d locked himself in his room when she told him, which wasn’t new, but refusing to let June in was. She’d finally picked his old lock with the edge of a penny and snuck in to pull his hands out of his hair and stop him from dissociating hours later, holding him like Oscar had held her.
Some part of Alex wonders if June will still be there to hold him now: twenty-four and, apparently, still unable to learn how to be worth sticking around for.
“Alex – Alex, darling, please breathe, I need you to breathe with me. Alex!”
Suddenly, he’s not twelve anymore. He’s sitting on his bedroom floor again, but Henry is here with him, and he’s crying too.
Why is Henry crying? Shouldn’t he be relieved?
“Hen?” Alex manages, confused, and Henry clutches his hand tightly.
“It’s okay, my love. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving, I promise, but you’re having a panic attack, and I need you to breathe with me,” he coaxes, and the words jumble in Alex’s brain.
“But – but –” he chokes, the words still not coming as easily as they normally do.
“I'm not angry with you at all, I know how busy you've been with work, so I was packing to surprise you with an anniversary trip. Your suitcase is already packed and in the closet, I was just finishing mine up so that we could leave tonight. I wasn’t expecting you to be home this early, love, I am so sorry –”
A trip?
Alex has a suitcase packed, too? He’s not being left alone?
“I can show you your suitcase, if you want. It has that cashmere jumper of mine you pretend you don’t love, because the weather in Paris is going to be abysmal, but I suppose that’s what I get for kissing you for the first time in January. Look, darling, I can –” Henry starts, moving as if he’s going to get to his feet and cross the room to the closet, but the moment he gets more than six inches away from Alex’s body he’s suddenly chilled with new terror.
“ No – stay here, please, don’t let go,” he whispers, and Henry stays. He keeps a tight, steady grip on Alex’s hand, just as Alex asked.
The adrenaline and fear drains from him in an instant, and Alex feels exhausted and limp. Henry is staying. Henry’s not leaving him. Henry loves him. At first, he thinks he’s just repeating things to himself, but as the panic fades and the world around him becomes sharp and clear again, he realizes that it’s actually Henry himself, pressing little kisses to the back of his hand in between each promise.
“Baby?” Alex asks softly when he finally feels like himself again – shaken, but back in his body – and Henry’s wide eyes, just as red from crying as he’s sure his own are, meet his. “Will you – can you come here?”
He ends up with a lapful of ex-prince, their bodies tangled together in a way that makes it impossible to tell who’s holding who. They exchange apologies, each and every one quickly refuted by the other, and Henry buries his face in Alex’s curls.
“I should have realized –”
“No, you were trying to do something incredibly sweet and I jumped to conclusions –”
“But I know how much your father –”
“And you’re not him, and you would never do that to me,” Alex insists. “Right?”
Henry lifts his head, looking vaguely affronted. “Of course not.”
“So I’m sorry –”
“If you apologize for having a panic attack again, I’m going to well and truly explode.”
That finally gets a laugh out of Alex, and Henry presses a kiss to his cheek with a weak smile, tightening his arms around him.
“Okay, baby,” he murmurs. “Okay.”
Silence hangs between them for a moment, but it doesn’t feel deafening, or frightening.
“Paris, huh?” Alex asks, remembering the last time the two of them were there together, tangled in hotel sheets and pretending to be casual.
“I did let that slip, didn’t I?” Henry huffs with a smile. “Yes, Paris. There are so many places I didn’t get to show you that first time. It’s more than just eating your weight in cheese, you know,” he teases lightly.
“I know, baby. I fell in love in Paris, didn’t I?”
Henry’s smile feels like Alex is being wrapped in the quilt his abuela made for him, like bathing in sunlight, like he’s the goddamn Grinch and his heart is growing three sizes, big enough to burst out of his chest cartoon-style.
“I suppose you did, even if you were a few years behind –”
Henry yelps with a laugh as Alex pinches his side, finally, finally feeling like himself again.
“Did we miss our flight?”
Henry turns their hands, still clasped together, to look at Alex’s watch. “No,” he says slowly. “We could make it if we hurried. But you – I mean, are you sure that we should –”
“If you want to, we can talk more about Oscar Diaz’s A-plus parenting on the plane. I wish I could pretend that this didn’t happen, or that what happened when I was a kid won’t affect me or my relationship, but we both know that’s not true. And I’ll make another appointment with my therapist for when we get back, because it’s apparently been a little too long,” Alex says with a wry, bittersweet smile. When he looks back up at Henry, though, his expression is nothing but sincere. “But I’m going to be okay. And I really fucking want to go to Paris with you.”
Henry leans forward and kisses him gently – chaste and loving and slow, breaking it with a press of his lips to the corner of Alex’s mouth. “I really want to go to Paris with you, too, love.”
“You can say fuck, it’s okay –”
“ Alex –”
“No, really, Mary’s not going to crawl out of her grave to get you for swearing –”
“I thought you wanted to catch a plane?”
“Oh, shit –”
They do talk on the plane. Alex cries a little more, but Henry holds him close, as if he’s something to be treasured, and that panic never resurfaces. He tells him that he’s something to be treasured, too, lays it out before him clear as day as if it’s a simple fact of life. Alex is a lawyer, Alex loves cajeta on his ice cream, Alex is precious and worthy of love. There. Done and dusted.
They talk about the day that Oscar left — or really, the day that Alex found him gone. They talk about how much it stung to know that June had closure when Alex never did, about that too-much feeling that claws at Alex’s chest and makes him want to shrink down to something small and unobtrusive. About the parts of him that Alex doesn’t think are worth sticking around for. About that knobby-kneed, loud-mouthed, wild-haired boy that even a father couldn’t love, and how much of him Alex still carries.
He learns more about the prince who posed for June’s copy of J-14 — about how much of him Henry still carries— and for a moment, can picture them holding each other the way he and Henry are now. Alex loves that prince, and Henry loves that loud-mouthed boy, and neither of them are alone.
In Paris, they (Alex) eat a ridiculous amount of cheese and (Henry) drink a ridiculous amount of wine, and in the end, Alex gets what he had so desperately wanted in the first place. To christen the spacious hotel shower by kissing every inch of Henry’s skin, to press their bodies close until he can’t remember any of the ridiculously posh words he loves so much, until he’s sated and thoroughly loved and crying Alex’s name.
And then, when their anniversary truly dawns the next morning, Henry returns the favor.