Chapter Text
Philip didn’t mean to eavesdrop.
He was going to see if Henry and Alex were in Henry’s room so that they could have a chat about the upcoming event the three of them were supposed to go to, but he got sidetracked by laughter. More specifically, by Henry’s laughter. It was full and let Philip know that Henry was grinning, his laugh sounding almost exactly like their dad’s had. Beneath the laughter there was the sound of a guitar, the strings being strummed in a repeating tune that Philip didn’t recognise. Alex’s voice, gruff and almost comically low, soon drifted after it.
“Ever since first man has walked this earth I have been here,” he sang, “to whisper seeds of doubt and evil thoughts into his ear.”
He must have been pulling some kind of face, because Henry was laughing again, his giggles overlapping Alex’s low singing.
“I go by many names but there’s one you can’t deny.” Alex’s voice suddenly changed to a higher pitch. He sounded preppy, a springiness to his voice that made Henry laugh harder. “My name is Satan!”
Standing next to Henry’s door, Philip leaned in closer, a bemused smile spreading on his face.
“My friends all call me Old Scratch and I am a capricorn,” Alex continued. “My turn-ons are romantic walks and killing the unborn. I’ve got little devil horns and a little goatee, little devil eyes to help a little devil see and little cloven hooves that make it really hard to ski, I’m Satan!”
Henry’s laughter was rising in bubbles. Philip couldn’t help but smile at it, so often missing in their lives of late, in no small part due to Philip being a dick. He was in therapy and he and Henry were working through their differences and struggles, but it felt like it was going well. Philip thought so at least.
“I’m in every Zeppelin album, I’m in all Rush Limbaugh’s rants.” Philip had to give it to him, even though it was a ridiculous voice, Alex was good at singing. “I’m the reason that the Boston Red Sox even had a chance.”
Alex himself laughed at that, though Philip didn’t follow American sports closely enough to really know why it was funny.
His voice dropping again, Alex sang, “The Devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal.” It went up in pitch once more. “Which is fucking bullshit, because I would not be caught dead in Georgia!”
The song ended with three full strums of the cords, masking whatever it that Alex sang last. When the guitar stopped, Philip raised his fist to knock on the door, but was halted once again.
-
Henry was leaning against the baseboard of his bed, a fond look on his face as he watched Alex set the guitar against his bedside cabinet.
“Did you come up with that?” Henry asked.
“Nah,” Alex said, settling against the headboard. “It’s a song by Stephen Lynch, he’s a comedian. I got real bored one summer in high school and memorised a whole bunch of comedy songs.”
“Oh, in that tiny span of time that you thought about becoming a comedian yourself?”
Alex laughed. “Yeah, not one of my best ideas.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Henry mused. “I think you’re quite funny at times.”
“Well,” Alex said, smirking and moving so that he was in Henry’s space, resting his weight on one hand that was next to Henry’s hip. He was leaning over Henry’s body. “You have to say that because you love me. I could be as dull as a rock and you’d still tell me I was interesting.”
“No, if you were as dull as a rock, I don’t know we’d have started dating.”
Alex let out an affronted gasp and splayed a hand dramatically over his chest, leaning back. “Next you’ll be telling me that you wouldn’t love me if I was a worm.”
Henry grimaced and shivered. “No, I hate worms. And that question.” He lifted a finger and booped Alex’s nose. “It has too many follow up questions to have a simple answer.”
“Oh, really?” Alex grinned. “Like what?”
“Well, have you always been a worm? Were you turned into a worm by some sort of spell or force of nature? If that’s the case, is there a cure or counter curse?”
“Okay.” Alex thought for a moment. “Let’s say I was turned into a worm by a witch and you can change me back eventually.”
Henry hummed in thought. “Then, in that case, I’d work to get you back to being human and love you as a human, but not as a worm. You wouldn’t really be a worm in that instance, you’d be a transfigured human, therefore making the question defunct. I wouldn’t love you as a worm because you wouldn’t have really been a worm.”
“Okay, so what if I was born a worm?”
“I wouldn’t love you because I would have had no way to get to know you, with our species difference and such. We’d never have met and therefore, I wouldn’t be able to love you.”
“What if we were both worms?”
Henry laughed, leaning forward into Alex’s space. “If we were both worms?”
“Yeah! If we were both worms, would you love me?”
“Were we both transformed or were we both born as worms?”
“Transformed.”
“Then, yes, I’d love you because I know who you are as a human. The love has nothing to do with the worm or worm form.”
“We were born as worms.”
“I don’t know if worms have the capacity to love in the same way that humans do, or even how to quantify worm love.”
“You wouldn’t know how to quantify our wormy love?”
“No.” Henry let out a breathless laugh as Alex leaned in to tickle his ribs. “No!”
“Say you’d love me if I was a worm!” Alex straddled Henry’s legs and continued his assault of Henry’s ticklish spots. “Say you’d love me if I was a worm!”
“No!”
-
Philip nearly jumped out of his skin when Bea seemed to materialise next to him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
With a hand to his chest over his hammering heart, Philip let out a relieved breath. “I came to get Henry and Alex.”
“Yeah, ten minutes ago.”
“I got distracted.”
“By what?”
In leau of an answer, Philip pointed at the door, behind which Henry’s almost hysterical laughter was drifting. Bea smiled softly when she realised what he meant.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Philip murmured back. “Too long.”