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It was the beeping that woke him at first. Loud beeping. It was as fucking obnoxious as Henry's alarm in the mornings, which contrary to the blonde's beliefs, Alex could hear through the wall thank you very much, Henry, you pompous early rising ass.
Honestly, why he loved the man who had become his roommate was still a mystery.
Well, okay, it wasn't /exactly/ a mystery, given June and Nora had been giving him flack about it since Henry moved into their apartment one spring morning when Alex desperately needed company for financial reasons and only those.
However, as fate would have it, Henry was not only loaded, but also gorgeous. Like a Greek statue in a museum come to life type of beautiful. Alex supposed that was exactly what came when your roommate was formally a prince, but still. He's allowed to hype Henry up, even if most of his nights were spent with the sound of the musical Wicked in his head at the mere thought of telling Henry just how much he wanted to just…/be/ with him. Exist. In a way.
Not that had hadn't been already, but you know. It was platonic. Alex had every desire for it /not/ to be platonic, but he wasn't exactly up for the inverse of possibly telling Henry, being rejected and then the man vanishing the next day with his belongings.
Despite what he may say on the outside, Alex is far too fragile for that, so he keeps quiet and pretends, sometimes, that they have a future together when it's clear they don't.
Anyway, the beeping.
At first, Alex's muddled mind thinks it's the alarm and grumbling, moves to throw something at the wall to encourage Henry to get the fuck up and shut it off, but a burning, prickly sensation in his hand stops him, making him hiss. His tongue feels cottony in his mouth suddenly and the sheets beneath him do not feel like the ones he shelled out his life savings for, not the blankets on top that have too much scratch and wither to them.
Something is very wrong here.
His head also hurts. Like, don't get him wrong, he was prone to headaches in the morning as every college student was that went though the sadism of a law degree, but it's far more sharper and his head feels too heavy to lift up.
It's like a boulder is attached to his neck and when trying to open his eyes, it's too bright and the world's in double vision, making his already churning stomach just that bit worse.
Curling back up again, it takes several tries before he can finally not feel too much like yesterday's croissant is going to make a reappearance before he opens his eyes again, blinking several times to try and readjust the settings on the world, but getting nowhere.
He does, however, get one thing pretty clear. He is not in his apartment. Like at all.
It's white. Too white. Also too bare. Fuck, is this a prank by Henry's friend Pez? He knew he was waiting for the chance to get him back for that sneaker super glue incident. Did he end up sleeping in like, a homeless shelter or something? What was he doing last night?
…No, really, what /was/ he doing last night?
Alex almost had to strain to get some sort of memory back into him, panic running through his veins as he came out blank and more sore than before. Why couldn't he remember last night? He remembered yesterday morning, that was clear, but everything after was just…not there. Gone. Like a puff of smoke had created itself in Alex's brain space and flew out of his ears and into the unknown. What had happened last night to cause him not to remember?
It seemed that something had triggered him off because not only did he hear another unfamiliar alarm go off somewhere in his haze, but another noise caught his attention and took him away from it. Footsteps.
Specifically the scrambling of feet that comes out of nowhere and suddenly get close to him, a familiar pair of hands closing over one of his own. "Alex, Alex, thank Christ, can you-Alex!"
That voice. Whose voice is- oh fuck, that's Henry. Henry's talking to him.
The haze lifts sightly and his unfocused eyes find a rather strange looking version of Henry, face even in this vision hurried and filled with worry and relief.
His normally pat-down hair is windswept as well as unkempt and his normal sweater vest and collared shirt are abandoned for a tank top and pajama pants that /his/ Henry wouldn't be caught dead in outside of the bland cream colored walls that they called home.
His reading glasses, normally by his bedside were hung on his head and even with the eye problems, Alex can tell his hands are shaking as he clings onto Alex like he might just disappear. "H-H-Hen-ry."
His voice sounds…for lack of better terms, distorted. Dry and croaky and unable to talk properly, almost jumpy like his vision was. It seemed that Henry had wanted to hear it in some capacity, however, as Alex could see his expression lighten by a tiny fraction before he was suddenly gone, returning a second later with a paper cup and straw. "Drink."
For once in his life, Alex does what he's told.
He half fucks it up, at first, by missing the straw and sending himself back to that weird vision thing he's been trying to get rid of - but eventually, it's somehow in his mouth despite Henry seemingly looking progressively more on the verge of concern again as time went on.
Seriously, what is going on?
"You're in the hospital, dear." He hears Henry's voice hesitate and he furrows his brow. Had he said that out loud?
"Yes, yes you did. You still are." Henry picks up after him, moving to take the cup away from him before he like, drops it or something, but seriously, it clicks.
Hospital. He's in the hospital.
Looking around, he can see the small room, the cramped quarters, the chair where Henry's coat is pitched over the back of it and the table cluttered with several books like Henry's nightstand and shelves back home. There's a few changes of clothes folded neatly nearby as well, clearly more Henry's style than his own.
Looking down, he's both surprised and unsurprised (if that's something that is possible) to find that the burning he'd felt earlier was an IV drip stabbing the veins of his left hand. That also explains the bed and blankets being shit, but that's not what keeps his attention.
There's a bag in the room. A clear and yellow one and it's…/covered/ in blood. Like it's insides are painted with it, the red liquid smudged against the plastic and making Alex want to vomit. He may not have any memory to rely on, but he knows that's a police bag and he knows that blood is his and everything suddenly spins again, this time with dread making itself known.
Following his gaze, Henry balls before hurriedly getting up and grabbing the thing, Alex's bloodstained shirt making barely a sound as he moves it while Henry talks, Alex only catching pieces. "-said they were going to bring it back. They must have come while I was dozed off and the nurses were checking on other patients. I swear, Alex, the American police force are just as useless as ours, but at least ours have some common decency-"
"Hen." He doesn't know how he managed to get the note in of absolute terror, but it stops Henry in his tracks, rant falling to the wayside as Alex looks up at him from (under) wobbly lashes. "Why- what- what's going-"
The panic sets in again from before as Henry - perfect, sweet, pain in his ass Henry - hides the bag out of sight before he strides forward and takes Alex's now trembling form into his arms again, pulling his body against his.
He holds onto Alex for a moment, just a moment, before he pulls back to try and look Alex in the eyes. "Love, do you remember anything about last night? After you went out with Nora and June?"
Nora and June? He was out with Nora and June? He supposed that sounded…well, kind of right, but he really wasn't sure. "Did I go out with them last night?"
The disturbed look leeched its way back into Henry's eyes as Alex spoke, but in typical Henry fashion, he tried his best not to let Alex see it. "Yes, dear, you did."
"Okay…" He just looked at Henry, expecting more. When he instead got a look of pity for his efforts, Alex raised an eyebrow (or thinks he did) as he watched. "What else?"
"You truly have no memory? None at all? You remember nothing about what you did last night?" Henry peppered him and Alex couldn't really shake his head due to the heaviness he was still feeling, so he sighed. "I feel like I'm missing something rather important here."
Henry's pinched look makes the wait much more tense before he finally murmurs "Alex, you got hurt last night. You managed to get yourself a fractured skull."
Oh, now that explains the pain in his head. Oh shit.
"Oh shit." Alex echoed from his own thoughts, swallowing hard. "Oh…shit."
"Exactly" The look in Henry's eyes now is…honestly fucking heartbreaking, mostly for Alex anyway as he stared at Henry's face. "You lost so much blood Alex, Nora said the whole pavement was covered in it. Someone said that you tripped, others said that you may have been pushed, June was practically trying to keep you awake- that's why I asked if you remember anything about what happened to you."
"I…could have been attacked?" Alex hears his own voice sound uncharacteristically small and Henry clutches his still burning hand as gently as he can. "I could have…" He swallows again. "…died?"
"You were touch and go there for a while." Henry nodded as Alex tried to process everything, head falling jerkily as he did so. He could have died. Something fucking happened to smash his skull in, either accidentally or on purpose and he could have died.
The horror of that is just too fucking much to think about without him spiraling and he mostly avoids jumping down that sinkhole - but then an even bigger one opens up to swallow him whole. "Oh god, I would have died before I told you that I love you."
"Excuse me?" Now it's Henry's voice that is uncontrollably small and withdrawn and for a moment, Alex's heart stops and he almost thinks about taking off, running despite everything with IV and all, but then it starts again and he lifts his head again to focus shaky eyes on the other. "I would have died last tonight, on the New York City pavement, without telling you I love you. That is so…gross."
The silence hangs in between them like a blanket of thick snow and Alex almost shivers when it doesn't abate as fast as he was hoping it might. Suddenly shifting to panic mode, he attempts to backpedal. "Honestly, I think my head is just seriously hurting. My brain feels like it's aching something fierce, what kind of meds do they even have me on-"
"Do you mean that?" Henry's voice comes out light and breathy, his eyes practically shooting holes through some of the uninjured parts of Alex (or so he assumes). Alex flounders for a moment, as you do when you've sustained a serious head wound and suddenly confessed your love to your best friend and guy who lives with you before just whispering "Yeah."
There is a beat. Or two. Maybe three. Then Henry's breath is against his lips and head injury or not, he can't say no to that. Despite the fact that the world's about as straight as he is. They're kissing. So…yeah.
Of course, Henry about realizes that he still has a head wound at the same time that Alex starts reciprocating and starts pulling away and fuck that mess. Alex pulls him back in with a growl and thankfully, Henry doesn't make the same mistake again.
They may have to revisit this in the near future (obviously due to Henry's crippling self doubt and totally not his abandonment issues) given Alex is about as useful as a wet rag in the sun here in this bed, but for now, everything in the world is…well, okay, it's still spinning, but it feels right. At least, it seems to.
Henry's bed also feels right a couple of days later when they release him with a million bandages around his head, but he doesn't mention it.
The lazy smile he gives Henry as he settles him in is possibly enough.