Chapter Text
Alex has never liked any of Henry’s boyfriends, and he’s never been shy to admit it either. He’s never usually outright rude of course, but he also doesn’t put in any extra efforts to charm or befriend them, the way he does with just about any other person in his life who isn’t an outright asshole.
He always has some kind of reasoning for it, even when the rest of their friends think the guys are completely lovely.
(“My dear Hazza,” says Pez one day when they’re talking about it, shaking his head sadly as if he can’t believe how stupid Henry is. “It’s because he’s in love with you, and he’s jealous of them!”
Henry scoffs, and ignores the traitorous flutter of hope that crawls up his throat at those words. “Don’t be ridiculous, Pez. We both know that Alex is straight.”
Pez tilts his head to the side like an inquisitive puppy. “Do we know that?” he asks, all traces of humour gone from his face.
“He talks about his exes and hookups frankly more than is necessary,” says Henry with a grimace. “Not a single one of them has been a man.”
Pez shrugs one shoulder. “That doesn’t denote a lack of attraction, Haz. How many times have you heard him talk about his childhood crush on Han Solo? Or your father for that matter?”
Henry rolls his eyes. “Alex is simply secure enough in his masculinity to admit when he knows a man is objectively attractive. Also, the comments about my father are clearly meant as a way to annoy me.”
Pez blows out a frustrated breath. He looks like he wants to stay more, but he seems to have given Henry up for a lost cause, because he simply purses his lips and stays quiet for a few seconds before turning the conversation to other topics.)
Whatever his reasons, he tends to avoid Henry’s boyfriends like the plague, and if Henry’s being honest, Alex’s behaviour has been...not exactly the cause, but at least the catalyst to a few of Henry's past breakups. The most ridiculous of these was the time one of them had accused Alex of being homophobic in front of their entire friend group. The ensuing hysterical laughter from the rest of the group had only served to make him more upset, and when he had turned to look at Henry for support, the slight twitch of Henry’s lips as he tried to hide a smile seemed to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Honestly, Henry can’t say he’s all that torn up about that particular break up. He had been trying to find a way to let the guy down gently anyways.
The same cannot be said for Connor, though.
The thing is, Henry likes Connor quite a lot. He’s sweet-faced and tall, with a head of gorgeous red curls, a mouth that’s quick to laughter, and bright blue eyes that positively light up whenever he sees Henry. He writes poetry and he reads Austen, and Henry could talk to him about books for hours.
He’s halfway in love with the man already, and he’s terrified for Alex to meet him, because all he wants is for his best friend to be happy for him. Maybe it’s foolish for Henry to stake so much of his relationship on what someone else thinks of his partner, but Alex is such an integral part of who Henry is as a person that Henry can’t imagine himself ever being with anyone that Alex doesn’t wholeheartedly approve of.
Connor, having caught onto Henry’s nervousness, is tugging at the collar of his shirt as if it’s choking him, running a hand through his curls and walking maybe slower than he strictly needs to, as if he wants to delay the inevitable.
“It will be fine, love,” Henry reassures him, taking his hand and squeezing it gently. Then, his voice becomes teasing as he asks, “Are you really more nervous about meeting my roommate than you are about meeting my sister?”
“It’s just that, from the way you and Pez talk about him, he seems like such a great guy, and I just really want him to like me,” Connor bemoans, hiding his face behind his free hand. “And anyways, you said Bea is easier to gain approval from than Alex.”
Henry swallows down his own nerves, knowing that they’re not helpful to the situation at hand, and instead pulls Connor towards the entrance of the bar they’ve finally arrived at.
“Come along,” he says. “I’m sure everything will be just fine.”
'Fine' turns out to be a massive understatement.
Half an hour later, Henry is crammed into a booth with his friends, already downing his second drink of the night and trying to figure out if he’s lost his mind somewhere along the way.
Alex is seated across the table from him and Connor, and his eyes are alight with mirth as he tells a story from his and Henry's first year living together that has Connor howling with laughter, and the rest of their table side-eyeing him with trepidation.
It’s. Well. It would be pretty typical behaviour from Alex were he talking to anyone else - he has this way of making people feel like they’re the only one in the world worth listening to, all southern charm and boy-next-door wholesomeness that makes it almost impossible not to love him.
The problem is that it’s Henry’s boyfriend that he’s turned that charm onto, and it seems like the rest of their friends are just as lost about how to react to the current situation as Henry is. June and Nora had bailed out early, having lasted all of five minutes listening to Alex go on the charm offensive before deciding they weren’t in the mood to deal with any of this weirdness today, and escaping to the dance floor.
Henry almost wishes he could follow them, if only to escape the weird cocktail of emotions raging through him at the moment.
Pez, who’s sitting on Henry’s other side, leans in closer so that his mouth is right next to Henry’s ear.
“Your jealousy is showing, darling,” he says, his voice positively gleeful .
Henry whips his head around to glare at his friend. “I’m sure I have no earthly idea what you might be talking about, Percy.”
Pez doesn’t even flinch at the use of his given name, his smile only growing wider.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? For dear Alexander to take a shine to your newest boytoy? So why do you have an expression as if someone has come right up and kicked poor David right in front of you?”
Henry sniffs disdainfully. “Nonsense, my expression says nothing of the sort. I couldn’t be happier at how well Connor and Alex are getting along,” Henry lies.
The fucked up part about this situation is that the jealousy that’s made its home in Henry’s stomach, burning like hot coals and stoked with every wheeze of Connor’s laughter, isn’t even directed at the right person.
Henry would be forgiven, perhaps even expected, to be upset about Alex monopolizing all of his boyfriend’s attention. Instead, he finds himself willing those warm brown eyes to turn their undivided attention to him, to ask him how his day went and laugh with him about one of their inside jokes. Sitting here next to Connor, a line of burning heat where their thighs are pressed against each other, the fingers of their hands tangled together, Henry feels like the worst kind of fraud.
He can’t decide who it feels like he’s betraying more.
Connor? Probably would be the correct answer. The kind answer.
Alex? Shouldn’t even fit into this equation. He’s not Henry’s. He’s never going to be Henry’s. There’s nothing to betray, because they’re nothing more than friends and roommates.
Himself? Yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right. However, it’s not as if he has any other choice in the matter. The one person he wants most is completely unavailable to him. Doesn’t Henry deserve to be happy with his next best option? He really does like Connor, after all. He’s already halfway in love with the man.
Almost as if hearing Henry’s thoughts, Connor turns to him with a flushed face and that boyish grin stretching across his lips.
“Man, you really had me worried for nothing there, Hen,” says Connor, and Henry is barely able to stop himself in time before he snaps at Connor not to call him that.
Only Alex can call him that.
Bea, sitting next to Alex and therefore directly across from Henry, must have caught something of his feelings in his expression, because she's staring at him with concern in her eyes.
Connor turns his attention back to Alex. “He had me convinced that you were going to waterboard me or something.”
Alex snorts into his drink before saying, “Don’t listen to anything the rest of these assholes tell you; they make it seem like I have some kind of grudge against every guy Henry brings to meet us. I just maintain that I have high standards for the people my friends date.”
Bea laughs. “Yeah right,” she says. “Daniel was perfectly lovely! What possible reason could you have had to not approve of him?”
Alex huffs, and leans back in his seat with his arms crossed in front of him. “You guys only see what his boyfriends are like when we all go out together. Y’all don’t see what they’re like the morning after they stay the night. Daniel, the asshole, couldn’t even be bothered to remember how Henry likes his tea. Also, there was that time he made fun of Henry’s mug collection. That was just rude.”
Connor is nodding along as if he fully agrees.
Pez leans forward, looking like he’s enjoying this game. “And what about Theo?”
“Loved the sound of his own voice too much,” Alex replies readily. “Couldn’t be bothered to listen to a single thing anyone else said. I asked him once what he thought about Henry’s writing, and he couldn’t even name a single one of his poems. Fucking prick.”
“Francis?” asks Bea, adding fuel to the fire.
“He’s French!” Alex says plaintively, spreading his hands before him as if to ask what more do you need ?
Pez cackles loudly at the answer.
Henry has half a mind to jump in and put an end to this game, no matter how amused Connor appears at this brief recap of Henry’s dating history.
Before he can say anything though, Pez says the one name that is sure to get a big reaction out of Alex.
“Miguel?” he asks, his grin wide and shark-like, because he knows exactly what he’s doing. Henry groans and slides down slightly in his seat at the reminder of one of his more embarrassing escapades.
“FUCKING Miguel!” Alex says aggressively, squeezing his glass so hard that Henry is almost worried it will shatter. “Where do I even start with that guy? Fucking nosy as all hell. Miss me with that ‘I’m a journalist’ crap. Not nearly good-looking enough to be going out with someone like Henry-”
Pez and Connor both nod at this last point. Bea looks like she’s trying to smother her laughter.
“-Kept asking about your dad, as if the fact you’re the son of an actor is the most interesting thing about you when it doesn’t even make the list.” Here, he stops, and looks back and forth between Bea and Henry. “Shit” he says, “I didn’t mean it like that. Y’all know I love listening to you talk about Arthur, and I know how much he meant to you both. It sucks that I never got to meet him and I’m sure we would’ve gotten along great. But it’s not because he was James Bond, you know?”
Bea laughs, and squeezes his arm affectionately. “We know what you meant, Alex. Tell us more about what an asshole Miguel was.”
Reassured that he hadn’t upset them, Alex continues, “He was also, like, lowkey a misogynist? Oh, and there was that time he messaged me asking for dick pics on Grindr-”
Henry’s brain promptly short circuits.
There’s a high-pitched, “What?” that he belatedly realises had come out of his own mouth.
Pez is cackling again, and his fingers dig into Henry’s leg below the table, the gesture conveying a vindictive sort of ‘I fucking told you so, Hazza!’
Bea takes a sip of her mocktail and very carefully keeps her expression neutral.
Alex looks around at them all, confused. “What?” he asks.
When neither of the other two say anything, Alex’s eyes turn to Henry, who fights valiantly to form words.
“Wh- uh- what. Um. What were you doing on Grindr?” he finally asks.
Alex only looks more confused at his question. He looks around at the others, as if to check that this isn’t some kind of joke he’s missing.
“I was looking for hookups? Why, what do other people use Grindr for?”
“R-right, I, uh-” Henry stutters for a few seconds, before finally giving up on forming complete sentences. “Bathroom,” he squeaks, and practically shoves Pez out of the booth so that he can make his escape.