Work Text:
Alex doesn’t hear Nora come into the kitchen.
When she clears her throat very loudly, he practically jumps out of his body. He basically has a heart attack. Alex turns to glare at her and finds her leaning against the doorway, her arms folded over her chest. There’s a knowing gleam in her eye and she looks as though she’s biting her tongue, about to say something that Alex knows he probably doesn’t want to hear.
And Alex, his heart racing, suddenly feels like he’s doing something that he shouldn’t be, like he’s been caught with his hand in a forbidden cookie jar. He can’t stop himself from stammering. “This isn’t what it looks like, I swear,” he starts, before turning away from Nora and eyeing up the items that he has strewn across the kitchen table. He bites his bottom lip and, looking back at her, he sighs. “Okay, it’s kind of what it looks like but just give me a chance to explain, alright.”
Nora shakes her head at him and somehow, looks even less impressed than she did before he spoke. “Oh, really,” she says, tone dry and like she already knows that he won’t be able to explain this away so easily. “This is going to be fucking good. Okay, I’m prepared to listen to whatever bullshit you are trying to tell yourself now.”
And the thing is…the thing is that Alex doesn’t really know how to explain to Nora what he’s doing. He’s not really sure how to make her understand that this is just something that any friend would do. Because if he’s really honest with himself–and he’s not sure that he’s ready to be that honest–he knows that he did a little too much. Perhaps, he went a little overboard.
“Nora, give me a break here,” Alex tries.
“And why exactly would I do that?”
“Because we’re friends?” He says, shrugging his shoulders.
“Listen, Alejandro, you know me. Yeah, we’re friends but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to give you a hard time about your absolute raging heart boner for Henry. Not to mention, your actual boner boner for him. A boner squared,” She chuckles to herself.
Uncrossing her arms, Nora walks over to the fridge. Getting out a drink, she shuts the door and leans against it. “But please do tell me how you are planning on playing this off as something you’d do for a friend. Mind you, you’ve never done anything like this for me.”
“Ha! That’s where you’re wrong!” Alex exclaims. “I did do this for you!”
“Are you trying to tell me that the one time you brought me a wilted flower and a half-eaten chocolate bar compares in any way to all of this?” She gestures to everything on the table with skepticism. “Need I remind you that when you made that half-assed gesture, we were actually dating?”
Alex had forgotten about that little fact. He tries to save face. “But…” he starts.
Nora doesn’t give him a chance to refute her claims. “Listen, Alex. I love you, I do. My love for you is deep, abiding and very, very platonic, but what you feel for Henry is not. One day–I give it an 87% chance that day will come sooner than later–you will realize that, too.”
She points a dangerous looking finger at him. “And then, you’ll have to admit that I was right.” With that, she leaves the kitchen and Alex doesn’t really have anything to say. Because maybe, there’s a very slight chance that she’s right.
He looks back at the table. This had started as a small gesture, something just to help Henry feel a little better. Asshole Eric had broken up with Henry only two days before Valentine’s Day; what kind of douchecanoe does that? Especially to someone as sweet and perfect as Henry. Alex doesn’t think he’s ever hated anyone more than Eric and when Henry had admitted that he had been looking forward to his first Valentine’s Day with a boyfriend? Well, that had decided it.
Alex had meant to do something small, something that would help Henry forget that he’d ever been dating anyone at all. The less Henry thought about Eric, the better, in Alex’s opinion.
Henry and Eric hadn’t dated for very long and Henry never talked about being in love with the guy. Which was a very good thing because Alex hadn't liked Eric from the beginning. It was nothing that Alex could exactly put his finger on but he knows, without a doubt, that Henry could do so much better and is well rid of that loser.
And sue him, he’d wanted to cheer up his best friend. He didn’t want Henry to be sad or lonely on Valentine’s Day and who better than Alex to help Henry have a good time?
So, he went to the store. Alex started with the basics; Henry’s favourite tea, Jaffa cakes and a soft blue mug that had “You’re a Sweet-tea” on it. Henry never had enough mugs, considering how much tea the guy drank.
Then, he picked up some flowers because what was Valentine’s Day without flowers? It made him smile to think of how Henry’s eyes would light up when he saw them, how his blue eyes would sparkle with happiness and how he’d lift the yellow roses to his nose for a delicate sniff. Alex never understood why men couldn’t receive flowers. If you asked him, it was an outdated gender norm that should be left in the past. If anything, Alex was just helping break gender stereotypes by buying Henry flowers.
And, of course, he had to pick up chocolate. Alex smiles thinking about Henry biting into the candy and the soft noise of pleasure that Henry would make when he ate something he liked. It always made Alex’s stomach swoop, for some unknown reason.
The next item Alex grabbed was some candy hearts, chuckling at their little messages. He also found a stuffed animal that looked just like David and there was no way he wasn’t buying that. Alex almost didn’t buy the chocolate-covered strawberries, but then he thought about Henry’s plush lips wrapped around the fruit, Henry’s eyes closing briefly as the combination of the sweet chocolate and tart strawberry flooded his tastebuds…
The last item that Alex had grabbed was a card. It was the hardest thing to pick, because it needed to be perfect. Something funny that would make Henry smile. Something that told Henry just how much Alex cared about him without being too sappy. He had probably stood in that card aisle for at least 30 minutes, hemming and hawing and reading every single card on the racks.
And when Nora came into the kitchen, Alex had been trying to write a message on said card, but he kept coming up blank. He knows that he had been staring off into space, trying to find the words he needed and that’s why Nora had been able to sneak up on him.
After Nora leaves the kitchen, Alex twirls the pen in between his fingers and nervously clicks it a few times. He can’t seem to stop himself from fidgeting, full of an anxious energy that he can’t pin down. Glancing back at all of the things he’s bought Henry, he can’t help but think of Nora’s words. Does he have a raging heart boner, as she so delicately put it, for Henry?
He feels a little off kilter, a little flustered, so he does what always helps to straighten out his thoughts and help him see things a little clearer–Alex starts making a list.
He grabs what he thinks is a random piece of paper and starts to list off a few things about Henry that could possibly hint that his feelings aren’t strictly platonic. Alex writes quickly, his messy scrawl filling the paper in almost no time at all because the more that he thinks about it, the more instances he finds himself recognizing.
Like the sound of Henry’s laugh when Alex says something that he finds funny. Or the way that Henry always smells so good–like clean linen and fresh grass–and how it kind of drives Alex a little crazy. And the way Henry looks stumbling out of his room in the morning, his hair all mussed, his eyes sleepy and his voice still raspy and rough. Alex always feels like he’s so lucky to get to see the unfiltered version of Henry and how Henry gets the same from him.
It’s also how Henry hugs him; how he pulls Alex close and wraps his arms around Alex’s shoulders and makes Alex feel so safe and warm. It’s the way the sun shines in Henry’s soft golden hair and that beauty mark at the corner of Henry’s mouth that Alex has been so tempted to kiss…
Oh.
Oh shit.
This isn’t platonic at all; Alex is absolutely in love with Henry. He doesn’t know how he couldn’t see it before, how he’s managed to ignore this for so long. But it’s staring him right in the face, it’s in all of the gifts piled on their kitchen table. The chocolates, the strawberries and the candy hearts, even the fucking flowers. It all adds up; the evidence is too strong to ignore.
Alex’s thoughts are racing and his heart is beating double time in his chest. His palms are sweaty, his mouth is dry and his knees feel like overcooked spaghetti. He tries to take some deep breaths as he glares at the stuffed animal that looks like David. He wonders if he should even give all this to Henry now, because won’t it give him away? Won’t Henry be able to tell that Alex is ridiculously in love with him?
But Alex doesn’t have time to put any of these ridiculous Valentine’s Day gifts away because in the next moment, he can hear the apartment door open. “Alex? Are you home?” Henry calls and Alex knows, without a doubt, he’s royally screwed.
He decides to give everything to Henry anyway. It’s too late to stash it somewhere that Henry won’t see and Alex truly does want to cheer up his friend. Sure, he went a little overboard with gifts, no question, but being extra is not a new thing for him. It won’t be too much of a surprise to Henry.
Alex scrambles to make everything presentable and that’s when he notices his biggest mistake. Because the sheet of paper he thought he grabbed? Well, it was not just a sheet of paper. It was, in fact, the Valentine’s Day card that he had painstakingly chosen for Henry.
And now? It has an incomplete list of the reasons why he’s in love with Henry written inside of it.
Hands shaking, it takes three attempts and more than a few muttered curse words to shove the card into the bright red envelope that Alex knows he has no possible way of hiding from Henry. Fuck.
Alex just manages to get the card into the envelope when Henry walks into the kitchen. “Oh, Alex! You are home. Did you not hear me call?” Henry asks, stepping into the kitchen with a bright smile on his face.
Alex clears his suddenly dry throat. “Hey, sweetheart,” he manages. “Sorry, I guess I didn’t hear you. How’s your day going?”
“Good, I–” Henry stops talking when he notices the gifts on the table. He blinks slowly, taking in the absolutely large pile of things. “What’s all this? Are those Jaffa Cakes?”
“Uh, yeah, yes,” Alex answers. He can’t seem to stop looking at Henry. He’s wearing dark pants and a light blue button-up with a couple buttons undone at the collar. His face is a little flushed from the cold and his hair has fallen forward over his forehead. It’s a good look and Alex can’t help but wonder if he’s always been this handsome? “I was at the store and I picked up a few things that I thought you’d like.”
Henry walks closer to the table and reaches out to touch the stuffed version of David. Alex watches as Henry takes in each item. He looks at Alex, something in his face that Alex doesn’t ever remember seeing before. His eyes are so blue. “Are all of these things for me?”
Alex nods. “They are. I wanted to cheer you up, you know, after that knucklehead Eric broke up with you so close to Valentine’s Day. I mean, you wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day, right? I know I’m not your boyfriend–” though Alex was starting to realize that he really, really wanted to be– “but what are friends for?”
“Eric didn’t break up with me,” Henry says.
“What?” Alex has to have heard him wrong.
Henry turns to look at him, a serious but hopeful expression on his face. “Eric didn’t break up with me. I broke up with him.”
Alex feels like he might have entered a different universe or somehow skipped into a strange timeline or something. He’s so fucking confused. “But…I thought you wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day? That you were upset that Eric had broken up with you so close to the holiday because you wanted to have your first Valentine’s Day with a boyfriend?”
“Ah, not quite,” Henry tells him, as he straightens imaginary wrinkles in his shirt, not quite meeting Alex’s gaze. With a deep inhale, he glances up at Alex. “I broke up with Eric because I didn’t want to celebrate Valentine’s Day with him.”
Henry steps closer to Alex, a determined expression on his face. His gaze drops down to the card that Alex is holding in his hand. When Henry looks back up, his eyes meet Alex’s and the eye contact feels like lightning rushing through his veins, like an electrical current that raises the hair on his arms and makes his fingertips tingle with the urge to trace the freckles on Henry’s skin.
Henry’s voice is low and warm when he speaks next. “Is that card for me too?”
Alex’s hand tightens reflexively on the card. He knows that if he gives it to Henry, there will be no hiding his feelings, no pretending that everything is strictly platonic for him. Handing Henry this card is tantamount to a declaration of feelings, if it’s anything at all.
For a moment, Alex isn’t sure what to do. His thoughts are a jumble and he has no idea if he should take that leap. Because what if Henry doesn’t feel the same? There’s no playing this off as just friends and there’s no coming back from it.
Henry must sense Alex’s nerves because he lifts his hand to Alex’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze before letting his hand fall down to cover Alex’s racing heart. There’s a tentative smile on his face as Henry straightens his shoulders and sticks out his chin, the way he does when he’s trying to be brave.
“Alex,” Henry murmurs. He pauses for a few beats, biting his bottom lip.
Alex looks at him from under his lashes, with Henry’s hand still on his chest, sure that Henry can feel his heartbeat under his palm. Feeling brave, Alex reaches out and places his own hand over Henry’s heart. He gasps when he finds a matching rhythm because Henry’s heart is racing too.
“Alex,” Henry restarts. “I didn’t want to spend Valentine’s Day with Eric. I want to spend it with you.”
Henry takes the card. He carefully places it on the table with the other presents. Alex opens his mouth, a question on his tongue.
And then, Henry is leaning closer and kissing him.
Alex doesn’t respond right away. His brain is still catching up to Henry’s declaration but Henry is kissing the corner of his mouth. He’s moving his lips against Alex’s and stepping even closer, the heat of his body meeting the heat of Alex’s. Henry is sliding his hands over Alex’s shoulders, caressing the sides of his face with sure hands that become fingers digging into his hair, that hold Alex still so that Henry can run his tongue over the seam of Alex’s lips. It makes Alex groan, causing him open his mouth so that Henry can tangle their tongues together.
Suddenly, Alex can no longer stay still but he also can’t decide where or what he wants to touch. His hands are everywhere at all once and still, it’s not enough. One hand traces the shape of Henry’s spine while the other grips a hip, pulling Henry even closer, because any space between them is too wide a divide. It’s something that Alex has to put an immediate end to, as he crashes into Henry and moves the table a few inches on the laminate floor, trying to get even closer.
Alex’s hands find the soft curve of Henry’s waist and it feels as perfect as he’s always imagined it would be. Henry’s fingers dig deeper into his hair, nails scraping over his scalp and they kiss until they’re breathless and have to come up for air. They stay close, their foreheads touching as they catch their breath and Alex doesn’t have to look at Henry’s face to know that he’s smiling, his grin bright and blinding.
Henry pushes a curl behind Alex’s ear and kisses his cheek. “Happy Valentine’s Day, darling.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart,” Alex breathes, leaning back to look Henry in the eyes. “And yes, the card is for you, but I’m no poet. I only wrote you a list.”
It's their first Valentine's Day together, but certainly not their last. Alex continues adding to the list he started that day, although it remains incomplete for the rest of their lives. Because Alex? He's always able to find a million reasons for his love for Henry.