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This is, by a long shot, the weirdest conversation Alex has ever had.
“So you agree, then, that pen-type machines offer the most freedom and flexibility?”
“They do, yeah. But rotary’s a good option too, if you don’t have access to the newer stuff. Still gives you good control with the linework without being too heavy or clunky like the classic coil machines. Sorry, what’re you—?”
“Do you think all of that’s still true with a pre-dispersed ink?”
Okay. So. Maybe it’s not that weird, especially since this is his profession and he is at his place of work right now. It’s pretty common that anxious first timers and other artists keep him talking up by the register for a bit, especially when things are slow at the shop.
Usually they don’t know this much though.
And usually they aren’t children.
Tongueing at his lip ring, Alex crosses his arms over his chest and glances at the kid on the opposite side of the counter. He’s pulled up one of their black leather waiting chairs and is currently standing on it, thick glasses perched on his little nose, perfectly nonchalant as he flicks through the sample book on the painted wood in front of him.
“Hey, uh. Where are your parents, little man?”
The kid does not appear at all thrilled by the title Alex has bestowed him. “My father is outside.”
“Okay,” Alex drawls, subtly glancing out front.
They don’t have a rule, per se, but this has never happened before. Seeing a boy who’s no taller than Alex’s hip and cannot be more than, like, eight makes him suddenly a little weary about the array of needles and sharp objects in here.
He’s wearing a tiny sweater vest, for fuck’s sake.
“Does he know you’re in here?”
A small shoulder lifts casually. “Sort of.”
Not good.
“Maybe you should go find him,” Alex suggests.
The boy stops flipping through the book and pauses for a second, then raises his chin slowly, fixing Alex with a look so mundanely sinister that he shivers a little. His posh little accent makes it even scarier, somehow.
“Am I not allowed to have a conversation with someone outside of my father’s consent?”
Alex’s voice, and his brows, raise. “I mean. Yeah? I guess so. But what about, like, stranger danger and stuff?”
“You’re not a stranger,” the kid says, returning to the tattoos. “I’ve been watching you through that window for the past hour and a half.”
Well. Alex might actually be the one in danger, then. Cool.
Subtly reaching for his phone under the desk, he navigates to his texts and finds his thread with Nora, the other owner of the store and his best friend, and taps out SOS -- child !!!!
He receives a swift and unhelpful ??? in response. Sliding it back onto the counter, Alex sighs and leans forward. “So, what’s your name then?”
“It’s Arthur. But most people call me—”
“Artie!”
The bell chimes above the front door and in stumbles a very tall, very panicked man, who promptly heaves and keels over to grab his own knees once he catches sight of, presumably, his son. Alex glances consideringly over to the sick bags they keep for people who get squeamish around needles and back to him.
Artie, evidently, doesn’t seem at all bothered by this. He blinks once in the man’s direction, then climbs down off of his chair and crosses the floor to pat his back twice in a way that might be slightly patronizing, based on the glare the man gives him in return.
“Don’t do that,” he whispers, pulling him in to his chest for a one-sided hug. “You know how much it scares me when I can’t find you. I just turned around and you were gone. Are you alright?”
“But we were going to come in here after we were done eating anyway,” Arthur says, standing still while his dad frantically checks him over for injuries, seemingly calmer once he finds none.
“I said I would think about it,” the man says pointedly.
“Yes, but that simply means that you’re going to say no and just prolonging the inevitable in the hopes that I would be distracted by something so you don’t actually have to say it.”
Feeling like a very confused—and slightly intrigued?—onlooker, Alex clears his throat, and watches as wide blue eyes finally shift up and over to him. He grabs his son’s hand and stands to full height again, approaching the counter.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Arthur’s father says.
“I’m right here,” Artie grumbles beneath him, now out of Alex’s view.
“It’s cool,” Alex shakes his head. He leans over the desk to glance down at the boy. “You’ve been great conversation, actually. Better than most people we get in here.”
“Christ, don’t encourage him,” the man chuckles. He lifts a hand to run it through his blonde hair, lighter than his son’s, and now messier, too. “We were just looking. We’re relatively new to the area and have been exploring lately.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” Alex smirks. “So, you’ve been out there with him then? For the last hour and a half?”
“I—yes,” the guy flushes and glances away, dusting off a spot on his pants. “We were having a picnic.”
Alex’s lips tug up into a smirk. “Not much of a view around here.”
“I believe he’d beg to diff—” Arthur begins.
“Enough, Artie,” the man breathes.
Alex thinks vaguely that the color of his cheeks would be a good shade to add to their collection. He grins as he catches his lip ring again with his teeth, oddly pleased by this turn of events. From the looks of them both, Alex was more expecting to be given a lecture than to be engaged in a debate about the merits of tattoo machines and then meet Hot Dad. He’s not complaining.
“No pressure, of course, but you’re more than welcome to stay and look around,” Alex offers. He crosses his arms again because he knows the way it looks when the ink he has on his bicep bulges with the movement, and smiles when Hot Dad grows even more flustered, backing away toward the door.
“Oh, no. We really should be going—”
“Wait,” Artie protests, “I wasn’t done yet. Just a bit longer?”
“Not today, love. We’ve got to get back to David, remember? He’s still waiting for us outside.”
Whoever David is seems to be important enough that Arthur relents, and Alex tries and fails not to be a little bitter that Hot Dad might have a boyfriend or something out there. Or another kid, even.
Maybe it’s for the best. Alex is always tossing himself in way over his head anyway.
He slips the business card with his personal number he’d been about to offer back into his pocket beneath the desk and gives them both another tight smile on their way out.
“It was real nice to meet you, Artie.”
“Lovely to meet you as well, Mr. ACD.”
Alex glances down at his name tag where his initials are scribbled and laughs. By the time he looks back up, Arthur and his hot dad are gone. Alex does not mope for the rest of his shift.
He does debate another tattoo in his downtime though, which might as well be admitting defeat as it is.
+
“It’s not a joke. I’m telling you,” Alex insists, tipping his beer in Nora’s direction, “that kid knew more about all this stuff than anyone we’ve hired in the last couple years.”
“That’s mildly concerning,” June interjects from the couch on the patio behind him.
“He’s joking,” Nora deadpans.
“I’m not.”
Flipping their burgers over on the grill in front of him, Alex presses them down with the spatula until the buns get all nice and seared and then watches the cheese to make sure it melts enough.
“Okay, so what d’you wanna do about it then?” she asks, cocking a brow. “Call him in for an interview? Give him a job?”
Alex shrugs. “I’m just saying it’s rare, is all. It’s nice to find a kid that interested in this stuff.”
He pulls off all three burgers and lets the grill cool down, balancing the paper plates on his hand and arm over to the table between the two couches. It’s humid tonight but a little better now that the sun has set, the string lights on their back porch flickering overhead. He swats a mosquito from the bowl of chips and drops down across from Nora and his sister, who’re so wrapped up in each other they hardly notice their food until he shoves it at them.
“There’s some other reason you keep bringing this up,” June accuses once he has their attention again, licking mustard off of her thumb. “What is it?”
“Don’t make me go back and check the security footage,” Nora threatens with a full mouth.
“I don’t get why you do that,” Alex says.
“Sometimes it’s fun to watch you try to be charming for tips.”
He flicks a piece of lettuce in her direction. “Dick.”
“Come on,” June circles back. “Tell us what it is.”
“You know you want to,” Nora hums.
His mouth flickers with a smile. He shoves his food toward it to stifle it. “It’s nothing, really. I just thought it was cool that his dad would even let him be curious about it. The kid was like—”
“Hold up,” Nora says, spitting food out of her mouth as she sits up straight. “You didn’t mention a dad.”
“Because it’s not important.”
Alex’s grin, he’s pretty sure, gives him away.
“You like him,” Nora gasps, bouncing in her seat. “Oh, I’m definitely watching that footage now.”
“I do not. And even if I did, it doesn’t matter,” Alex deflects for real this time, his smile fading. “He left before I could even give him my card. Also, I’m pretty sure he’s already with someone, so.”
“You’re assuming that just ‘cause he’s got a kid?”
He rolls his eyes. “No. He was talking about getting back outside because some dude named David was waiting on them.”
“Oh,” June frowns. “Well. Maybe he’ll come back in and you can ask him?”
“Unlikely,” Nora adds. June pinches her. “Ow.”
Alex sighs. “She’s right. He definitely didn’t look the type to be interested in any of that kind of stuff, even if his kid is.”
“Kids can be awfully persuasive when they want something…” June trails off.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Alex shrugs. Eyes the way June and Nora’s hands have threaded together over their laps while they eat. “Can we just—talk about something else now, please?”
Blessedly, June’s eyes soften at the corners, ketchup smeared across her chin. “Of course.”
“I’m still gonna watch the footage,” Nora mutters. Alex glares. June pinches her again in his honor. “Ow.”
Well, Alex supposes, if nothing else ever happens, he’ll always have this.
+
Mr. Claremont-Diaz,
Hello! We hope this message finds you well. We’re writing to you on behalf of several referrals from team members who have mentioned you might be a good fit for Director of our brand new Art & Illustration division . We think you’d be an inspiration for our incoming students and an asset to our existing staff. Given the references from your previous professors and your alumni status, we were hoping you’d be open to coming down for an interview at your earliest convenience!
We eagerly look forward to hearing from you soon!
Best,
ATX Community College
Austin, Texas
[MESSAGE ARCHIVED]
+
There’s a half-eaten sandwich in one of his hands and a tattoo gun in the other, and Alex is beginning to regret promising his coworker a spot on his lunch break.
“If there’s lettuce in my ink, I’m having you shut down,” Liam tells him, scrolling on his phone.
“You work here too, dumbass.”
“Yeah, but I can take my talent elsewhere,” he sighs, locking his phone and folding his free arm behind his head as he squints at Alex. “You can’t. Your fine reputation, your livelihood—gone, just like that.”
“Got anything else to say while I have a vibrating needle to your arm?” Alex cocks a brow.
Liam purses his lips. “No, I think I’ll save it for the Yelp review.”
Rolling his eyes, Alex leans in and focuses carefully on the shading of the winding vine that stretches up Liam’s bicep, flowering into blooms near the top. They’d done the linework last time and Alex is proud of this one, his eyes continuously straying to the outline of a yellow rose in the finer details. He might steal the design for himself one of these days. He makes a mental note to take a picture of it later.
Without taking his eyes off of his piece, Alex reaches blindly with one hand for his vibrating phone on the desk beside them and slips it between his shoulder and ear.
“Hello?”
“Er. Hello. This is—I’m sorry. I got the number for your establishment from Google and someone named Nora transferred me to you. Is this—ah, ACD, as it were?”
As it were ? Who the fuck talks like—oh. Oh .
“That’s me,” Alex says a pinch too cheerfully. He wipes at the tattoo and Liam’s eyes narrow. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Henry. Artie’s father, I suppose, would make more sense.”
Well, the object of Alex’s infatuation has a name now, at least.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember you guys.” Cool cool he’s playing it so cool. “What can I do for y’all, Henry?I’m pretty open, but I’m afraid I can’t tattoo anybody that young. Even if he is super cool.”
“Oh, Christ, no. Nothing like that,” Henry breathes, chuckling lightly. “I’ve a bit of an odd request, though, if you’d be amenable to helping me with it. Unless this is a bad time?”
“Nah, I’m not busy.” Liam makes a strangled noise over the sound of the machine. “And I’m good with odd. Gimme your best shot, sweetheart.”
With a faint noise of his own, Henry begins explaining his idea. Pretty quickly, Alex realizes that this isn’t going to be a multitask-able kind of ordeal. He turns off the gun and peels off his gloves, shoves his sandwich out of the way to pull out a notebook and a pen.
“What the fuck?” Liam mutters.
“Get out. I’ll finish it tomorrow,” Alex whispers, covering the speaker.
Liam grumbles but starts picking up the aftercare where Alex left off, rifling through his cabinets and eventually slipping out the door of Alex’s office with fresh gauze and the rest of Alex’s food, presumably as payment for his crimes. Alex isn’t even paying attention.
By the time Henry’s finished talking, a page and a half of his notebook have been taken up and Alex has a big, genuine smile on his face.
“This all sounds good. How many kids should I prep for?”
“Oh, it’s, er—” Henry trails off, clearing his throat, “it’s just us. The two of us. I completely understand if it’s too much to do for just one—”
“No,” Alex stops him. His mind’s fucking made up.
He looks over his notes and gives them an approving nod, and thinks maybe Henry’s exhale on the other line is a little relieved too.
“I think we can make this happen, Henry.”
+
It takes two weeks to gather up all the supplies and rope everybody into helping him pull it off. It’s not exactly short notice but they do end up having to shut down the shop for the day to set up, which only pisses off a couple of clients that have to reschedule. A small price to pay for Alex to let his inner child live vicariously through a six—almost seven—year old boy.
“Is that straight?” Alex asks over his shoulder, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he appraises a freshly hung string of colored triangles over their front desk.
“Straight isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe that rainbow monstrosity,” Nora says unhelpfully, “but yes. It’s centered.”
Climbing down off of the step stool they keep in the back storage, Alex folds it out of the way and grabs a stack of napkins and plates instead, joining Nora at the covered tables they’ve set up in the center of the room, their usual displays pushed out of the way.
He drops down into one of the chairs and starts arranging them, and Nora eyes him over the round end of a balloon, only slightly out of breath as she drops it into the growing pile.
“I have literally not seen you this excited and nervous about something since you sat for your first tattoo a fucking decade ago.”
That’s only probably a little true.
“That’s absolutely not true.”
“It absolutely is, and you know it.” She picks up another balloon and stretches it. “This dad must be, like, ridiculous levels of hot.”
“Shut up,” Alex flicks it out of her hand, “it’s not just that. It’s like—this kid just—I don’t know.”
“Eloquent.”
“Shut up. I just—it’s weird, because this kid’s nothing like me but he also reminds me of me when I was younger, you know? Being all curious and shit. Running off without his dad’s permission. Different interests than all the other kids.”
“Two Alex’s,” Nora shudders in a breath. “Great.”
Before he can come up with a brutal retort about how her balloons look like testacles, the front door chimes and June slips in past the CLOSED sign.
“I brought cake,” she says with a grin, walking it over to the table. “Is this kind of what you were thinking? Pinterest had some good ideas for the ink but they were all, you know, adult themed, so I had to improvise a few things.”
Abandoning his plastic silverware duties, Alex leans forward to glance into the pastry box and gasps at the cake inside. It’s a cutout of the number seven filled with ink-looking art that June was ecstatic to finally have an excuse to buy one of those fondant-printer-thingies to make. A contrast of dark gray and a burst of color—Alex is determined to show this kid that his favorite color should not be so dull.
“It’s fucking perfect, Bug,” he grins, standing to pull her into a sideways hug. “He’s gonna love it.”
With a self-satisfied smile, June hugs him back and softly re-closes the box, moving it off to the side so it won’t get hurt while they finish setting up.
“It’s weird,” Nora notes absently, tying off the final balloon.
“What is?” June asks.
“You’re like, creating a core memory for this kid,” she says to Alex. “Like, you’re gonna be in his photo albums and shit. He’ll be telling his friends about it for years. Maybe even his own kid one day. That’s pretty cool.”
Alex fully pauses in the center of the shop as he takes that in, his chest tightening with something warm and unfamiliar. He doesn’t ever really think of himself as anything someone will remember past the time they’re in his life. He likes the idea that he’ll be inextricably linked to someone else’s story somehow.
He can’t give Artie a tattoo (which Alex is pretty sure he’d ask for if he could), but he can give him this.
“This is gonna be the best damn birthday he’s ever had.”
June raises an empty cup from the ones she’s stacking by the drink table. Nora raises a testicle-adjacent balloon.
“Hear, hear.”
Another beep comes from outside the front windows, Liam’s car pulling up in the front spot. He makes his way inside a moment later with both arms full of pizzas, his boyfriend, Spencer, two steps behind with a couple liter bottles of soda and a boxful of temporary tattoos.
“Where the fu— frick do you want this shi— stuff,” Liam asks.
“Yeah, you’re gonna have to work on that. They’re gonna be here in like half an hour,” Nora tells him, glancing at her watch.
Spencer snorts and swerves around him to set the box down. “Good luck with that. He’s cranky ‘cause I told him he couldn’t break into the pizzas yet.”
“Just set it all down over here,” Alex tells Liam, pointing to the front desk. “We’ve still gotta get the food set out over here and—oh, the disposable cameras are still in my office—”
A knock on the door interrupts his train of thought, and all eyes turn to the front entrance to the side of the windows. And then down.
“Shit,” Alex mutters. “They’re fucking early. Liam, go get the cameras, everybody else just—I don’t know, make it look finished.”
There’s a clatter of folding chairs and some shoving, everyone standing around the table as Alex rushes toward the door which is very much glass and therefore see through, Art’s round eyes looking up at him through the tinted reflection.
Pulling it open to let them in, Alex watches Art take a careful look around the room before he passes the threshold. He’s in a collared button down today instead of a vest, which feels slightly edgier in comparison. When Alex glances up, despite being early, Henry still seems incredibly flustered.
And unfortunately just as hot. Alex looks back to Artie.
“Surprise!” everyone cheers, Liam stumbling back out from Alex’s office just in time to join them. It goes so quiet after that Alex can hear the playlist June had curated flowing through the corner speakers.
Arthur blinks at the scene in front of him and then looks up at Alex.
“Hello, Mr. ACD.” Before Alex can answer, he turns to Henry. “Is this for me?”
“Yes,” Henry nods, taking his lower lip between his teeth. He adjusts their bag on his shoulder. “We thought you might like it.”
Nodding very seriously, Artie looks back to the others. He approaches the table and pushes up on his tip-toes to appraise the cake June had laid back down, then clasps his hands behind his back and turns to the room at large.
“May I touch the equipment with supervision?”
“Hell— heck yeah.” Liam winces, then grins.
For another moment, nothing happens. Then, just when Alex’s heart is about to drop out of his ass and explode in a fit of self-loathing about his failure, Artie’s mouth begins to twitch and pull upward at the corner in approval.
Alex laughs, relieved, and finds a similar expression on Henry’s face when he glances at him. He gets Henry inside fully so he can close the door, then offers to set his bags down behind the front desk.
“Thank you, Alex,” he says, as if this isn’t the highlight of Alex’s fucking month.
“You joking? I’m already having the time of my life.”
Henry chuckles like he doesn’t believe it. Alex is really going to have to work on that. Before he can though, Henry’s eyes widen when Arthur leans across the table to grab a fresh slice of the pizza.
“Wait, Artie,” he stumbles toward him, reaching for his pocket, “your Lactaid!”
+
Never once has Alex felt so good after partying. This is it, he thinks. He’s reached the age where clubbing doesn’t appeal to him anymore. And it’s not even fucking midnight.
It is close, though, which Henry says is rare. Artie typically goes to bed around eight-thirty so that he can be up early for school, but tonight he’d made an exception. Alex tries not to feel special.
The party itself was a massive success. They’d had pizza and soda, other luxuries Art doesn’t typically enjoy but wanted to try, and he’d adored his cake so much that he hadn’t even wanted to eat it until they’d taken what he deemed an acceptable number of photos of it with the disposable cameras. They’re all in a baggie now for Henry to take home and have printed if he wants.
With Henry’s permission and Artie’s enthusiastic consent, he’s also leaving with an array of temporary ink on his arms under the cuffs of his rolled-up sleeves. Alex won’t ever forget the look in his eyes after he’d lifted up the wet rag and the little plastic peel that first time, and Artie had gasped, made them take more pictures to send to Henry’s family, then cradled it to his chest for the rest of the night like a prize before he’d asked for more.
The entire staff had stopped by at one point or another to talk with him. He’d gotten the full tour of the offices and the workspaces, let Liam and Spencer show him how to hold the unplugged handheld machines, and taken his time flipping through a good portion of the designs in their book to point out ones he liked and disliked.
Then, Alex had sat back and grinned triumphantly when he’d shown up all of them with his extensive knowledge that Nora hadn’t believed he had. Priceless, all of it.
Around eleven, Artie declared that they “ought to be” heading home because evidently Henry “gets grumpy” when he doesn’t have time to thoroughly carry out his nighttime routine. Which really just consists of a cup of tea to wind down, some light reading, and letting David out.
Who Alex learns, to his own shame and elation, is actually a dog.
When they’re finished cleaning up Alex walks them outside to their car, where Artie holds out a hand for the keys but stops Henry before he can get go with him.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Mr. ACD?” he asks pointedly.
With a slight huff, Henry seems to have a silent conversation with him for a moment before he drops his shoulders. “Fine. Give us a moment.”
“Wonderful,” Artie tells him. He walks directly to Alex and sticks out a hand. “Thank you very much for such a lovely evening, Mr. ACD. I had a wonderful time tonight.”
Alex shakes it firmly. He feels a strong need to impress him. “You’re very welcome. You can just call me Alex, y’know.”
Arthur withdraws his hand. “I’ll consider it.”
Without another word, he turns and goes to the car. He presses the unlock button on the keys and swings himself up into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind him. A second later, Alex hears the automatic engine turn on so he can have air conditioning while he waits.
Facing away from the car, Henry scuffs his foot on the concrete and glances at the staff still packing up inside over Alex’s shoulder.
“I’d say that was a success,” he settles on eventually.
“I’d say it was a hell of a lot more than that,” Alex laughs. “That was a really good idea, Henry. I’m glad you reached out. You’re really good to him.”
Ducking his head doesn’t hide the smile that Alex saw blooming on his lips, even if it’s too dark outside to see the flush on his cheeks. Henry clears his throat.
“It’s all him, really. He knows what he likes. And he’s incredibly intelligent. I swear, it seems like sometimes he knows more about the world than I do,” Henry rushes, a pinch at the corner of his mouth. “But I’m sure you’ve noticed that he doesn’t necessarily…act his age. Which has never been an issue for us personally, of course. It’s just, when he started public school…”
Yeah, Alex fucking gets it. He’d been that kid too, with too much energy, too curious, too talkative. Always getting notes written home to his parents, always getting teased by the other kids. He can’t imagine how much worse it would have been if he’d worn vests. At this stage of life he can appreciate them, but kids can be ruthless.
“I know what you mean,” he offers, crossing his arms over his chest. “The temporary tats should definitely win over some people, if they don’t get him suspended.”
“He’ll most definitely enjoy showing them off.” Henry’s smile flickers. He draws in a breath and finally meets his eye. “What I'm trying to say is—thank you, Alex. He might not express it the same way but tonight has been—it’s been so, so lovely. I’ve no doubt this is a memory he’ll hold with him for years. Longer, even. And that’s—” Alex jolts when Henry’s voice gives out just a little, only narrowly resisting the urge to touch him somehow to comfort him until he recovers a bit. “Just. Thank you.”
Something twists inside of Alex’s chest at his tone. It’s the same one Alex uses when he realizes he’s been talking for too long or gotten too excited about something, the one that he uses to apologize for taking up space. Alex just isn’t certain which one of them he’s apologizing for.
“I know you don’t believe me, but you really don’t have to keep thanking me. It’s not charity. Artie’s nice. Like you said, he knows what he likes and what he doesn’t, and most kids don’t figure that shit out for years. Plus, he’s just really fu—” Alex clears his throat when he gets too worked up about it, “he’s really cool.”
“Cool,” Henry echoes. He smiles to himself, eyeing Alex’s face. “He thinks you’re awfully cool yourself, you know.”
“Yeah?” Alex asks quietly. “And what do you think?”
For just a moment, Alex is worried he’s pushed too far. He still can’t tell if Henry’s just being nice because Alex let him use the shop for his son’s party or not, can’t tell if maybe Henry’s skin is just predisposed to turning red and it doesn’t actually have anything to do with Alex at all.
“I’m…inclined to agree with him, I suppose,” Henry murmurs, looking off to the side coyly. He darts his eyes back to Alex, then down at his feet with a smile.
“Cool.” Alex bites down his own grin, sucking his lip ring into his mouth as he rocks on his feet. “Next time you guys are picnicking around here, you should come in again. Say hi. If you want.”
Henry nods, seeming surprised. “Alright. We will.”
“Good. I still need to meet the infamous David.”
“Ah, yes. Are dogs typically allowed in such fine establishments?”
“Mm, no. Not usually. But I think I can make an exception,” Alex teases.
“I believe you’ve already made several of those for us,” Henry argues.
It’s probably a good thing that Artie reaches over to flash the headlights at them. It keeps Alex from saying something egregiously flirtatious that he’ll most definitely regret later.
He can’t help being a little disappointed though when Henry seems to shift back into strictly professional mode, pulling himself away. Alex hadn’t realized how much they’d gravitated closer to each other while they were talking. He does notice the way he immediately wants to pull him back in.
“Well, I should—” Henry points to the car.
“That’s your cue for sure, yeah,” Alex laughs. He lifts a hand to wave at Artie in the passenger seat as Henry steps off the curb. “You two get home safe, okay?”
“You too, Alex. Goodnight.”
“Night, Henry.”
Alex watches Henry open his door and slip inside the car, hands on the wheel as he turns to speak with Artie, his mouth moving weirdly fast. It stops immediately when Artie points over at Alex and Henry’s wide eyes realize that he is still, in fact, outside. With a grin, Alex raises a brow and waves again, and Henry tosses up a hand before putting the car into drive and hurriedly backing out of the lot.
Alex is still grinning when he makes his way back inside the shop to finish cleaning up. He walks straight to the table again and picks up one of the papers where Artie had drawn out an idea for a design of a small fox that “would really diversify their existing collection.” Alex folds it carefully to save, running a finger over the side.
“Oh, you’re in so far over your head,” Nora says, passing by with the trash can to collect empty cups.
“Shut up.”
He has no other argument.
+
Alex --
I know we’ve not talked in a while but your dad tells me you’re doing alright for yourself. I haven’t seen you since you booked it outta here after graduation, but I just wanted you to know that I recommended you for our new arts dept. here at the college. I know how you feel about this place and you don’t have to take it, but please know that I really wish you’d consider it. You were an incredible student, and I know a lot of these kids would love to have you on the other side of the classroom too.
Call me when you get a chance, okay? I’m saving you a seat - it’s all yours if you want it.
Raf
[MESSAGE ARCHIVED]
+
It’s been a month. Henry doesn’t come back. It’s fine. It’s not like Alex thought a kids birthday party meant that they suddenly had some sort of connection. It’s not like he’s started a pile of temporary tattoos underneath the front desk that he thinks Art might like. It’s not like he’s sulking.
“You’re sulking,” Liam tells him from across the table when Spencer’s in the bathroom. Alex can barely hear him over the noise of the packed bar.
He takes a sip of his beer. “Am not.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t just call him,” Liam suggests. “You have the number he called you from before, right?”
“Nah, I deleted it.”
Not true. Alex did call that number. He just got sent to voicemail. It’s fine.
“Oh. Well.” Liam frowns at him, falling back against the booth. He takes a long sip of his drink and pats Alex’s hand. “There’ll be other DILFs to crush on. Promise. I’ll even go wrangle ‘em up myself for you if I have to.”
“Good luck running that by Spence,” Alex tells him.
“If you think we haven’t already done that for our own benefit you’re just being purposefully ignorant at this point,” he smirks.
With a breath— not a sigh—Alex surveys the crowd tonight. He sees a few familiar faces and the music’s alright tonight, but he just doesn’t feel like it.
Everybody else has moved on. Even June stopped asking for updates when she realized he wasn’t getting them anymore. And typically, Alex is right there with them.
He likes his life here. Running the shop. Living close to his sister and his friends. He likes that he has routines that are quick and easy and unchanging, that even if he has the shittiest week ever, he’s always got the happy hour here at the bar downtown. He’s always got the hum of his bike underneath him as he speeds down the backroads. He’s always got the right set of moves to take somebody home with him if he feels like it. And even then, if all else fails, he’s got a shit ton of ink at the shop and over half of his body left to fill with it. He lives fast and he likes that. He does.
It’s just weird that it’s been a month and not one of those things has crossed his mind. It’s weird that this particular thing is sticking so much.
Whatever. Alex has had hyperfixations before. He’ll get over it eventually. He pastes on a grin as Spencer comes back and doesn’t feel at all envious of the way the two of them just seem to fall into place together.
He still keeps the temporary tattoos in his drawer just in case.
+
Alex is back on the stepstool when the bell chimes above the door of the shop, reaching up to the highest shelf to put away a new shipment of gauzes. He curses when he hears it, unable to take his hands off of the box. Standing on his tippy-toes isn’t exactly the vibe he wants to set for this place.
“Be with you in just a sec,” he calls.
“Take your time.”
The box just barely makes it onto the shelf before Alex spins around, slapping a hand out to steady himself with the wall at the sound of a British accent.
“Hi.”
“Alex,” Henry nods, smiling softly. “Hello.”
Glancing between him and Artie at his hip, Alex steps down off of the stool and up to the front counter, crossing his arms over his chest and trying like hell to not come on too strong this time around.
“Uh. Can I help y’all with something?”
Henry’s smile wanes at the edges, adjusting his grip on Artie’s hand. “Oh, ah. No, I suppose not. We just—wanted to say hello.”
“That’s nice of you.” It comes out more bitter than he’d wanted it to. Fuck. He looks down to Artie. “I have a surprise for you.”
“I don’t typically like surprises,” Arthur informs him, leaning closer nonetheless. Alex smiles.
“Well, you liked the party. And I think you’re gonna like this one. Or else it’s gonna hurt my feelings.”
Reaching down behind the desk, Alex opens up the bottom drawer and finds the collection of new temporary tattoos and shakes it invitingly, raising a brow until Artie finally abandons Henry’s hand to come around and look.
“More tattoos?” he whispers, eyes lit up just like they were at the party.
“Yep. I picked ‘em just for you. Take as many as you want.”
Climbing up into Alex’s chair, Artie scoots up to the box on the counter and begins methodically sorting through them, arranging them into different piles that Alex can’t wait to hear the explanations for. While he’s occupied, Alex steps around the desk and moves to stand beside Henry as they both watch him go through them.
“Thought you’d forgotten about me.”
Henry coughs lightly, shaking his head. “Definitely not. I had to make a trip back to London to fetch the rest of our things we’d left behind. I just returned last week.”
“Just you?”
He nods. “I didn’t want to pull Artie out of his schooling right at the beginning of term. He stayed with my best mate at our house while I was gone.”
“Oh, do they live here too?”
“No, no. Pez is—he just visited to stay with Artie. He’s a few hours from here, on the other side of the city. It’s just the two of us here.”
“Gotcha.” Turning back to Artie, Alex leans in close enough to stage whisper as he gestures around the shop. “Y’know, my talents extend beyond all of this.”
Henry’s head snaps sideways, his brows threatening to knit together and his voice just a touch breathier than before. “I—excuse me?”
“I’m also a pretty damn good babysitter.”
Blinking harshly, Henry swallows and tears his gaze away. “Oh, yes—of course, I—” he pauses, frowning, then turns back, “wait, what?”
“If you ever need somebody to watch him who lives closer, I’d be happy to hang out with him for a while if I’m not busy here,” Alex tells him. “I kind of own the place, so.”
“You don’t need to—” Henry begins.
“I’ll have him send you a list of my allergies later this evening,” Artie says over the desk.
Henry’s flushed face breaks into a grin as he laughs and cocks a brow. “Your allergies?” he repeats. “Are you referring to dairy?”
Raising his head from the tattoos momentarily, Artie levels him with a Look. “Dairy allergies are real allergies.”
“That’s true,” Alex points out. “He got you there.”
Fishmouthing for an excuse, Henry huffs when he can’t come up with one. It feels like Alex and Artie’s first successful team effort. This is the best idea he’s ever had.
Eventually, Henry gives in. “Alright. Fine. Expect a very short, very thorough list of his allergies sometime this evening, then.”
“You need my number for that, I think,” Alex says.
“I have it,” Henry returns instantly. The panic is a moment delayed. “Er, I mean—”
“So you did get my call,” Alex grins.
“Well, it’s just that I was terribly busy, and also I had convinced myself that you hadn’t meant to, and—”
“I meant to,” Alex interjects. Henry’s mouth snaps shut.
He’s wearing a threaded sweater today that’s the same color as the leaves in the fall, and Alex can barely resist the urge to see if it’s as soft as it looks. He likes the mismatch of all of this—how they’re so different. How he can make Henry speechless without even really trying to. Alex is good at that sort of thing in dark bedrooms and dingy club bathrooms. Not so much in broad daylight. It’s addicting.
“I’m finished,” Artie announces. Alex rounds the corner again to look at the piles with him. “I liked all of the ones over here, but I’m not particularly fond of these because they don’t mimic the linework of real ink. Especially here, this one is far too thick to be realistic.”
Henry frowns and steps forward. “Artie, be nice, please—”
“I see what you mean,” Alex admits. “They’re temporary, but you don’t want them to look temporary.”
“Exactly,” Artie agrees.
Taking out his phone to type out a note for next time, Alex smiles at Henry’s pleased but perplexed expression. He winks, and Henry chokes.
Alex is so hired.
+
There’s a system, apparently.
Henry warns him ahead of time that it’s rigorous and intense and that no one, aside from Henry’s sister and best friend, have ever actually passed it. Even then, sometimes, it’s thin ice, made up of a super secret and never explicitly stated combination of feelings and vibes inside of Artie’s head. Not even Henry knows the algorithm.
Alex is only really fucking smug when he passes with flying colors.
He gets to go out to their quaint little brownstone in the suburbs that Alex used to dream about living in one day and learn the routines. He meets David. Is shown the list of emergency numbers and, true to his word, where Arthur’s Lactaid lives in the cupboard. He gets the tour of the whole place minus Henry’s bedroom, which he’s only a little bit bummed about. Another time.
There’s a job in the city that Henry’s been declining, a slot that’s only two days a week helping out at his friend Pez’s shelter. They seem like they live pretty comfortably here but Alex doesn’t question how, and he can see the hesitant excitement in Henry’s eyes when he talks about the possibility of finally accepting the position. It’s an easy yes—Nora’s more than capable of running the shop on those days, and Alex can still fit all of his clients in the other five days. Henry insists on paying him anyway, so it isn’t like he’s not making a profit.
He spends an entire day with both of them, visiting all of the spots Artie’s familiar with and enjoys going. A park where they can walk David, a farmer’s market for any groceries not already at the house, a neighborhood deli if they don’t feel like cooking. On the days he’ll be at the shelter it’ll be about an hour commute, so Alex will have Artie for nearly the whole day.
Before his first day, Alex drives out to his mom’s place in the city and politely asks to rifle through the boxes of his old stuff in the attic. He’s already texted June for a list of the shows they used to watch together as kids.
“What’re you doing with all of that?” his mom asks him as he carries a box down with him to take home, a glass of wine in her hand and her pantsuit still on from the law firm.
“I’m babysitting,” he offers, vaguely out of breath.
“I…see,” she furrows a brow, and doesn’t ask him any further questions.
He slips it into his backseat and takes it home with him, then spreads it all out across his floor to determine what is and isn’t worth sharing. By the end of it, he’s singing along to the opening of some movie he and June used to love that he forgot he knows the words to, an offensively tiny old band t-shirt stretched over his chest and cut off at his belly button, a brand new note open on his phone of ideas.
Generally, Alex doesn’t think of himself as the most mature person in the room. But, God, he hadn’t really realized how much of his life he’s spent trying to be grown up until he starts looking backward instead.
He raises his phone above his head and sends Henry a picture of himself in the middle of the mess, tiny t-shirt and all, a big smile on his face and one eye closed. Alex figures he should know what he’s getting himself into. Underneath it, he types out: job of a lifetime. i think i was born for this.
It’s a few minutes later when his phone buzzes with a response.
Oh dear.
It’s already way past Artie’s bedtime, and presumably Henry’s too. And yet.
Alex bites at his lip as he locks his phone again, setting it aside. His stomach simmers with that familiar feeling—something to pour himself into all over again.
+
“What are your rules for me?”
Out of all the things Alex had planned for, Artie wants to start with the one he hadn’t. Granted, it was probably a pretty significant oversight. He’s glad Henry’s not here to witness it. Between Artie’s bold frames perched on his nose and his clasped hands over the dinner table, Alex feels properly self conscious and also a little chastised.
“My rules?” Alex repeats.
“Yes. Having a routine is very important, wouldn’t you agree?”
“A routine, yeah,” Alex relents, “but that’s different from rules.”
Appearing to think on this very carefully, Artie mouth twists into a frown and Alex’s brain goes into overtime. He can not risk this on his first day.
“How about we start a list,” he grabs a notepad from the side table and steals a pen, “and add to it as we go.”
Artie raises a brow. “Both of us?” Alex nods. “Alright. I like that.”
“Anything you wanna add right now?”
“I typically like to be in bed by eight-thirty, for the routine column. As for the rules…I suppose my father would want ‘no dairy’ on there.”
Alex snorts as he scribbles it down. “He’s pretty strict about that, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Artie sighs. “I can’t think of anything else at this moment.”
Clicking the pen closed, Alex taps it against the pad and glances up at him across the table. “Where’d you learn so many fancy words?”
“I read often.”
“Really? What’s your favorite book?”
“Animal Farm.”
Alex chokes. “Seriously?”
Artie lifts a shoulder. “No. But I enjoy telling people that because it subverts their expectations for my favorite book to be some sort of children’s barnyard classic. Perhaps Charlotte’s Web.”
Huffing a laugh, Alex tries to think back to the ones that he liked the most. Definitely not anything from Orwell. Or anything even adjacent, really.
“What was yours?” he asks.
“I don’t remember a lot of them,” Alex admits, leaning his cheek into his hand on the table. “I got really into comics for a while when I was older. But I did like the Velveteen Rabbit when I was younger.”
“And yet you criticize me for Animal Farm?” Artie argues. “The Velveteen Rabbit was horribly sad.”
“I guess I just remembered it as like, a comfort thing. I don’t really think about the sad parts.” Artie’s gaze narrows as if this means something, and Alex quickly pivots. “So, you gonna tell me your real favorite book?”
“Why? Are you going to read me a bedtime story, Alex?”
Rolling his eyes, Alex drops his hand flat and points at him. “Watch yourself, mister. Don’t change the subject.”
“I don’t think I will tell you just yet.” Artie sits back in his chair, his arms over his chest. “My father enjoys Austen though, which I do like occasionally.”
Alex tries and fails not to smirk. “Your dad likes Austen, huh?”
He’s not really the brooding, stand-offish, generationally wealthy love interest, but he can be pretty damn ardent when he wants to be. Alex wonders if Henry would like that, too.
“I would be happy to tell you more about what he likes,” Artie offers, ever observant. Alex narrows his eyes.
“In exchange for what.”
Artie bides his time, then murmurs, “The packet of Jaffa Cakes hidden on top of the cupboard.”
Alex squints further. “Do they have dairy in them?”
“...Possibly.”
With a groan, Alex pushes away from the table and stands, heading toward the living room. “Come here.”
“What are we doing?” Artie asks from behind him. Alex hears David take interest as well, trotting over to the rug as he sits down.
“We are going to show you that the world has so much more excitement to offer you than just the occasional glass of milk.”
Arthur shivers as he drops down across from Alex, cringing. “I would never drink a glass of plain milk.”
Alex furrows a brow. “Why are you always going on about it tasting so good then?”
“I don’t like it because it tastes good. That would be absurd. It upsets my stomach for days.”
“Why the hell do you like it then?”
Before Alex can correct his language, Artie settles David in his lap and strokes a hand down his back, then meets Alex’s eye directly.
“Because it’s forbidden.”
Tossing his head back, Alex laughs as he pulls the box of things he’d brought out to the middle of the floor. He folds an arm over it and leans in conspiratorially, a smile on his face.
“I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”
+
Rolling his shoulder in wide circles, Alex heads back to his office to finish up the scheduling list he’d been working on earlier.
The client he’d had this morning had lasted a good few hours, a simple piece but lots of groundwork before the actual color, and Alex’s whole body is sore from being bent forward to focus on it. He downs a Gatorade and shoves half a protein bar in his mouth to make up for the half hour he cut into his lunch, then powers up his laptop to open up the doc.
“Hey,” Liam pauses outside of his door, typing on his phone. “I’ve got a four o’clock on Tuesday that I’m not gonna be able to make. Spence and I are headed to his parents for their short notice anniversary party. They’ve worked with you before, so can I tell ‘em that you’ll cover?”
“You’ll have to ask Nora. I work Tuesday.”
Liam’s pierced brow furrows. “Uh. Yeah. I know. You work here.”
“Not on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Alex tells him, glancing up from his computer. “Have you even noticed I’ve been gone twice a week? I’m wounded, Liam.”
“I just thought you had food poisoning or some shit.” He shrugs, finally coming closer to lean on the door frame as he pockets his phone. “Who the fuck hired your ass?”
Alex’s eyes drop back down to his screen.
“Henry.”
“Henry?” Liam frowns, then holds out a hand. “Hang on. Like. Henry -Henry? Like, Hot-Dad-Henry? From several weeks ago?”
“He does have other qualities, y’know,” Alex drawls.
In his peripherals, he can see Liam’s head tilt. He knows that head tilt. The disapproving, concerned one. Alex types louder.
“Alex…”
“What? It’s just some babysitting. And it’s not even really babysitting. Artie’s not like a regular kid. It’s just like hanging out with an adult, practically.”
“Yeah, except it isn’t,” Liam steps closer. “Is that why you couldn’t come out with us last week too?”
“Do you need me to call and ask Nora to cover for you?” Alex asks pointedly.
Liam shakes his head. “I can text her. I just…want you to be careful, okay?”
Huffing, Alex drags his eyes up again. “He’s seven, Liam.”
“I’m not talking about him.”
Grinding his teeth, Alex abandons the document he can’t focus on anyway and leans back in his chair, giving Liam his full, unenthused attention.
“Spit it out.”
“Look, I’m just saying—you get all happy when they swoop in but when he disappeared for a month you took it pretty fucking hard,” he says gently. “I just don’t want you to put all your eggs in one basket and get hurt, is all. Especially when the basket has a kid. Or a kid-sized basket. Or something else about eggs. Whatever. You get it.”
Alex sighs. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“You know I always will.”
“It’s just babysitting.”
Lifting both hands and his brows, Liam backs slowly out of his office. “If you say so…”
It really is just babysitting, is the thing. Alex hardly even sees Henry now except for when he’s rushing out the door to get to work. Artie’s school is a combination of home and in-class learning, so Alex gets him the full day on Tuesdays and only after school until Henry gets home on Thursdays.
He still texts Henry pictures and updates and they talk occasionally when Alex runs new ideas by him to see if they’re okay, but they don’t talk -talk.
And maybe everyone else is right. Maybe that’s for the best.
Besides, his all-consuming need for Henry’s attention has waned now. It’s nice, but it’s not as intense anymore. It’s just simmering on low in the background of everything else, brought to the surface when Alex welcomes him home at the front door at night and he’s all sleepy and disheveled or when he thinks about him for too long in a tank top or some shit.
Or when he reaches up to loosen his tie as Alex is leaving. Or when he does that baby talk thing with David or when Alex stays to watch him tuck Artie in before bed. Or when—
It doesn’t matter.
He’s got a good balance going now. Something to look forward to other than being at the shop day in and day out. Alex doesn’t need to have everything figured out right this moment. He’s allowed to enjoy something just because he does. He’s allowed to like hanging out with Artie. He’s allowed to have a harmless crush on Henry. It’s not like it’s hurting anyone.
Nora’s text flashes across his screen a moment later to confirm that she’s covering for Liam. Alex speeds through inputting the change in the schedule before his next appointment as he devours the other half of the protein bar and wipes the back of his mouth.
Alex knows there isn’t anything to worry about because out of everyone in his life, he worries the most. There’s constantly a pit of anxiety in his stomach that he’s learned to tamp down and pretend doesn’t exist, to make it believable if he tries hard enough.
He knows Henry and Artie are good because he’s never felt that around them. Not once. And that’s got to mean something, even if Alex doesn’t know what it is yet.
Cracking his neck again, Alex walks back out to the lobby just in time for his next client, ignoring Liam’s concerned gaze the whole way.
+
Mr. Claremont-Diaz,
Hello again!
We’re beginning the hiring process for next year and wanted to reach back out to see if you’d had a chance to consider our request. If you have any questions for us or would like to schedule your interview, please do let us know soon!
Best,
ATX Community College
Austin, Texas
[MESSAGE ARCHIVED]
+
Pretty early on, Alex learns that he needs to be prepared for heavy existential questions dropped like bombs randomly throughout daily conversation. That part of childhood, apparently, Artie has retained.
He asks Alex everything from his thoughts on religion to societal pressures and his stance on politics, all of which Alex is hesitant at first to share but is eased to find out that he and Henry share most of the same opinions. It’s interesting and kind of fun, in a weighty sort of way, that Alex gets to watch him form his own thoughts and opinions right in front of his eyes.
And then Artie rounds it off with last week’s question of ‘where do babies come from’, which turns out—thank God —to be a joke. Alex can’t even be mad about his racing heart, not when his scowl makes Artie half-smile at him from across the kitchen island.
Today, they’re laid out on the living room floor with the coffee table pushed out of the way, a basket of coloring supplies between them and coloring pages Alex had printed off for them to do the night prior. His own is in vibrant marker, while Art’s is outlined meticulously in colored pencil and then shaded in a bit lighter.
Alex nearly pokes through the page when Art asks, “Do you want children?”
Capping his marker, Alex reaches across for another, procrastinating. “Uh. I don’t know that I’ve thought much about it. Why?”
They’ve talked about relationships and dating in a very surface level way and Artie knows Alex’s sexuality, but anything past that has been a no-go.
“Just wondering. I find it fascinating the reasons people do or don’t want to have children. Both are valid.”
“Do you ask a lot of people that question?” Alex deflects.
Arthur looks up at him through his glasses, and Alex feels transparent. “Only those to whom I care to hear the answer.”
Rolling off of his stomach to sit up, Alex cracks his neck and eases in a breath, pulling his coloring page into his lap as he thinks. Artie’s perceptive, and insistent, and if Alex evades the question, he’s just going to keep asking.
“Growing up I always wanted kids. I’ve always loved the idea of taking care of someone. Being called Papa. Or Pa, when they’re older. Teaching them things I think are important to know. Being there for them in ways that my parents weren’t.”
It’s the first time he’s said that out loud. The first time he hasn’t made excuses for his dad leaving, for his mom choosing work over them. It feels weird, but Artie doesn’t flinch.
“That’s very admirable,” he remarks.
“It doesn’t feel like it,” Alex says without really meaning to. “It feels like the bare minimum.”
Setting his pencil back down into the box, Artie carefully sorts through it until he finds the next color he needs. Only once it touches the paper again does he speak up.
“In some ways, maybe. But we’re all human. To expect perfection of anyone is to be let down eventually. I think doing your best is always better than doing nothing. Even if it’s not the way you thought it would be.” He drops the pencil back down and holds out his paper to examine it. “Okay. I’m finished.”
Quickly filling in the last of his own, Alex holds his up as well and then flips it, letting Artie do the same. He points out several things he likes about Artie’s simple landscape with trees and running water and some birds, but he doesn’t get much of the same complimentary feedback for his abstract, multi-colored tiger.
“For someone who works with lines so often, you spend a lot of time coloring outside of them.”
“Excuse you,” Alex gawks. “What happened to ‘we can’t all be perfect’?”
“It doesn’t apply to me, of course.”
“Right, right.” Still feeling a little shaken from their earlier conversation, he dumps his mess of markers back into the bin, picks up their papers to set on the fridge, and stands. “Put your pencils away. The dino nuggets should be ready now.”
Alex’s master plan of introducing Artie to his inner child has been going well, he thinks. They’ve discovered some cartoons that he likes, and anything crafty or hands-on Alex has noticed he tends to gravitate towards. Just like he used to. They still have a ways to go, though.
“There’s fresh spinach in the fridge as well.”
Case in point.
“You’re asking me for vegetables?”
“Yes. They aid digestion and are good for your eyes, your brain, and your muscles,” Artie informs him as he watches Alex hang their art on the refrigerator door. “There’s more than enough for both of us.”
Alex pauses as he bends down to get the nuggets out of the oven. “What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing,” he says airily, “only that tattoos don’t cover up missed time at the gym.”
“You little—” Alex breathes, setting the tray down on top of the oven. Using his very strong, very visible muscles. “That’s very rude, Artie.”
“You’re the one that added ‘always be honest’ to our rules. I’m simply following instructions.”
Marching over to the notepad by the table, Alex grabs the pen and adds ‘ALWAYS BE KIND’ underneath the same column. He holds it up and raises a brow.
“Better?”
“I’ll try my hardest,” Artie promises.
Shaking his head, Alex returns to the oven as Artie arranges their place settings. He splits the nuggets evenly between their plates, begrudgingly adds the aforementioned spinach, then grabs them both an apple juice and sits down across from him. They both toss David a tiny corner of chicken at the same time, and Alex’s mind wanders back to his earlier comment when they lock eyes as they eat.
“Why do you like tattoos so much anyway?”
Artie dips his nugget into his ranch and chews thoughtfully before speaking. “They’re an outward expression of inner thoughts. A way to communicate with people without actually having to communicate with them.”
“You don’t like communicating?”
He purses his lips. “Not really, no. People my age aren’t typically very nice to me. It’s better now that I’m at a private academy, but it’s still difficult sometimes. If I don’t speak, they’re more likely to leave me alone.”
A flicker of protectiveness surges up in his gut, and Alex tries to dampen it down. Henry’s already told him this—he just can’t stand the mental image of it. Wishes he’d had someone to stand up for him all those years ago too. He dips his own nugget and chews.
“What sorts of things do they say?”
“That I talk funny. My accent and the words that I use.”
“I don’t think you talk funny,” Alex frowns. “I think you’re cool.”
“Thank you, Alex. I think you’re cool too.” Artie stabs the spinach with his fork. “Even when you don’t act cool about letting me have a Jaffa Cake.”
With a huff, Alex drags himself over to the top of the cupboard where the ‘secret’ stash is to grab them both one. “Fine. Your dad is going to think that I’m just eating all of his treats without asking.”
Artie smiles, pleased, when the dessert is finally in front of him, sliding it to the side of his plate to eat after he’s finished with the rest of his food. He has more patience than Alex does.
“I don’t think my father minds you having access to his things.” Artie resumes eating his vegetables, then pauses when Alex gives him an inquisitive look. “I told you that Jaffa Cakes would come with information, did I not?”
“Sneaky. Very sneaky,” Alex admits with an impressed nod, ripping into his package.
“Thank you.” Artie says.
As they eat, Alex’s eyes fall to the spot on his arm where one of the ever changing temporary tattoos is fading, then to his own arm where the ink is permanent and dark. He thinks about Artie’s answer and about his own—if what he’s put on his body is truly a representation of who he is. What he stands for. He thinks, even with the stupid, impulsive ones, there might be some truth to that.
It makes him even more determined to make their two days together something fun and memorable, to show Artie that he can talk about his interests and have people like him for that too. Alex has spent a lifetime trying to be liked. He doesn’t want Artie to waste as much time as he did.
When they’re finished eating they clean up and walk David for a bit, then return to the den to watch a movie. The first time they’d done this, they’d been on separate ends of the sectional sofa, David perpetually at Artie’s side.
Now, David shifts between both of them, and Artie has moved closer almost every time. By this point he’s only a cushion away, and when he falls asleep waiting for Henry, his head is only inches from Alex’s blanket-covered leg.
With a quiet smile, Alex carefully reaches out to swipe some of the hair off of his forehead. He looks so much like Henry like this, his brow furrowed even in sleep, his mouth parted and cheeks flushed. His nose wrinkles when Alex’s fingers touch his skin before he settles into the touch and relaxes once more, the movie still flickering in the background.
Alex keeps his hand there, his thumb moving back and forth over Artie’s head, David snoring on his other side, and lets himself rest for a while too.
+
The sound of the front door alarm disengaging is what wakes him up an hour or so later, keys hitting the ceramic bowl in the foyer. Alex eases himself away from Artie and covers him with the blanket, standing so he can stretch and stifle a yawn before going to greet Henry.
He’s struggling with his coat when Alex rounds the corner into the entryway, huffing at the hook on the wall where it usually hangs. Eventually he just gives up, and the coat lands in a heap on the floor as Henry’s palms press to his eyes.
“Hey,” Alex says tentatively. He walks up to him and bends to pick up the jacket, dusting it off and hanging it on the non-crooked hook beside the other.
“Alex. Hello,” he says quietly. “Is, um. Is Artie—?”
“He fell asleep on the couch,” Alex tells him. “It is just past eight-thirty now, so.”
His teasing falls flat as Henry inhales sharply and reaches up to run a hand through his hair, his mouth twisted up the way Alex has become familiar with through Artie. His eyes are wide but he seems exhausted, his tie already off and his collar bent out of place.
“You okay?” Alex asks.
“Fine,” Henry says.
He starts moving again, resting a hand on the wall to toe out of his shoes, cursing at them when they get caught on his sock and getting progressively more frustrated. He hears David jump down and come to investigate.
Alex puts a hand on his arm, just long enough to get his attention. “Henry.”
“I’m fine, truly. I just…” Henry stands again, pinching the bridge of his nose. Eventually, he sighs. “The shelter work is…it’s rewarding. I am enjoying it. Very much so. And I’m very lucky to have it.”
“But…?” Alex pushes.
“But,” Henry echoes, “sometimes I see the kids that come in there and I’m —it’s—sometimes it’s like looking in the mirror at a version of my younger self and that’s hard enough as it is. But sometimes I look at them and I see Artie, and that’s—” he squeezes his eyes shut, his jaw working side to side, “that’s so, so much worse.”
Alex’s hand threatens to press it itself back to Henry’s shoulder. He grabs his phone out of his pocket instead.
“Hey, give me like, ten minutes, okay?”
Henry’s chin raises and he shakes his head. “No, Alex, you’ve been here all day. You should go home and—”
“Henry. Give me ten. Go take Artie up to bed. You need him right now, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Henry nods. He finishes taking off his shoes and walks toward the living room to get Artie, and Alex slips into the kitchen just as Henry disappears toward the staircase to carry him up to bed.
Pulling up June’s contact, Alex presses dial and chew at his thumbnail as it rings, pacing behind the island. There’s still a few leftovers in the fridge from dinner earlier but he’s pretty sure Henry would enjoy something that isn’t on his list of fun, kid-themed cuisine for Artie. He’s got a bunch of shit at his apartment still from the last time he cooked for Nora and June, so…
“Hey, is everything okay?”
“Yeah, uh. Are you guys busy tonight?”
“Not really.” Alex can hear shuffling in the background. “Just catching up on some TV. What’s up?”
“How would you guys like to watch TV on a flatscreen that’s bigger than, like, my living room,” he proposes. “And there’s blankets. Soft ones. And an entire collection of movies. And a big couch, and—”
“You literally had me at the flatscreen,” June stops him. “Did you remodel or something? I didn’t think the shop brought in that kind of cash. Nora’s very suspicious.”
“No, definitely not. I, uh. I can text you the address.”
He hears the television click off and more shuffling, the zipper of a jacket being pulled on as he pictures June’s phone between her ear and her shoulder.
“You’re being weird,” she says. “Whose house is it?”
“Henry’s.”
“Oh. Well that’s—no offense, but isn’t that kind of what you’re supposed to be doing?”
“Technically, yeah. I did. I’ve been here most of the day. But Artie’s asleep and Henry just got home and he looks like he could really use, like, a hot meal and some time to relax, so. You’d just have to be here in case Artie needed something.” He winces when he bites at his nail too hard, then drops it to his side. “I just wanted to do something nice.”
June pauses. “So is this…a date?”
“No,” Alex says, probably too quickly. “It’s not—it’s not like that. He’s just had a hard day.”
“Well, your cooking is definitely a mood booster.”
“That’s—that’s all you have to say?”
“…Yeah?” He hears their door shut. “Hurry up and text me the address. Also, we’re not changing out of pajamas, so I hope that’s okay.”
“That’s fine,” Alex chuckles, blowing out a relieved breath. “I’ll, um—I’ll send it right now. We’ll wait ‘til you get here to leave.”
“Okay. Love you. See you soon.”
Alex tells her goodbye and hangs up, pocketing his phone as he turns to the fridge. He lays the emergency contacts out on the counter (and the Lactaid, for good measure), and writes a note about where to find the remotes and movies in the den.
Henry stays upstairs for another fifteen minutes or so, which should be enough time for June and Nora to drive over. He’s coming down the last step of the stairs just as a pair of headlights flashes in the driveway, and Henry squints at them as he approaches Alex in the foyer.
“Who is that?”
“So,” Alex drags out, turning to face him as the car doors shut outside, “I may or may not have lured my sister and Nora over here to hang out for a bit.”
Henry seems confused but not entirely put off, which is better than Alex thought it’d go, to be fair. “Oh, they’re lovely, but I don’t know if I’m up for—”
“Not to hang out with us. And we totally don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I was thinking…” Alex glances out the window, “I’ve got dinner at my apartment. Maybe we steal a bottle of your wine, you let me cook for you, relax for a bit, and then I’ll bring you back home. Get your mind off of everything.”
Something hardens in Henry’s face for a moment, and Alex is infinitely terrified that he’s just massively fucked up. He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a date but it kind of did, in hindsight, and he’s not mad about that but maybe Henry is but he can’t tell from that expression and Nora and June are on the front steps and God, this is going to be embarrassing if he has to tell them to turn around and go home because Henry doesn’t like the idea of spending time with him.
“You seriously don’t have to say yes. I can just tell June and Nora—”
“That sounds wonderful,” Henry says quietly, his shoulders crumbling. “Please.”
“Okay. Okay, well, just—” Alex walks backward when there’s a knock at the door to open it, “you go tell Artie, I’ll get them set up, then we can go.”
There’s a hint of a smile finally tugging at his lips when Henry heads for the stairs again. “Thank you, Alex.”
Alex smiles back.
+
The small kitchen in Alex’s apartment is warm from using the oven earlier, his insides a similar temperature from the glass of wine and the space Henry takes up beside him.
There’s music playing from Alex’s bluetooth speakers and the door to the balcony lets in some of the cool night air from outside as they clean up. Alex’s hands are soapy and submerged in his sink as he scrubs at the final plate Henry’d collected and handed to him, while Henry loads them into the washer beside him.
The domesticity of it all is making his head spin. Alex can’t stop looking at Henry’s forearms with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the first two buttons of his shirt undone. He’s more relaxed now, his cheeks pink and a mindless smile on his face as he talks with wine-loose lips, and Alex is floored by the fact that, despite having found something that gave him the ‘ick’ in record time in previous relationships, he has yet to meet a single version of Henry that finally flips the switch.
With all of the differences between them, it’s easy to lean into the idea that there’s more of a gap between them than there is. But Henry’s only four years older than he is, and the contrast of their lives, though Alex knows they can’t really be compared, is heavy to think about. Not in a bad way, necessarily. It just…is.
“I feel like you’ve given me so much of your time and energy and effort and I’ve—I’ve not even been able to give you anything in return,” Henry says in the lull of silence after the dishwasher starts running.
“First of all, not true,” Alex argues, drying off his hands, “you literally pay me to watch Artie. And also, it’s not something I need to be paid back for. I like doing that.” He looks away, balls up the rag and leaves it by the sink. “I like this, too, for the record.”
“That’s kind of you.” Henry smiles and picks up his nearly empty glass and holds it to his chest. “Artie is quite fond of you, you know. We both are.”
Alex picks up his own on the way out of the kitchen, flipping the light off and leading him over to the couch. “I think I’m finally getting somewhere with my master plan of introducing him to some childhood wonder and whimsy. He’s been liking the coloring lately. Even if his reviews of mine are brutal.”
“I appreciate that, too,” Henry sighs, taking a seat on one of the two cushions. “I feel so out of touch with my own childhood now that I struggle at times to give those experiences to him. Which is a shame, because my father gave us so many lovely memories. It all just seems like…a different lifetime now.”
That distant look returns to his eye, that one that Alex wants to shake the dust off of and ask him to just say whatever he’s thinking. But Alex’s craving for knowing things doesn’t near overpower how much he cares. He leans forward and sets his glass on the table, then pulls his legs up onto the cushion and leans against the back.
“Well, I’m enjoying it. It’s not like I can bust out the crayola’s behind my desk at the shop. Ink is a little less forgiving,” he teases. “He’s very Art-y, y’know? His name suits him.”
“I think so,” Henry’s smile widens, his face softening. “It was my father’s, you know.”
Alex leans his cheek on his hand. “Really?”
“Mm. Everyone warned me against it, but once I thought of it, nothing else felt right.”
“I’m glad you went with your gut.”
“It isn’t foolproof,” Henry raises a brow and laughs, glancing down at his glass. “It’s certainly led me astray a few times. Pez can attest to a string of rather bad decisions from uni to prove it.”
Grinning, Alex cocks his own. “Oh? Do tell.”
“One of my ears is pierced, for one. The rest were, well— people, if we’re being frank,” Henry’s chest swells as he takes a sip.
“Your first mistake was hooking up with someone named Frank.”
“Ha-ha,” Henry deadpans, his lips twitching. “Honestly, though…there might have been a Frank or two in there somewhere. I’m not entirely sure.”
“I’ve made a lot in my time, but I can’t say I’ve made that particular mistake,” Alex acquiesces. “Being bi means I can double it, too. Every iteration of Franks you can imagine.”
Nice. Very subtle. Nailed it.
“Ah. You’ve got an entire league more than me, then,” Henry says. At Alex’s curious look, he expands, “I am…very deeply gay.”
Suspicions confirmed, then. Except—
“So, Artie is…”
“My sister, Bea, is his biological mother,” Henry explains. “It all sort of…happened very quickly. We—my siblings and I—were all estranged for a bit after our father passed. And with the weight of our grandmother’s expectations, we all naturally drifted away from London.”
“Siblings,” Alex prompts.“More than one?”
Henry nods. “It’s me, my sister, and our brother, Philip.”
Alex mentally scans back through the names he’s heard and seen from both of them, but can’t come up with any Uncle Philip that he remembers from Artie.
“You don’t talk about him much.”
“It’s a bit complicated,” Henry runs a finger over the rim of his glass. “Bea reached out to me again a couple of years after dad passed. Called me and said she was coming to the city and she couldn’t be alone. That she needed help. I didn’t know what was wrong but I was more than happy to offer her my home, I’d missed her terribly. The time in between the funeral and when she came to stay with me was—the most alone I’d ever felt. I spent time with Percy, of course, and I traveled some. David helped as well. But ultimately, at the end of the day, there was just something missing that I couldn’t seem to fill with anything that I’d tried.”
Trying not to hold his breath, Alex lets his hand drift across the short distance between them, the backs of his fingers grazing Henry’s briefly in encouragement.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Alex says gently. “If it’s too much or if you don’t want to.”
“I do. It’s—I just haven’t had much practice. No one really asks.”
Alex’s fingers press against his more firmly, and Henry doesn’t move them. “I’m listening.”
He smiles, small and appreciative. “When Bea told me she was pregnant, it was…overwhelming. For me, but of course, more so for her. She was still reeling from an addiction and she knew she needed help but wasn’t sure how to get it. I did my best to get her in touch with the right people and I tried to support her through whatever she chose to do.”
Taking a short breath, Henry leans forward to set his glass on the coffee table, then leans back into the cushion again, his fingertips still beside Alex’s.
“She struggled with it, for a bit. She wasn’t sure. But then, randomly, she came downstairs one day and found me in the kitchen and told me that she wanted to go through with the pregnancy, but that she knew she wouldn’t be able to raise a child.” Henry tilts his head. "So…I offered.”
“Just like that?” Alex asks.
“Oh, it wasn’t a decision I made lightly, believe me,” he chuckles. “There were many conversations between her and I. Bea explored adoption agencies as well. Met with a few of the couples she liked on paper. I was very adamant that I wanted her to pursue every option she had, and pick the one that she thought was best, regardless of what I wanted.”
Alex’s pinky finger slowly overlaps his. “And she chose you.”
Quietly, Henry glances down at the point of contact and smiles. “She did, yeah.”
When he looks up again, Alex realizes he might’ve leaned in a little too close.
He’d been going for supportive but now the space between them is dwindling and Alex feels like there’s an electric current stemming from where their fingers are touching and he’s beginning to think that he’s bypassed support and ended up somewhere a little to the south.
To Alex’s surprise, it’s Henry that moves further. Not his body, but he keeps an eye on Alex’s face as he turns his hand enough to wrap his around Alex’s, stroking a thumb over the backs of his knuckles. This time Alex is positive he isn’t breathing.
“I know that I don’t have to tell you just how much he means to me. How I choose to put him above anything else in my life,” Henry says.
“I think that’s really admirable,” Alex agrees—and he means it.
“Thank you,” Henry murmurs, squeezing his hand, “but that also means that…the things I want, even if I want them, badly,” his eyes drop to Alex’s lips and back, “I have to be careful with how I go about that. Do you understand?”
Fuck. He’s like, the best person Alex knows. Alex is a little afraid he’ll fuck it up, but he’ll never forgive himself if he doesn’t at least try.
“I get it,” he nods. He touches his tongue to his lip ring as a nervous habit and watches Henry watch him do it. “What if the thing that you wanted was also really careful? And was also really patient, and understanding, and…”
“Alex,” Henry warns, but he doesn’t move.
“Look, I—I wanna be in your lives in whatever way you’ll let me. But do I—do I have any chance with you? Like this?”
“I’m…I’m not saying no,” Henry says slowly.
Alex’s lips twitch with a rueful smile as he pulls away. “That’s not a yes, though.”
He’s been the kid before when his parents got divorced and as much as he likes the man his mom remarried, Alex knows there’s a lot that factors into that. Henry can’t just think about himself in this scenario, and Alex wouldn’t want him to.
Before he can move his arm away fully, Henry makes a soft, urgent sort of noise and leans across the distance, slips a hand around the back of Alex’s neck, and kisses him.
The inside of Alex’s head—all of the conflicting arguments, the moral dilemmas, everything else—goes blank, reduced down to Henry’s lips against his. He sinks his fingers into Alex’s hair and Alex swallows back a moan when his tongue dips in and then moves away, sweet and smoky like the spice they had earlier.
Alex gets a hand on his knee, his shoulder, up to the side of his face to hold him. He’d always thought Henry might kiss urgently, like a balance to the rest of his disposition. But it’s just as calm as the rest of him is, unhurried and undone, sipping from Alex’s lips like his wine earlier and not at all deterred by the lip ring. (Alex has questions about that later.)
Henry keeps a hand in his hair as he pulls away, his nails scratching lightly and— fuck, that feels amazing.
“I want you. Very, very badly,” Henry admits, “but I’ve not truly dated anyone in…Christ, I’m not even positive I’ve ever actually dated anyone longer than a week. Most of my relationships aren’t—they last a night, if that. And even those have been few and far between, now that I have Artie.”
“I kind of get that,” Alex agrees.
Henry huffs a laugh against his cheek. “Sure you do.”
“No, seriously. I mean, I—I usually prefer the long-term stuff. I like being in a relationship. Having somebody to come home to. Or two,” Alex amends, clearing his throat. Henry’s eyes soften. “Not everybody’s down for that. But yeah, these last few years I’ve just settled for the short-term, one night types of things because that was easier. So.” He lifts a shoulder. “I guess I’m just saying that I’m a little of out my element here too.”
“So…” Henry licks over his lips, moving in closer again. “So maybe we could just—have this? For a little while? Something just for ourselves before we have to make any sort of special announcements or anything?”
Alex hesitates. This is usually a hard pass for him—a rule he’s set so that he doesn’t get his heart broken. He doesn’t do well without labels, without having a sure thing to point back to so he doesn’t spiral.
But Henry’s not doing this because he’s some serial romantic that Alex hooked up with at a bar and accidentally got attached to. This isn’t a never, it’s just…slow. Alex can do slow. Even if everyone else thinks he can’t.
“Yeah,” Alex says. “We can do that.”
“Thank you,” Henry exhales right into his mouth, taking Alex’s bottom lip between his own for a moment.
“You’ve gotta stop thanking me for shit,” Alex huffs a laugh.
“I will,” Henry assures him, “when you stop doing things that I’m more grateful for than you know.”
Henry stays for another hour, asking Alex questions and getting to know each other. They kiss another handful of times, Alex loses count after the first few, just lightly, with all the lights and their clothes on and hands—mostly—to themselves. It’s different than what Alex is used to.
It’s refreshing, in a way.
Alex drives him back home just before midnight, surprised that it’s only been a few hours. Not so surprised that he could do with even more.
When he gets back to his empty apartment afterward, Alex doesn’t have his typical post-social anxiety. He doesn’t fixate on the things that went wrong or what he could have said but didn’t. He doesn’t spend hours on socials afterward either, scrolling through pictures and grinning at his screen in his bed like he does when he gets into a brand new relationship.
Instead, he finishes cleaning up their glasses from earlier and turns out the lights, changes out of his clothes and brushes his teeth, then slips into his sheets, perfectly calm. He’s really growing up.
Then he rolls onto his front, buries his face into his pillow, and makes a vaguely concerning sound of elation into the cotton. Kicking his feet definitely takes him back down a few pegs on the being-so-mature-about-this scale.
Whatever. He can still feel the weight of Henry’s mouth. His hands. Something Alex hasn’t already strangled to death with his excitement for it before he’s even fully had it yet. He rolls onto his back and blinks at his ceiling as he catches his breath.
He dreams of sunny picnics and warm hands and tiny sweater vests.
+
Nothing changes immediately. It unfolds in small, subtle ways; holding hands underneath tables and stealing a kiss when Alex leaves after Artie’s asleep, their texts moving from friendly into something a bit warmer and more intimate.
And then, there are the phone calls. There’s about a two hour window at night before they go to sleep where they’re both usually free, and for the past few weeks since Henry was at his apartment, they’ve been making full use of the time.
“There’s no way you actually did that,” Alex wheezes, legs crossed and propped up against his headboard, headphone in. “I’m calling Pez to verify.”
“I did! I did. I told you, vodka and I do not mix well.”
“It sounds like you mix just fine,” Alex drawls. “How were you even standing after that?”
“I wasn’t. There was the horse, from the carriage—”
“The horse? Where the hell’d you learn to ride a horse?”
“Polo, Alex, I’ve told you this—”
Alex stays up way too late at night just to keep him talking, but he never regrets it in the morning.
He likes this, something of his own that’s not like anything he’s ever had before. Likes that the gaping hole of envy isn’t so obvious anymore when he goes out with Liam and Spencer, when June and Nora are acting particularly couple-y.
Alex has been fairly independent his entire life. He’s closest with June, then Nora, but once the two of them got together he’s had to get used to spending time with himself. It’s not that he hates that, or that he needs someone else romantically to be fulfilled.
He’d just kind of forgotten how fucking nice it is when he does have it. His default mode is to assume that he’ll have to shoulder the weight of himself alone forever, so. It’s a refreshing change of pace, even if he’s trying not to get ahead of himself yet.
He’s been booked back to back lately to make up for the days he’s off, and his lunch break is the only time he gets to just chill for an hour before they open up again. He knows Nora feels the same, at least for now—they’ve got a deal on walk-in piercings going on right now and she’s been swamped.
“As requested—” June announces as she joins them both in the breakroom, “—a ‘shit ton of the closest fast food I could find’.”
She drops down three paper bags onto the table, and Nora groans as she immediately breaks into them and shoves a fry into her mouth. “You’re the fuckin’ best.”
“I hope it helps,” she hums, dropping into the chair beside her across from Alex. “I also hope this discounted thing ends soon.”
Nora sighs. “Me fucking too.”
They talk while Alex leans back across two chairs with one headphone in and scrolls through his phone, halfheartedly taking bites of another protein bar he’d found in his desk. It’s his favorite part of being the third wheel—he can just go nonverbal when he’s overstimulated and nobody gives a shit.
He’s scrolling through a seemingly endless parade of people they went to high school with getting married and having babies on his socials before a text pings at the top of his screen and drags his attention away.
“Is that Henry?” June asks.
Alex’s head snaps toward her as he takes out his headphone. “How did you know that?”
“You’re smiling like a lunatic, man,” Nora says around her burger. A piece of tomato falls from her chin onto the wrapper. Alex turns a shade that’s roughly within the same realm, he’s pretty sure.
“I was not,” he denies, “but it is him. Him and Artie and David are outside having a picnic. He wants to say hi.”
He pockets his phone and cleans up his trash, then pulls on a light denim jacket since the spot Henry sits in is in the shade, fixing his hair in the small hanging mirror on the wall.
June watches him go. “Are you gonna invite him to mom’s fourth of July party?”
“Uh, I hadn’t thought about it,” Alex pauses in the doorway. “Should I?”
She shrugs. “Why not? It could be fun.”
He thinks about it the whole walk over to the small park across the street, as he’s eating with them and watching Artie play with David and sneakily holding Henry’s hand behind the picnic basket.
Everything with them has been so easy so far. Alex gets along so well with Artie and the thing he has going with Henry, whatever it is, feels like it’s moving at a good pace. They’re not labeling it, but there’s something there. Something Alex wants to hold onto. And miraculously, this far, he hasn’t fumbled it.
Introducing his family into it would be something different. Alex has always thought if he ever met someone that he was introducing to his parents that it’d be further down the line, enough so that if it went horribly wrong and crashed and burned then they wouldn’t just go running in the opposite direction. June is one thing, but his mom and dad are…different.
If he means what he says about wanting something long term, though—and he does—then Henry will need to meet them at some point. Maybe it’s a rip-the-bandaid-off sort of thing. Alex is pretty good at those.
He floats the concept while he steals a couple of Henry’s apple slices, says he’ll be gone to his parents an hour or so away this weekend. It isn’t a day he typically watches Artie so it’s not anything particularly important, and Henry doesn’t seem phased by it one way or another.
When they’re packing up and Alex’s lunch break is rapidly closing, Alex clears his throat, gathers up his courage, and nudges him in the shoulder.
“Would you guys want to, like—come with me? On Saturday?” he asks. “It’s just gonna be a casual thing. Promise.”
Leaning back on his hands, Henry purses his lips and glances at Artie and David in front of him, then back to Alex. “I think a short road trip sounds nice. Only if your family’s alright with it, of course?” When Alex nods, he turns again. “What do you think, Artie?”
Dangling a treat above David’s head, Artie waves it around in a figure eight, then tosses it for him to fetch. He eyes Alex, dusting the crumbs off of his hands.
“Does your family have a pool?”
“Actually, yeah. One of those fancy ones with the little fountain on one side of it,” Alex says.
“That’s a bit gratuitous,” Artie remarks. “I’m in.”
“You’re ‘in’?” Henry repeats, gawking. He looks at Alex again with a grin. “Who is this and what have you done with my son?”
“Oh, I’m a terrible influence. By the time we get back from my parent’s place he’s gonna be saying ‘y’all’.”
“Dear God.”
They stand and pack up the basket when Alex’s alarm goes off for his shift, and Alex slips Artie another handful of temporary tattoos he’s been collecting like he does every time they come to the shop. With Artie satisfied and a handful of steps ahead of them on his way back to the car, Alex bumps his shoulder with Henry’s as an extension of their conversation.
“You regretting me yet?”
He feels electric when Henry abruptly stops in the grass, glances around them quickly, and leans down to steal a short but thorough kiss while he can.
“Never.”
Suddenly, the day doesn’t seem so bad after all.
+
“Sunscreen?”
“Check.”
“Towels?”
“Check.”
“Lactaid?”
Artie makes an annoyed sound from the backseat, and Alex chuckles at him from where he’s checking over the items in their bag in the trunk. Henry tosses a glare in the same direction.
“Check,” Alex confirms with feeling, holding up the bottle.
“And swimsuits are in there already, so,” Henry heaves a breath and pockets his list, “I think that’s everything. I can still drive us, if you’d like.”
Shutting the trunk, Alex turns to him and grips his shoulders. “No, you won’t. I promised you a day of fun and relaxation, and that’s what you’ll get.”
He makes his way to the driver’s seat before Henry can argue, dropping down behind the wheel. He pulls out the box of snacks he’d brought and tosses both of them a pack of fruit snacks and gives David a treat to chew on for a while, then plugs his phone into the outlet.
He’s pulling onto the highway just as the curated playlist of 90’s deep cuts gets going, and Henry’s smile goes from mildly amused to something else entirely when Artie’s voice begins to rival even Alex’s from the backseat.
“Now he’s gettin’ a tattoo, yeah, he’s gettin’ ink done. He asked for a thirteen but they drew a thirty-one. Friends say he’s tryin’ too hard and he’s not quite hip, but in his own mind he’s the dopest trip!”
It’s terrible and so off key Alex fights back a cringe, but it comes from his fucking chest. Alex winks and tosses him a thumbs up in the rearview as Artie continues singing along, chewing on his fruit snacks. He catches Henry’s open mouth on the way back.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Alex tells him over the music. “He is pretty fly.”
Henry glances between both of them for the rest of the song, but his eyes linger on Alex in the silence before the next one. Alex keeps his on the road and tries not to feel too smug.
“Bullocks,” Henry says. “Now I’m going to have to learn the words.”
He reaches over to pat Henry’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ve got the whole drive ahead of you.”
The GPS puts them at just over two hours, an open road in front of them as they head toward his mom’s neighborhood. For all his dramatics, Henry doesn’t actually look disappointed at all.
+
Despite what he said before, Artie does enjoy the fountain. Specifically, he enjoys splashing Alex with the water from the fountain and staying completely out of it himself.
For once, everything seems to be going okay at his parent’s. He’d been worried at the prospect of his dad showing up as well, but at this point, he should’ve known he wouldn’t make it. Always a last minute engagement or trip that he just has to go on. If it means not exposing Henry and Art to them bickering the whole day, Alex will take it.
They charm everyone there, but that’s not a surprise either. June and Nora already like them and his mom is fascinated at Artie’s extensive art knowledge while Leo wraps Henry up in a very intense conversation about the most distinguished vin de table. After they eat, though—thirty minutes later, Artie insists, so their food can settle—Alex drags them back to the pool while Leo plays with David in the yard.
Alex lets himself get splashed as much as Artie deems appropriate and then gets roped into a game of chicken, with Artie on his shoulders and Nora on June’s. By sheer strength (and maybe some theatrics from Nora), Artie defeats them every round.
Henry doesn’t swim but he does sit right by the side with his legs in the water, right in Alex’s peripherals the entire time. It’s only after they finish an intense round of marco polo that Alex looks up and he’s not there anymore, and he makes sure the girls have Artie before he swims toward the steps.
“I’m gonna get a drink,” he tells them, “y’all need anything?”
They wave him off in favor of continuing on with their game as Alex climbs out and reaches for a towel. He dries his hair and chest haphazardly before he wraps it around his waist over his suit, then heads over to the cooler to grab a bottle of water.
Breaking open the cap, Alex takes a long sip and catches his breath and when he stops hearing the sound of rushing water in his ears, he hears his mother’s voice instead.
“He was studying to be a lawyer,” she says, “before he opened the shop.”
Stepping closer to the edge of the deck, still out of view, Alex furrows a brow.
“Ah, I’ve heard that’s a very cutthroat industry.”
“Oh, definitely. But Alex had the tenacity for it.”
“He’s very passionate in what he does,” Henry says.
“Mm.” There’s a pause—not quite an agreement. “Remind me to show you the old photo albums one of these days. You’ll hardly recognize him. For the longest time, he was convinced he wanted to be a teacher.”
“People do tend to change quite often when they grow up,” Henry’s voice sharpens slightly.
“Can’t argue with that,” his mother sighs. “He’s just— so different now. Especially lately.”
Now, Henry pauses. “Oh?”
“He’s just never really been one for the whole…white picket fence dream, is all. Or at least, he told me he wasn’t when he decided to drop out of law school,” she says. “It’s funny how people change.”
“Indeed.” Alex hears the sound of a glass hitting the table. “If you’ll excuse me for just a moment.”
Blood simmering, Alex tugs at his lip ring with his teeth and turns for the stairs, reaching the top of the deck as Henry disappears into the house. He meets his mom’s eye as he passes and raises a brow.
“Really?”
She tilts her head. “What?”
Shaking his head, Alex doesn’t bother drying off any more before he steps over the threshold through the sliding back door. He drips water on the hardwood from the dining room, through the kitchen to the hallway, and finds Henry leaving the bathroom when he makes it there.
He hesitates for a moment, then swallows. “Hello.”
“Henry,” Alex breathes, “just let me—I can explain.”
“It’s alright, Alex. I don’t know of many people in their late twenties who are thinking about settling down at the moment. I understand this isn’t a normal situation.”
Alex squeezes his eyes shut. “No, you don’t—just let me say something. Please?”
Easing in a breath, Henry steps back enough to let Alex into the small room with him, quiet when Alex shuts the door and leans against it behind him.
“I’m listening,” he says.
“They don’t know me, okay? Which I know sounds weird because they’re my family, but like—they don’t know me. You know?” Alex rushes. “I got a ton of shit when I told them I wasn’t going to law school like they wanted me to and now they just assume things about me and I don’t correct them because it’s just easier sometimes not to than to argue with them about things they don’t understand.”
“You really don’t owe me an explanation,” Henry tells him. “I know things with family can be complicated.”
“I do. I want you to know these things about me. I don’t want you to think something that isn’t true or that I’ve been lying to you about it because if I fuck all of this up before it even really starts I’ll literally never forgive myself,” Alex laughs thinly. His hands might be shaking. Fuck. “And I know that we haven’t, like, labeled anything officially yet but I’m—I really like you. Both of you. More than I know what to do with, sometimes. So please don’t— please don’t let them make you think that I don’t because I’m—” his breath hitches as the words stop coming, and Alex thinks vaguely when he tries to swallow that he’s halfway toward a panic attack, probably.
“Alex, love. Breathe,” Henry says.
For the first time since they stepped into the bathroom, he reaches out for him and Alex goes without thought. He presses his nose against Henry’s collarbone as tries to get his lungs to expand, lets Henry’s arms around his waist and on the back of his head ground him.
“We might have to revisit a few things sometime in the future, but we don’t have to do that today. Okay?”
Alex doesn’t want that. Alex wants to give him all of the explanations right now so that neither of them are blindsided by anything. He wants to give him a better explanation than the one he’s got—that he’s still a work in progress when it comes to working through all of this shit, that no matter how much he wants to be, he still isn’t perfect.
Not for himself, not for his parents. Not for Henry.
Alex sniffs and forces himself to pull away, trying for a smile. “Okay. Sorry.”
“It’s alright.” Henry reaches over for the toilet paper roll and wets several sheets of it with cool water, wiping away the tracks where hot tears had stained his cheeks moments before. Alex doesn’t deserve this, but he’ll take it. “We can head out, if you’d like. Make it back by dinner time. I think Artie is probably getting tired by now as well.”
“Yeah,” Alex rasps. “Please.”
Before he can reach for the door, Henry pulls him back in again. He’s firm but so soft, especially with the cottony shirt he’d worn today, and he smells like sunscreen and grass and pool water and the food they’d made on the grill earlier. He smells like a version of them far away, maybe back in Texas instead of here in the city, that Alex knows isn’t real but hopes it could be.
It’s the first time he lets himself consider, just for a second, the three of them in that context. He doesn’t think the weight of everyone else’s expectations would matter quite as much if he could have Henry’s arms around him like this every night. If there were another pair of smaller ones in between them too.
“Maybe another time you can tell me more about your family,” Henry murmurs, his lips pressed to the top of Alex’s head as he pulls back. “I’d like to know more about you, if you’ll let me.”
Tilting his chin up, Alex catches his lips briefly and nods. “I want that, too.”
“Come on,” Henry smiles, offering a hand. “Let’s go home.”
Alex says goodbye to his sister and Nora as he tugs Artie out of the pool and helps him dry off, taking him to use the bathroom while Henry packs up their things. Alex can hear him saying his own goodbyes to his mom and Leo on the way out, thanking them for allowing them over but pointedly for nothing else. It takes a little more of the weight off.
On the way back, Alex opts for the passenger seat and takes Henry up on his offer to drive them home. Artie falls asleep in minutes in the backseat and David curls up in Alex’s lap as the radio plays softly, the sun setting and Alex’s eyes threatening to lower along with it.
About halfway through, Henry reaches across the console and takes his hand, and he doesn’t let go until Alex is finally able to rest too.
+
It’s six o’clock on a Friday night, and Alex is beginning to think that his prior joke about outgrowing his personal threshold for clubbing might have some real truth to it.
They closed shop early today because the city has started parade prep for some event over the weekend and their street is directly in the path. Their parking situation isn’t great, but Alex doubts anyone’s going to walk nearly three blocks down from the barricade just to squeeze in a last minute appointment on a Friday.
So he’s out with Liam and Spencer instead, to prove that that’s still something he can do. And he can do it, he’s just not sure he really wants to anymore.
He has a couple of drinks that have long since worn off and dances with them for a bit until they find someone that they find attractive and fuck off to pull a ‘hey, we saw you from across the bar and liked your vibe’ that somehow seems to work for them every time. Without their attention he feels less pressured to pretend, and he orders a club soda with lime and finds a booth near the back to check his notifications on his phone.
It’s not that he’s needy. It’s just—he and Henry usually text every day. Like, multiple times a day. Pretty much whenever they aren’t busy with something else. And then they call at night after Artie goes to bed, which is why Alex had been planning on getting out of here in about an hour or so anyway.
Now, he doesn’t know if that’s still the plan or not. For Henry, that is. Alex is getting the fuck out of here sooner than later, sometime before his head starts pounding from the incessant bass and the yelling.
Henry’s been quiet since the party last week. It wasn’t so noticeable at first, but it’s been more obvious these last few days. Alex won’t ever ask Artie about it but he wishes Henry would talk to him, tell him whatever’s bothering him so Alex could apologize or explain himself.
He can’t blame him, entirely. Alex knows it doesn’t look good—his mother’s comments and then Alex practically freaking out on him when Henry’d attempted to let him down easy. It’s all he’s been able to think about for the last seven days.
His apartment sounds lonely right now so Alex debates his options, materializing a plan of holing up on June and Nora’s couch and stealing some of their frozen ice cream, cramming himself in between them for whatever shitty reality show they’re watching tonight. At least then, if Henry doesn’t call later, he won’t be in an empty apartment to wallow.
With a sigh, Alex finishes his soda and heaves himself up from the booth to head out. Any buzz he might’ve had when they got here is gone now, and it’s colder than he remembers it being outside when he steps onto the sidewalk.
He pulls up June’s contact on the walk to his car, grateful that he’d had the foresight to have taken his own instead of riding with Liam and Spencer. Just before he presses call to ask if he can come over a different call comes in across the top of his screen, the number unknown.
Alex frowns. He doesn’t usually pick up calls from non-contacts, but he does get the occasional person looking to book with them and finding the wrong one. He presses the green button and presses it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Alex. This is Artie speaking.”
“Artie?” Alex pulls the phone away to glance at the number again. “Whose phone is this?”
“Mine. For emergencies.”
Alex pauses in the middle of the sidewalk. “What? What’s the emergency? Is everyone okay?”
“Yes,” he says. “Well, no. Not entirely. But I need your help.”
Alex books it to his car at double the speed, fumbling for his keys as he locks himself inside. “Yeah, yeah. Of course. What’s up?”
“Could you drop me off at my chess practice? It’s at my school.”
“Uh. Yeah.” Alex blinks at his steering wheel. “Where’s your dad, though?”
“He’s…indisposed.”
Nope. Alex doesn’t like that.
“Indisposed?” he repeats. “Is he tired? Sick?”
“No,” Artie replies. “Just sad.”
The guilt lodges itself at the base of Alex’s throat, the pit in his stomach growing. He swallows it back so it won’t be obvious, then drops his phone into the holder on speaker and puts the car in reverse to back out.
“I can be there in like, fifteen. What time does your practice start?”
“I still have an hour to arrive, but I typically get there a bit early. It lasts for two hours. You don’t need to stay, but I might need you to pick me up again afterward.”
“Okay, sounds good. Hang tight. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“See you soon.”
Alex takes every back road he can think of to avoid the traffic as he cuts across to their neighborhood, focusing on driving so that he doesn’t fall down an endless rabbit hole about this being his fault. He makes it to the brownstone right about the time he’d promised, pushing shit out of his passenger seat to the floor to make room for Artie as he gets out and walks toward the front steps.
“You got everything you need?” Alex eyes the bag on his shoulder and his familiar sweater vest, the headlights reflected in his glasses. Artie nods. “Why don’t you go wait in the car for me? I’m gonna tell your dad we’re leaving. Be right back.”
“He’s in his room,” Artie calls over his shoulder, both of them heading separate directions.
He isn’t sure what to expect when he makes his way inside. He’s still been here on the Tuesday and Thursday since last week, but they haven’t crossed paths in person since the weekend except to say goodbye when Alex goes home.
The house looks the same as it did when he left it a few days ago but it’s almost painfully quiet, the lights turned out and David whining as he circles Alex’s legs. Alex takes the stairs up and up until he reaches Henry’s bedroom at the top, and frowns when he finds, once again, the door open and the lights off.
“Henry?”
He tries to knock but doesn’t hear a response, and it’s too dark to make much out from the hallway. Carefully, Alex pushes the door open the rest of the way and steps inside, the shoes he’d forgotten to take off in his haste thudding on the wood.
The bathroom door is cracked enough to let in some light from the far wall, enough to be able to see Henry’s nightstand and, Alex realizes, Henry himself, covered completely by the duvet with only the top of his head visible. Nothing seems too out of the ordinary; there’s his phone on the table, unplugged, a book with an old pair of reading glasses, a mostly full glass of water and a sandwich untouched on a plate.
Brows knitted together, Alex approaches slowly, turning on the bedside lamp so he can see a little better and reaching a cautious hand out to rest on Henry’s shoulder over the blanket.
“Henry?” He nudges him gently. Henry turns his face into the pillow but pulls the blanket down enough to see his face, blinking blearily at the light from the lamp. “Henry, hey. You okay?”
“Alex?” he asks, thick and dry from sleep. “Um. What are you…” he glances around, trying to sit up.
Alex helps him until his back hits the headboard, then pushes the glass of water into his hands. “Artie called me. He has chess practice up at the school for a couple hours. I just wanted to let you know I’m taking him up there and coming right back.”
Henry nearly chokes on the water, setting it back down on the nightstand as he brings his fingers up to rub at his head. “Oh, no. Christ, I—I hadn’t meant to…I hadn’t even checked the time.” He sits up further and pulls his legs out from the blanket, ready to stand. “I can—”
Alex presses a hand to his shoulder. “You’re all good, H. Just stay put. I’ll come back.”
For another second, it really looks like he might argue again. But then Alex watches him, really sees him for the first time tonight, the frown lines and the pinch in his brow and the exhaustion in his eyes, and Henry’s head thunks back against the headboard again.
“Okay,” he rasps.
“Do you need anything before I go?”
“No.” Henry glances down at his lap. “I’m fine.”
He obviously isn’t, but Alex doesn’t push it. He promises once again that he’ll be back and urges Henry to finish the water if he can before he leaves the room, heading back down the stairs to get to the car.
Even Artie’s quiet as Alex drives them to the school, but he still tells him about his day and about the tournament he’s going to practice for. He invites Alex to go with them when he competes, which Alex hopes is a good sign, and gives him back the most enthusiastic confirmation he can muster at the moment.
“Have you eaten? Do you want me to pick something up before you go in?” Alex asks as they turn onto the street that the school’s on.
“No, I’m alright. I made sandwiches earlier and I had some of the leftovers from what we had on Thursday.” Artie pauses, picking at a string on his sweater. “You should probably pick something up for my father, though. I’m not sure he ever ate it, and I couldn’t reach the Jaffa Cakes.”
Alex refuses to cry. His chest twists anyway.
“I will, Art. I promise.”
They pull into the parking lot and Alex parks right up under the covered drop-off, waiting until Artie sees a group of his classmates to walk in with to leave. As he’s getting out of the car, Alex puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, you keep that phone on you and call me if you need anything, yeah? I’ll be back in two hours.”
“I will,” Artie nods.
He frowns at his backpack for a second, then glances up. Before Alex can say anything else, he’s got two small arms around his neck and Artie’s glasses poking into his shoulder—the first time that’s ever happened.
Okay. Alex might cry after all. He squeezes his eyes shut to ward off the tears and reaches around him, backpack and all, to hug him back.
“Thank you, Alex.”
It sounds just like when Henry says it.
There’s no way he trusts his voice right now, so Alex nods and smiles at him as he pulls back, watching him gather his things and get out of the passenger seat.
He watches all the way until Artie meets up with his group, as he pauses at the door to wave goodbye to Alex, and then parks in the first spot to let the tears fall freely. He gives himself five minutes before he forces a deep breath, makes a plan, and heads back to Henry.
+
“H? I’m back,” Alex calls out from the foyer, his own voice echoing back at him.
He goes to the kitchen first to set down the bags of groceries he’d hurriedly picked out at the market down the road, barely able to hear the water of Henry’s shower running upstairs. Alex turns on the stove and gets a broth going for the cure-all soup his dad used to make for him and June when they were younger, then leaves it on to heat up for a bit on low as he grabs the leash from the entryway and takes a restless David outside to use the bathroom.
They return, only after David has thoroughly sniffed every tree in the general vicinity of the yard and staked his territory on a couple of them, and Alex is pleased to find the light in the den on this time as he’s hanging the leash back up.
“Come here, boy,” he whispers to David, crossing back to the kitchen to fill up his empty food bowl.
He startles to find Henry standing in the kitchen, leaning back against the island with another cup of water in his hand. He glances between Alex and the stove in between sips.
“What’s this?”
“I thought you might be hungry. It’s just some spiced chicken soup. Family recipe.”
Henry’s chest swells as he takes a deep breath, his eyes closing. “It smells lovely.”
He doesn’t offer to help like he usually would, but Alex would have told him no regardless. He keeps an eye on the clock above the microwave as he turns off the heat and pulls out a bowl and a spoon, careful not to miss Artie’s pick up time.
“Come on,” Alex says gently, watching Henry’s eyes open again. He nods toward the living room, pleased when Henry follows.
Alex grabs the throw off the back of the couch while Henry sits down on one of the cushions, laying it over his lap before he sets the soup down so it won’t burn him. He still looks sheepish as he accepts the steaming bowl but holds it to his chest nonetheless, blowing on the spoon before he brings it up to his lips.
“This is delicious,” he says, savoring the taste as he goes back in for seconds.
“Not too spicy?” Alex checks.
“No, not at all. Although I usually do tea, but. This is perfect tonight.”
Making a mental note to ask Artie about the tea later, Alex relaxes into the cushion beside him and watches him eat, the tension in his shoulders easing minute by minute.
Alex has always admired the way that Henry can be so many different things at once, both expected and completely unexpected. He’s nothing like Alex’s first impression of him but also almost everything he thought he’d be. Alex has seen him quiet and coy, he’s seen him passionate about Artie or about his work, he’s seen him reliving a wild, rebellious phase through the stories he tells over the phone and yet, even with all of those shades, he’s sturdy. A sure thing. A constant for as long as Alex has known him, sure of himself and his place in the world.
Tonight, that part of him seems a little shaken. Here, his legs pulled to his chest, bags underneath his eyes, his hair wetting the collar of his pajamas and his voice nearly nonexistent, is a shade that Alex hasn’t seen before. He keeps glancing up every few seconds like he’s checking if Alex is still there, and Alex doesn’t really know what to do except for to be still, to let him find his answer as many times as he needs it.
He aches to reach out and touch him but he holds himself back, only intervening when Henry’s finished the small serving he’d poured into the bowl. Alex will get him more if he wants it, but more than anything else, he just wants to know he’s okay first.
“Hey,” Alex says.
Henry pulls the blanket up and rolls his head sideways, his cheek pressing into the cushion as he blinks slowly. “Hi.”
“I—Henry, if this is about what happened the other week at my mom’s, I’m—”
“It isn’t,” Henry stops him. “It’s not, Alex. I promise. This is…” he shudders an inhale, “it’s just me, unfortunately.”
Alex leans his head back so they’re laying eye-to-eye. “What do you mean?”
“I just get…sad. Sometimes. I take medication for it, but it still—sometimes it still affects me. I’m sorry.”
“Why on earth are you sorry?”
“Because I didn’t want it to affect you. Not—not this early, anyway,” Henry sighs. “And Artie had to call you to come and get him and I should’ve—I’m so embarrassed.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I’m glad he called me,” Alex insists. He breaks his no-contact rule and reaches across to locate Henry’s hand under the blanket, pulling it out to cover with his own. “Does he know how bad it gets for you?”
Henry shakes his head. “No. Not on purpose, anyway. I try not to let him see me like this.”
“Why not?”
“I worry that I’ll make him sad,” Henry whispers. His chin wobbles, his eyes glassy as he glances down between them. “I worry about him constantly.”
“Henry, he’s—that kid is bright. He’s definitely smarter than me, and he’s seven,” Alex laughs lightly. He runs his finger over the backs of Henry’s knuckles, sobering. “What are you so worried about?”
“I try to provide anything he could possibly need—or, or just want, even. I try to be there for him when he needs me and, Christ, I love him more than anything in the entire world, but…” Henry’s lips purse, his jaw tight, “what if that isn’t enough? I’m—what if somehow he inherits my bad moods or Bea’s tendencies? I can’t—I can’t protect him from all of that. I don’t know how to. I can barely take care of myself when I’m like this, and I certainly can’t take credit for Bea’s work in recovery.”
“Sweetheart,” Alex grips his hand with both of his now, scooting closer, “I’m not gonna tell you that those aren’t important things, because they are. And, yeah, it might affect him one day, in some way or another. But the answer to your question is right there in what you just told me.”
Frustratedly scrubbing a tear from the side of his face, Henry sniffs, frowning at him curiously.
“You’re there for him when he needs you. I don’t think you realize how rare that is,” Alex continues. “You love him unconditionally. And it won’t matter to him later on if you showed up sad, or tired, or anything else. It just matters that you were there. That you tried. Even when it was hard or inconvenient. You showed up. That’s what he’ll remember.”
Henry crumbles altogether as the words settle over him, and he tastes like salt and spice when he grabs both sides of Alex’s face, pulls him in, and kisses him. Alex keeps their mouths together until his tears stop, then presses his lips to those too before he pulls back to look Henry in the eye.
“I already told Artie, and I’m telling you the same. If you need me, you tell me, alright?”
“Alex, you have your own life. You have the shop, and your friends, and I don’t want you to resent me for being so needy if—”
“I’ve been going insane,” Alex cuts him off softly, “this entire last week, panicking that I fucked everything up because I needed reassurance. If there’s a hierarchy of needs here, I’m afraid Artie’s turning out to be the most self sufficient.”
Miraculously, wonderfully, a smile breaks over Henry’s mouth, a small laugh behind it. “You might be right about that,” he murmurs, then finds Alex’s eye. “I hate that you were worried. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you beforehand. A lot of the time I don’t realize what’s happening until I already feel so poorly.”
“I should’ve just asked you instead of panicking about it,” Alex counters. He nudges Henry’s shoulder with his own. “Next time, we’ll know. We’ll do better.”
Henry’s lips threaten to twitch again. He raises a brow. “Next time, hm?”
“Yeah,” Alex says. “H, I—” he squeezes Henry’s fingers, “I’m—I’m in this. With you guys. You know that, right?”
Dropping his forehead to rest against Alex’s, Henry nods. “I know.”
Even though he’s not magically well, Henry says he’s feeling a little better by the time Alex gets him to eat another bowl of soup and herds them into the car to go pick up Artie. When he pulls into the pickup bay again and the backdoor opens, Artie seems surprised to see David waiting for him. When he notices Henry in the passenger seat, he seems speechless. Alex winks at him in the rearview, and Artie fucking grins.
Simply because he can, he drives them through the fast food place by their neighborhood to pick up ice cream cones—and a pup cup, for David—and then parks them under the glowing neon sign while they enjoy it.
It’s mostly Artie and Alex doing the talking, but Alex doesn’t mind it. He catches Henry watching him several times, both of them facing each other in the front seats so that they can see Artie in the back middle, legs drawn up into their seats. He looks exhausted but he also looks like he wants to be here, like he wants Alex to be here too, and Alex doesn’t have any idea what to do with the feeling in his chest and behind his ribcage that’s glowing so bright he can hardly contain it. He can feel it spilling out every time he speaks, every time he catches Henry’s eye back. He hopes it’s not as painfully obvious as it feels.
But, he realizes, he still feels safe even if it is. That’s new.
“Shit,” Henry breathes as they finish off their ice cream, wiping his hands off with a napkin.
“What is it?” Alex asks.
With a sigh big enough that it feels like it fills the entire car, Henry drapes a hand over his eyes and mutters, “The Lactaid.”
“Next stop: home,” Alex says cheerfully, quickly pulling out of the parking lot.
He’s not sure which one of them breaks first, thinks it might be Artie, but one of them laughs, and then Alex is laughing, and then they’re all laughing. So hard that his stomach hurts, so hard that the tears come back—good ones, this time.
By the time Alex drops them off and heads back to his own apartment, it’s past all of their bedtimes, his lockscreen has been changed to a picture of the three of them with sprinkles on their chins and ice cream smeared across their smiles, and Alex, officially, has a boyfriend.
+
Next up on the list of healing his inner child: a sleepover. No—a slumber party.
Henry has to go back to London for a couple of days on an impromptu (and suspiciously vague?) business trip with Pez, and Alex is agreeing before he can even apologize for the hastiness of the request.
“You already know where everything is, and I know you’ll be safe, and Artie loves you, and—”
Alex zones out after that. Loves. Artie loves him.
He knows in the logical part of his brain that it’s probably just hyperbole. Henry’s in a rush, talking to Alex on speaker phone as he packs a suitcase for the following day, and it’s just a slip of the tongue. He’s just trying to say that he trusts him to take care of Artie. That Artie trusts him.
Regardless, Alex thinks about it from the moment he packs his own overnight bag to the moment he arrives at the brownstone. He’s thinking about it when Artie opens up the door and David nudges his feet. He’s thinking about it when Pez introduces himself with a knowing sparkle in his eye.
He’s thinking about it when Henry comes flying down the stairs in a rush to get to the airport, when he leans down to hug Artie to his chest and kiss his forehead, and then when he stands and kisses Alex straight on the lips to give him his own goodbye, too.
He freezes right after he does it, pulling back to blink at Alex with an open mouth and reddened cheeks.
“I—um,” Henry stammers.
When Alex chances a look at Artie and Pez, neither of them seem particularly surprised. Artie has a small, knowing smile on his face with his arms crossed and Pez—Pez wastes no time in bursting into laughter that quickly breaks the tension, clapping them both on the shoulders as he heads for the door.
“Kiss him like you mean it, why don’t you?”
Henry carefully turns to look over his shoulder at Artie, who only raises a brow in response as if the most appalling thing about this ordeal is simply that he’s being pulled away from his breakfast to watch it happen.
Turning back to him, Henry adjusts his bag on his shoulder and leans in again, kissing him chastely but much more intentionally this time.
“Er. Goodbye,” Henry whispers.
Alex grins against him as he pulls away. “Bye, sweetheart.”
Pez pulls open the door and Henry spins a final time to assure Artie that he can call if he needs anything and that they’ll facetime before he goes to bed, and then he’s smiling sheepishly at Alex and heading out to the car.
Leaning up against one side of the frame with Artie against the other and David in the middle, Alex waves at the car until it disappears down the street, then gets them back inside and shuts it behind them.
“So,” Alex says.
Artie turns and walks toward the dining room to finish eating, still in his slippers. “Don’t make it weird.”
Sputtering a laugh, Alex follows closely behind. “I’m not trying to make it weird. I just wanna make sure you’re, y’know. Okay with this.”
He comes to a stop in the middle of the room as Artie climbs back up into his chair, pulling his plate of toast and jelly back toward him. He picks up his toast and pauses with it halfway to his mouth, fixing Alex with a pointed stare.
“My father has liked you since the moment he saw you through the window. I’m quite a fan of things that make him happy,” he says simply.
Alex feels a little of his tension uncoil—he knows that isn’t the way Henry’d wanted to bring it up. Realistically, he also knows Artie likes him—might love him, even, if Henry’d meant what he said before—but that doesn’t mean that he immediately also approves of him for this. For Henry.
But so far, at least, he really does seem alright with it. The fact that Alex makes him happy, especially after the conversation they’d had about his dark moods, means fucking everything.
“I’m only surprised it’s taken the both of you this long,” Artie mutters around a mouthful of toast. Alex’s impact. “Neither of you are subtle.”
“O- kay, that’s enough,” Alex scoffs, pulling out the chair across from him. He steals a bite of the other half of the bread from his plate. Artie makes an affronted noise.
“I’m just saying, if you were trying to hide it you did a horrendous job.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, just, very, very bad—”
“Alright, Art. I got it.”
“I’m glad it’s you.”
He says it point blank between one bite and the next, but Alex feels glued to his chair. His teasing grin fades into something a little softer, and he leans forward on the table.
“Yeah?”
Artie nods. “Yeah. I would tell you if I thought differently.” He licks a dot of jelly off of his thumb. “On an unrelated note that definitely won’t impact my answer…can we order pizza tonight?”
Alex’s mouth drops open. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“Alex,” Artie says very seriously, “I would never.”
Something shifts in Alex’s chest again, and he only realizes belatedly what it is: whether Henry meant what he said or not, Alex fucking loves this kid.
“We can order pizza…” he proposes, hands clasped on top of the table, “...if we can play Just Dance afterward.”
Artie blinks. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”
“Yes. I’m going to win.”
“You most certainly will not.”
“You’re freaking on,” Alex challenges. He shoves out his hand, and Artie gives it a hearty, firm shake over the table.
“May the best man win.”
Artie’s room might be Alex’s favorite in the whole house. He’s not in it often but it’s always so calming when he is, with a shade of blue covering the walls that sounds sad in theory but just feels like a weighted blanket to his senses. The overhead lights are hardly ever on in favor of the lamps and string lights above his bed, illuminating the photo prints of him and Henry and various other interests hanging on the walls. There’s a cushioned window seat and a small library of books near the closet, and Alex knows he’s read all of them at least two times over.
He loves it, but it makes him a little sad that Henry’s bedroom down the hall is so bare and plain. There’s a folding mattress and sleeping bag in the hall closet, the entire middle of Artie’s room bare save for the knitted rug, and Alex wonders if Henry sleeps in here more than he lets on. He would, if he lived here.
Henry’s only gone from early this morning until late tomorrow evening, so this is the only true night he gets to sleepover. They’ve accomplished almost everything Alex had planned for them with several tweaks from Artie; walking David in the park, grabbing lunch from the local food trucks and eating outside, ‘silent reading time’ (appointed by Art, which Alex used to catch up on scheduling on his laptop), post-Lactaid pizza, some drawing so their food can settle, and finally, Just Dance to thoroughly tire them out.
Alex busies himself with taking David in the front yard again briefly while Artie talks to Henry on the phone before bed, then locks up and heads upstairs just as they’re saying goodbye. He gets a long, relieved, grateful text from Henry that’s much more composed than he was this morning midway through brushing their teeth in Artie’s sink, and slips into his sleeping bag with a smile.
There’s a white noise machine going in the corner that threatens to make Alex’s eyes close even though he’s usually wired this time of night, but he blinks himself awake again when Artie peeks over the edge of his bed to look down at him on the floor.
“Alex,” he says.
Alex shoves a folded arm behind his head. “Yeah?”
“Will you read to me?”
Trying not to let the shock show on his face, Alex nods and sits up, shrugging off the blanket. “Sure. What d’you wanna hear?”
“There’s one on the shelf over there called ‘Fox & Kit’. I’d like that one, please.”
“Hey, that’s like your name,” Alex remarks as he stands and goes to find it on the bookshelf. “Cute.”
Artie is giving him an amused smile when he returns. He scoots over and leaves enough space so that Alex can sit on the corner of his bed with him, kicking socked feet up onto the duvet as he settles the book in his lap.
It’s an actual children’s book this time, which Alex is surprised but likes. The cover matches the title—a larger, dark red fox wrapped around a smaller, lighter brown one in the middle of a field, smiles on both of their faces.
“Once, there was a boy…” Alex begins.
Artie’s out within minutes.
+
The thing about the book is, Alex can’t shake the fact that he feels like he’s read it before.
And he knows he definitely hasn’t. Alex doesn’t typically make a habit of perusing the latest in the world of children’s literature, isn’t even sure where he would’ve heard the name or seen the cover. But the dialogue is so familiar and the linework on the drawings Alex has definitely seen before, and not just in the design book at the shop.
It’s driving him crazy.
His mind’s restless once his earlier tiredness fades, so he slips off of the bed and leaves Artie sleeping quietly under the blanket, David curled up at his feet. With the door left open so Alex can hear him if needed, he tiptoes out to the living room to grab his laptop from his bag, the book held to his chest.
Dropping down onto the couch, Alex tugs the blanket over his legs and opens up his computer to a Google tab. As he goes to open up the book and check for an author’s name anywhere his eye catches on his and Art’s drawings from earlier, still on the coffee table.
Alex tilts his head. Narrows his eyes. He knows that linework.
Holy shit.
Scrambling for the paper, Alex flips open the book to a random page and compares them. He scans his eyes over Artie’s detailed drawings, some random household items, some other prompts Alex had gotten from a list on his phone, and right there at the bottom corner, a fox.
Alex lines them up side by side, and they’re almost identical. This is Artie’s work.
Shutting the book, Alex looks all over the front page and the spine for an author and comes up empty. He only finds it on the back inside of the dust jacket, understated and brief.
Written by H. Fox. Illustrated by A. Fox.
Alex’s fingers fly over to the keyboard of his laptop. Why the fuck has he never thought about Googling Henry before?
Immediately, a carousel pops up underneath the search bar with products he can browse. Alex spots the one he’d read to Artie but it’s only one of an entire collection, the same two characters in a variety of different storylines and adventures. Alex pulls the cursor up to the sorting menu and selects most recent.
Lo and behold, an article published only a handful of hours ago from a London Times news outlet— Bestselling Children’s Book Author H. Fox visits Local Children’s Hospital in Hometown to Celebrate Most Recent Debut!
There’s pictures of him there, shaking hands with the nurses, crouching down to talk with the kids. Another few of him behind a table with the book stacked in front of him. Tugging his lip ring between his teeth, Alex pulls his legs up to sit criss-cross and clicks, scrolling down to the interview portion.
H.F. I had to navigate grief when I was very young. Everyone assumes you shouldn’t talk to children about these things, but I believe that to be a grave disservice. They feel just as deeply as we do, and often times can identify and express those feelings much more simply than we, as adults, can. Holding the space for that, in my opinion, is priceless. I believe we should be doing everything we can to preserve it. This is only a small part of that.
L.T. Your last release was two years ago. I know we’ve all been anxiously awaiting your next project. Is there any reason you chose to share this one with us now?
H.F. This one in particular is deeply personal to me. Truthfully, I’ve been struggling with how to finish it. I like to write happy endings, and this one…I wasn’t sure I would be able to find the silver lining. ... As I mentioned before, I was very young when I first experienced grief. I think all of us tend to retreat into our childhood selves when we experience trauma to some extent. But recently, I’ve begun to realize how important it is that we return to that space when trauma isn’t present as well. Simply to enjoy ourselves. To appreciate that sense of youth and unadulterated joy that tends to be overshadowed by other things sometimes when we grow up.
L.T. I have to confess - I was able to get my hands on an early release copy, and this particular volume…it might be my favorite of yours.
H.F. That’s very kind of you. I’m very pleased with the way this one has turned out. I’ve been quite…inspired lately.
L.T. Well, I hope your streak of inspiration continues!
H.F. I don’t think it’s going anywhere any time soon, no.
Alex clicks out of the page and back to the Amazon links, adds all the ones they carry to his cart, and selects the quickest shipping to his apartment. He’s going to catch up on some important reading over the next week.
The confirmation email pops up in the corner of his screen and Alex clicks on it, opening up his inbox. It’s right there at the top. Right above the latest email from the community college in Austin. Smile falling from his face, Alex swallows and shuts the lid, leaving it on the sofa as he makes his way back upstairs.
Artie stirs and blinks sleepily when Alex comes through the door. He takes one look at him and then scoots back toward the wall and lifts the blanket, and Alex lets his legs carry him forward, suddenly exhausted.
Luckily, Artie’s bed is big enough for him to curl up on the edge. David crawls up and curls into a ball in between them, huffing as he settles back into the blanket. Alex only realizes his jaw is still clenched when Artie reaches across the divide of pillows to poke him directly in the nose, the muscles unraveling as he smiles.
He mimes taking a chomp out of Artie’s finger, and Artie squeals as he withdraws his hand back to his side of the bed.
Out of the constant noise in his brain, Alex shoves the rest to the side and thinks, inexplicably: this matters.
Alex wakes up to David licking his cheek and whining to go outside, and Artie’s finger poking him in the ribcage. Squinting against the morning light from the window, Alex yawns and props himself up on his elbows.
“Can we make pancakes?”
Alex sighs. He supposes this is his own doing.
“Hell yeah, we can make pancakes.”
Listening to Artie run out of the room cheering, Alex laughs as he sets David on the ground and goes to follow him. There are worse ways, he decides, to wake up.
+
Typically, Alex is the kind of guy who would absolutely bring balloons and a big, hand painted poster board to a children’s chess tournament. Luckily, Henry’s sister already covered that, so Alex can leave his at home.
He does bring flowers, though. A colorful bouquet that’s literally half Artie’s entire body, he’s pretty sure, and some specially ordered Jaffa Cakes. Bea’s got on a bright yellow dress and Alex has his sleeves rolled up enough to see most of the ink on his arms. The three of them are dressed more like it’s a theater production and less like what it actually is, but all of the dirty looks from the boring, beige-wearing, quiet parents are so worth it when Artie notices them right before he takes his seat, a bright grin overtaking his face as he waves.
They do tell Bea she has to turn her sign around during the match, though. Apparently it’s some sort of a hazard. She doesn’t seem deterred.
“They act as if they haven’t seen a bit of glitter before,” she scoffs, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “We’re at a children’s chess tournament, for Christ’s sake. I don’t think a bit of spontaneity would go amiss.”
He’s beginning to see where Artie’s rebellious streak comes from. Naturally, Alex gets along with her swimmingly.
The whole night goes well, really. From the moment Alex leaves the shop to pick up the flowers and meet them there, and definitely when he greets Henry with a kiss to the cheek, saving one of the roses exclusively for him, and Bea gives him the most obviously approving head nod he could ever hope to achieve.
From there it’s a lot of waiting—Alex doesn’t remember chess taking quite this long ever before, but he’s not going to argue—which he spends with his fingers tangled with Henry’s over their seats, listening mostly to embarrassing stories about Henry that Bea seems to be elated to have someone to finally tell them to. Each time they break they all toss big smiles and thumbs up to Artie, who by that point has majorly shifted into focus mode and appears as if he wouldn’t give a shit if they were there at all.
Competitive. That’s his boy.
Alex isn’t sure what it is, but there’s some sort of shift that’s happened since Henry returned from his trip. It feels like things are just rapidly slotting into place—Artie, Pez, and Bea’s approval feels like a weight off that Alex hadn’t even known was looming over him.
But physically, too, something’s… changed. Henry isn’t as hesitant anymore around him in the way he used to be. It seems Artie’s approval has settled something in him, too.
Alex’s affinity for physical touch thrives every time he takes his hand over the console, when he sidles up behind Alex while he’s making dinner and presses fingertips into his hips, when he steals short, sweet kisses while they’re out in public and then presses Alex against the wall for deeper, longer ones when they part ways for the night in the privacy of his foyer. He keeps touching Alex more and more, and it’s not exactly a surprise that Alex doesn’t want it to stop, but it’s sort of all he can think about lately.
And tonight, he’s spending the night at Alex’s to give Artie some quality time with Bea. Which doesn’t inherently mean anything. Alex isn’t the type to assume. Henry could say he wants to order takeout and lay around in pajamas the whole time, and Alex is fairly certain he’d be just as keyed up for that.
The looks, though—the looks Henry keeps giving him make Alex feel pinned to the spot, like Henry can see into his brain and knows what he’s picturing, and he gets this little smirk-thing going, his eyes dark around the edges, and it’s—Alex can hardly survive this. He wants to find out how much he can take, how much Henry’s willing to give him.
A couple of the moms across from them aren’t exactly quiet when they point out Alex’s tattoos and jewelry. Alex is fairly used to that, but he thinks the only reason Bea doesn’t stand up and publicly curse them out is because Henry links their fingers together, swings Alex’s arm up around his shoulders, and kisses him right at the corner of his mouth. And then he looks back and tosses them a smile.
So, yeah. Alex absolutely isn’t going to make it through whatever the fuck they do when they’re finally alone.
The tournament wraps up a handful of minutes later to the sound of their raucous cheering when Artie’s name is announced as the winner of the match after he’s the only one remaining after all of the rounds. He hops down off of the little podium before they’ve even gotten official pictures, stretching his arms out as wide as they can possibly go to encompass all of them into a waist-high group hug.
Alex walks out to the parking lot between Henry and Bea, Art perched on top of his shoulders, holding his certificate of achievement and his medal in his hand. Alex grins at the women from earlier and winks from several rows over, delighted at their appalled expressions as they herd their kids away.
Artie stays in his lap through dinner at the diner, where the waitress that always dotes on him gives him a paper crown to wear while they eat. Alex says he’s proud of him about a million times—only barely more than Bea and Henry—and Artie simply shoves a fry at his face and warns him again ‘not to make it weird.’
Alex is still biting his tongue on the whole I love you thing, but he finds himself thinking it a hell of a lot these days.
“Alright, you’ve got the spare keys, you have my number, David’s been fed, everything should be laid out when you get back to the house,” Henry lists once they’re getting ready to part ways outside, a pinch in his brow as he speaks.
“I think you’re forgetting something,” Bea raises a brow, leaning a hand on Artie’s head to balance until he laughs.
Henry’s frown deepens. “I don’t think so.”
“To relax,” Bea finishes, reaching over to pinch him in the side. “Go. Seriously. You guys can’t even fathom the amount of fun Artie and I are going to have tonight, so don’t even bother trying.”
“Alright, alright,” Henry mutters, rolling his eyes. He lets go of Alex’s hand to hug her, and Alex hears her lean in before they part, squeezing his shoulder.
“Enjoy yourself, yeah?”
With a kiss to his cheek, Bea watches him say goodbye to Artie, and then they all watch as Artie turns to Alex for the same thing. Even the flair he adds to it doesn’t hide his massive grin, lifting Artie off the ground and swinging him in a circle before putting him down again when he shrieks with laughter.
“Be good for Bea,” Henry calls out as they walk toward his car, away from him and Bea.
“I will,” Artie promises. He swings open the door to get in. “See y’all tomorrow.”
Both he and Henry immediately pause, Alex holding back laughter and Henry looking equal parts fond and horrified.
“I did warn you that would happen eventually,” Alex tells him when they slide into the front seats. He’ll be fine. There are definitely worse habits Artie could have picked up from him than just saying y’all.
“Oh, God,” Henry groans.
He lets his head fall back against the passenger seat, turning it to meet Alex’s eye. The rose Alex had brought him sits between them in the cupholder in an old water bottle—the only thing Alex could find to put it in.
He reaches over before Alex even starts the car and curls a hand around his neck, into his hair as he pulls Alex’s mouth toward his own and kisses him over the center console until they’re both breathless. Alex chases him when he pulls away, but Henry only smiles and pushes some of his hair behind his ear, leaning back into his seat to buckle the belt.
“Take me home, love.”
That, Alex can fucking do.
+
It’s three in the morning, and Alex is wide awake. He’s also pretty sure he might be in some kind of dream though—it’s the only explanation for the vision he’s having of Henry walking around his bedroom barefoot and only in one of Alex’s deliberately oversized t-shirts, a lovebite peeking out on his shoulder as he explores Alex’s things.
Alex has literally never felt this close to another person before. He isn’t sure what to do with it. He shoves a bent arm behind his head and crosses his ankles underneath the sheets, keen to just watch.
He points to Alex’s vinyl collection, the array of covers taking up nearly the full wall. “I’ve heard of maybe three of these.”
“Hey, you’ll get there,” Alex teases. “I’ll have you singing along in no time, swear.”
Henry grimaces. “I think I’ll leave the singing to you and Artie.”
He moves over to the adjacent wall, passing by Alex’s desk. It’s messy enough that Alex feels a burst of self-consciousness. He and Henry had been so wrapped up in each other earlier that he hadn’t given a full tour, but now he feels even more bare; his favorite clothes on top of his dresser, his glasses and ADHD meds on the nightstand, all of his art laid out across the desk Henry’s eyeing.
There’s some in all different stages—half-finished sketches he had to get down on paper before he forgot them, projects he’s been working on for months that just don’t feel quite right yet, a stack of finished pieces that he still needs to simplify before he can add them to the book at the shop. It’s nerve wracking, even compared to what they’d just done.
Everybody sees the printed, perfect, finished lineworks. They don’t see how many trials Alex goes through before they get there, the layers of sketches and eraser marks underneath.
“These are gorgeous,” Henry says earnestly, ghosting a fingertip over the pages without moving them out of place.
Alex dips his head. Clears his throat. “They’re not too bad.”
“Not too bad?” Henry raises a brow and glances over his shoulder. “You moved here to start a business on the basis of ‘not too bad’?”
“Ah, that’s—that’s not why I moved here.”
“Why did you, then?”
Sucking in a breath, Alex sits up against the headboard and reaches for the water bottle on the side table, taking a long sip and drawing his knees up under the blanket as Henry moves over to look at the art prints hanging on the wall beside the bed.
“I had this big plan that I was gonna go to NYU and study law, like my parents did. Follow in mom’s footsteps, since she already worked in the city. I would’ve had my work cut out for me, probably.”
Henry tosses him a look. “Well. I’m certain you’d look incredible in a suit and tie, but I have to admit that what you do now suits you.”
“Yeah?” Alex smiles. “I think so. I enjoy it, y’know? I like making my own hours. I like being the one people come to for things.”
“You are very knowledgeable.”
“I just draw lines on people, really,” Alex shrugs.
“No. You do much more than that,” Henry argues softly. “And I know so, because you would never tell Artie that his drawings were just ‘lines’. You’re just being too modest. You’re extremely talented.”
“Damn, sweetheart. You’re gonna get me all riled up again,” Alex drawls.
Henry holds his gaze. “I’m serious.”
“I know.” Nodding, Alex glances away. “Thank you. I—I had this professor. In college. He really believed in me. Encouraged my art, even when it was shit,” he chuckles. “If it weren’t for him, I don’t think I ever would have felt confident enough to open the shop.”
“We all owe him, then.” Henry pulls himself away from the art and returns to the bed, walking around to the side he’d left empty earlier. He lays down on his side, waiting for Alex to stretch out again to rest his cheek against Alex’s bare hip above the sheet with a sigh. “It’s nice, that all of you are here. You and June and Nora, at least. I miss Percy and Bea terribly when we’re so far from each other.”
“I guess so. June and Nora for sure, yeah.”
“Did you both move with your mother?” Henry asks.
“I did. June wanted to go somewhere else. Nora got into MIT, so they were thinking about going there for a while. But I wasn’t sure and still lived at home, so. I moved with my mom,” he explains. “Had my bachelor’s in fine arts from a tiny little community college, and I guess that was all I needed to open up the shop. June followed me. Nora followed her. And thank fuck they did, ‘cause I would’ve been be so lost without them when I was getting started.”
He’s felt guilty about it ever since, but they’ve never once thrown it back in his face. It’s another reason why he’s been so determined to prove himself—his success is theirs now, too. He can’t let them down.
“I think you’d have been alright,” Henry hums. He reaches up to slide fingertips over Alex’s chest absently. “You’re happy here, then?”
Alex narrows his eyes, his lips curling. “You fishing for intel, Fox?”
Henry laughs, squirming when Alex jabs him in the side. “No! No, I’m not. I’m genuinely curious.”
“Are you happy here?” Alex returns, hoping Henry won’t call him out on it.
Taking a slow breath, Henry glances up at the ceiling fan, then slides the hand he’d had on Alex’s chest underneath his cheek to lay on. “I think…this is the first place I’ve felt truly free. To make my own decisions, to be myself and to raise Artie without any of the judgment from back home. But I’m not as opposed to change as I used to be, and I don’t think I’m tied to this place just because it represents the first leap of faith I’ve taken for myself.” He pauses. “I guess I’m just trying to say that I don’t necessarily think a ‘home’ means a physical place anymore. Not since Artie. And not—” he stops, his eyes cutting over to Alex’s and then down. “Well. Not since you.”
Shit. Alex can’t not answer after that. Warmth spreads over his chest as he reaches down to sink a hand into Henry’s hair, letting it ground him.
“I feel the same way,” he says, just to make sure that’s clear. “Moving here felt like a fresh start when I desperately needed one. And I’ve learned a lot about myself here. Made friends and a living. But I don’t know if I see myself here long term.” It all comes out barely over a whisper, until Alex breathes out a laugh abruptly. “Shit, I’ve never said that out loud before.”
Henry turns his head enough to press his lips to the skin on Alex’s stomach. “Thank you for telling me. And, for what it’s worth, I think that makes sense. You do have a lot of freedom, but there’s still the pressure from your mother. From your own expectations, even.” He looks up at Alex again. “So where would you go then? If not here?”
It’s asked lightly, but Alex knows the question holds weight. Henry might be willing to follow him but it isn’t just Henry. Alex’s brain flashes forward to a future where they’re sitting down to look up elementary schools and new parks to walk David in, driving through streets that Alex was on years before too.
Could he ever actually be that lucky?
“I don’t know.” Alex picks at a thread on the blanket, his voice curling upward. “Maybe, uh. Maybe Texas?”
“Texas,” Henry repeats thoughtfully. “Any particular reason?”
“I grew up there. In Austin.”
“Oh?” Henry asks. He pushes up on his arm and shifts to sit beside Alex instead, pulling his shoulders back against his own. Alex settles into the pressure with an easy exhale, a hand over Henry’s arm that drapes over his chest.
“Yeah, I—I have a love/hate relationship with it sometimes but, I don’t know.”
“Why love/hate,” he prods, chin to Alex’s temple.
“I have a lot of not-so-great memories there,” Alex admits. “I guess when I was younger it felt more black and white. Like the bad things at the end made the whole place bad.”
“And now?”
“Now I think…I sort of miss it? I wanted to get out of there so bad because I thought I could make more of a difference here. I thought I could change lives. First through law, and then through art.”
Henry pauses for a moment. “Is that why you opened the shop? To make a difference?”
The question cuts immediately through all of the bullshit answers he might’ve given to anyone else, right to the core of things that he tries not to think about too often. After everything Henry’s shared with him though, his life, his own thoughts and feelings, his body, Alex can’t avoid it. He can’t lie.
“I think I like what I do so much because I get to leave a mark. Like, there’s people out there in the world that are walking around with my art on them right now. Inked into their skin,” he breathes. “I still get texts from clients sometimes that are just random thank-you’s because looking at it, even later, makes them smile. That’s—” Alex stops, suddenly emotional. “I can’t even explain it.”
Sliding a hand down his arm, Henry’s fingers trace over his wrist and his palm, then thread through his own. He brings Alex’s hand up to his mouth and presses warm, kiss-soft lips to his knuckles.
“I’m glad you ended up here,” he says, “but I also can’t wait to see where else you go.”
Biting back a smile, Alex tilts his head up and back to look at him.
“Yeah? You comin’ along for the ride?”
“I think I just might,” Henry murmurs.
He leans down and takes Alex’s lip between his own again, Alex’s hand easing up toward his cheek. He turns his body in Henry’s arms enough to press their chests together, his bare skin against Henry’s clothed one, then slips a leg in between Henry’s to get even closer. He just can’t get past this—can’t get enough, and not in the overwhelming, explosions kind of way. More so in the way that he wants to be able to do this whenever he wants for, like. Well.
Forever.
Henry grips his neck and catches Alex’s lip ring between his teeth as they catch their breath, tugging lightly. He trails his mouth down over his jaw and to his neck as he rolls Alex beneath him, leaning up only long enough to strip Alex’s shirt over his head again before he returns, his eyes roaming freely.
He pulls back when Alex leans up to kiss him again, pressing him down to the mattress with a strength that Alex wants to explore. Thoroughly.
“You’re a work of art,” Henry drops down to mumble against his mouth.
Alex huffs a laugh against him but kisses him back, groaning as he wraps an arm around Henry’s shoulders and tugs him back between his legs. He’s convinced literally only Henry could pull off a line like that.
And what’s more—actually mean it.
“Baby.”
He doesn’t say the actual words, but he’s pretty sure he gets the message across.
+
Henry’s books arrive at his house two days after he orders it, with the exception of a couple of the special edition copies. Alex reads them all the same night.
The thing is—no wonder they fucking sell so many copies.
The storylines are obviously plays on the regular children’s tropes but they’re so much more than just that, threaded with much bigger themes that are universally relatable but written in a way that can be understood at any age. And Artie’s drawings only elevate it, his linework just deliberately shaky enough to let a bit of that youthfulness shine through, even though Alex knows he’s capable of drawing it all perfectly straight. It’s never stated anywhere but Alex feels a pull in his chest when he looks at the illustrations, like the adult version of himself that so desperately wants to make his inner child proud is in every line, straddling that divide between earnestness and the desire to fit in. To make it all perfect.
All of that to say. Alex fucking cried. Multiple times.
It makes it both better and infinitely worse that he knows the people behind all of it. That, beyond just himself, he sees them in every line too. Just like in his interview, most of the stories have an underlying message of grief and how it shows up in a million different little ways that are never expected but always seem to cause trouble. But more importantly, it’s how you use that grief, how you turn it into light and hope again, that matters.
“You know this is crazy, right?” Nora asks him, wiping his arm down with the cleanser. “Like, he doesn’t even know you know.”
“In a weird way, it’s not really for him.” Alex turns his head on the chair, glances at the outline of the kit from the stories on the desk, raises a brow in her direction. “You gonna try to stop me?”
“Nope.”
The tattoo gun vibrates to life.
“Great.”
+
Alex knows he could have waited until Henry got home to swing by the shop and pickup the design notebook he’d left there. But it’s a gorgeous, warm day outside and Artie’s getting restless being cooped up inside again after their walk earlier, and Alex honestly feels the same.
He’s been hit with wave after wave of inspiration lately, his hands itching to sketch. Most of these ones won’t ever even be for the shop. It’s the first time in years that Alex has drawn simply for the joy he gets out of it without worrying if it’ll being in a profit, and he’d thoroughly forgotten just how much he loves it.
Pulling up outside of the shop, Alex locks the car and catches up with Artie to walk inside, his smaller hand in Alex’s while they cross the street. He’s particularly excited about getting the notebook today since he’d stayed up late the night before, researching how to make his own temporary tattoos. He can’t wait to see the look on Art’s face when he can hand over much more meaningful ones than just the random online orders.
“Okay,” Alex exhales as he unlocks his office, letting them inside. Artie immediately goes to his chair behind the desk, pulling out the bin to see if Alex has added any new ones since he’d last checked. “That’s weird.”
“What is?” Artie asks.
Alex frowns, patting around the shelf on the far wall. “I could’ve sworn I left my notebook right here.”
“Do you need help looking for it?”
“No, it’s gotta be around here somewhere.” Alex puts his hands on his hips and glances around. “I’m gonna go look for it by the front desk. You stay put, alright?”
“I’ll be here,” Artie says, already back invested in his rifling through the tattoos. Alex leaves the door cracked and slips out into the hallway toward the front.
He’s passing through the individual stations when he spots June coming out of the restrooms. “Alex? What’re you doing here?” She smiles confusedly into the quick hug he offers her. “I thought today was your day with Artie?”
“It is, he’s in my office,” Alex tells her. “I’m just looking for my notebook. You haven’t seen it, have you?”
“I haven’t, no. But I can ask Nora before I head out. I just dropped off lunch.”
“You’re the best,” Alex breathes. He bounces a chaotic kiss off of her forehead and then resumes his journey to the front desk.
It’s only mid-afternoon and if Alex was going to suggest they sit in the park a bit before they head home, which should give him just enough time to make dinner before Henry gets back so they can eat together. He’s been coming home an hour early recently so that all three of them can hang out before Artie goes to sleep. Honestly, it’s become the highlight of Alex’s day.
His phone vibrates in his back pocket just as he gets done fishing through the first and second drawers, and Alex shoves it between his ear and shoulder as he moves down to the third and fourth.
“Hello?”
“Hello! Is this Alex speaking? Claremont-Diaz?”
He hesitates, hand pausing in the drawer. “Uh. Yeah, it is. Who’s this?”
“My name is Madison. I’m from the hiring board at ATX community college in Austin. Where you graduated as well, I believe,” she explains.
“I see,” Alex says tightly. “What can I do for y’all?”
“I just wanted to reach out since we never received a response to the emails we sent over. We aren’t usually so adamant, and I do apologize for continuing to bother you, but your recommendations were glowing so we wanted to make sure you’d at least seen our offer to come and work with us in our arts program before we begin planning for next term.”
“Recommendations?” Alex stands fully. “Plural?”
“Oh, yes. Your old professors went on and on about you. They think you’d really be adding something to the curriculum here.”
“My old professors hated me,” he retorts without thinking. Well, except for Luna. He doesn’t correct himself.
Luckily, she laughs. “True as that may have been at the time, they seem to think you’re incredibly talented. We do have other applicants, but we were really hoping you’d consider it.”
Look. It’s not that Alex doesn’t want the job. It isn’t. In fact, it used to be his dream job. But he’s got a life here now, and this would be risking all of it. He’d have to find someone to run the shop, he’d have to part with Nora and June or bear the guilt of having them follow him again, he’d have to reason it out to his mom, he’d have to…he’d have to leave Henry and Artie.
Unless—Alex’s brain pushes up the fantasy again, front and center, of what he’d been thinking the night Henry spent in his apartment. So clear he could just almost see it happening; the three of them out there, Alex teaching, Artie in school, Henry running the Texas branch of the shelter, all three of them coming home to each other at the end of the day.
Henry’d said he was along for the ride, but this is—this would be asking a lot. And no matter how sure he feels about them, it’s only been a handful of months. It isn’t the first time Alex has had to remind himself that not everyone moves at the same pace he does. And if Alex asked them and either of them said no…
“Yeah, I’m just—I’m still thinking about it,” he manages, blinking hard at the desk in front of him.
“Oh, okay,” Madison says. “Well, we do try to get through the hiring process for next year before the summer, but—”
“I completely understand if you guys need to go with someone else,” Alex cuts in.
“No, no! I was just going to say that we can make an exception, if you think you might know sometime within the next month or two—”
The sound of something crashing to the ground near the back of the shop—near his office —has Alex’s attention immediately shifting. Artie. He stumbles over his own feet headed that way, muttering into the mic as he goes.
“I gotta go.” He hangs up and shoves his phone back into his pocket as he picks up the pace, rounding past the individual cubicles to get to the hallway. “Art?”
He’s running by the time he passes June and Nora’s concerned gazes, both of them standing to follow him. The noise had been loud and metallic, like the storage containers on the back wall of the shop outside Alex’s door, and he automatically assumes the worst.
“Artie!”
Artie had offered to help him find the notebook, he’d probably—he’d probably been looking through the bins, maybe climbing on the shelves, maybe put too much weight on one and it buckled, maybe brought the whole damn thing down and it’s—it’s all machinery, sharp and stowed away properly but if even one lid was out of place, then—
Alex’s chest is heaving when he reaches his office, and lo and behold, the shelf is missing a couple of boxes where they appear to have slid off the side. But all he finds there is Liam, looking sheepish and frantically trying to clean them up. He glances up at Alex.
“Hey—sorry, man. I was just looking for the—”
Alex doesn’t even hear the rest of it. He turns to his office and throws open the door, scanning his eyes over the room until he reaches his desk.
And Artie, right there behind it where he promised he’d be.
“Artie.”
“Hello,” he says. “Are you alright? Did you find your notebook?”
A relieved half-laugh, half-sob catches in Alex’s throat, his vision blurring as he stumbles over to the desk and tackles him in a hug. Artie seems confused as he pats a hand on Alex’s shoulder.
He holds him tighter in an attempt to prove to himself that Artie’s fine, but the pit in the center of Alex’s chest has already been opened. He’s long since familiar with the wind-up that comes right before a panic attack, even if he hasn’t had one now in years.
In stop motion he feels his back his the wood of his desk, hears Liam and Nora and June somewhere behind him. He hears Artie say something back and then there’s quiet, an added weight in his lap as Artie drops down to the floor too to wrap both arms around him again.
“Alex?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”
Shaking his head, Alex tries desperately to draw in air. He’s supposed to be the adult, for fuck’s sake. “I just—thought you were hurt.”
“I’m okay,” Artie says.
“I know. I know, just—” Alex seals his mouth shut and attempts to breathe evenly through his nose, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
He lets Artie’s grounding touch soothe him, his hands tangled in the material of his vest until they eventually unravel, the tension bleeding out little by little.
Artie doesn’t let go of his hand as they walk back outside after he’s collected himself enough to drive home, a look in Liam and Nora and June’s eyes that Alex can’t pin down. Artie doesn’t let go on the drive or even once they’re back on the couch in the living room, not even when Henry finds them curled up just like that hours later. He just curls himself around them and adds to the pile.
Alex stays up a long time, that thread of panic still pulsing through him ever so often. He glances down at both of them and blinks back wetness from his eyes, unsure of which part of it has him so tied up.
He never realizes how much he loves something until it’s taken away from him.
Sitting there frozen, half past midnight, Alex realizes, this is the first time he’s been so aware of it before.
And what the hell is he supposed to do with that?
+
Liam sends an a thorough apology text the same night. It stays up on Alex’s screen the next day when he’s sitting on June and Nora’s floor minorly dissociating until his phone locks, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a cold coffee in his hand.
They’d let him crash here after he left Henry’s so he wouldn’t have to be alone. He’d stopped at his place to grab clothes, ditched his car for his bike, and came straight over. He does feel a little better after talking to them, but they’re both out of the house today, and the silence has him spiraling all over again.
Things Alex knows: he loves his life. He loves his sister and Nora. He loves his art. He loves Artie and Henry.
He loves Artie and Henry.
And just by itself, that’s okay. But it’s not just that—it’s Alex as a whole.
Alex who’s been called ‘passionate’ but not ‘predictable’; whose senior superlative was Most Impulsive; who forgets to take his meds in the morning and stays up too late at night and drinks inadvisable amounts of caffeine to make up for it; who, according to his parents, is too old to be a kid but too childish to be a real adult.
Alex who wants things and goes after them, sure. But Alex that moves onto the next thing right after that like he’s bouncing between hobbies or television channels instead of people. Alex who wants to be better but doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know where to start.
He knows he isn’t his dad. He isn’t his mom, either. Not fully. But he does have a little bit of both of them in his bones; sometimes, he thinks, the worst parts. Knowing that he does is one thing, but understanding why is another, one that he thought he’d still have more time to figure out.
Does he operate under the assumption that everyone will change their mind about him eventually just because his dad left? Is that why he leaves preemptively, to avoid the hurt? Or does he assume it in others because Alex can never make up his mind himself?
He thinks of how much he’s enjoyed his time with Artie. How he’s felt so connected to his inner child that he forgets is still hurting, still trying to heal.
If he thinks about what that kid would want, the answer is clear.
Kicking off the blanket and slipping on his shoes, Alex locks up their place and heads outside to his bike. Nothing clears his head like finding an empty road and letting the noise of the engine drown out anything else.
He doesn’t even realize he’s heading toward his mom’s place until he’s halfway there. Where the backroads meet the paved neighborhood streets. The difference is palpable now, more than it usually is, how far this all is from where he started.
Turning into the driveway beside his mom’s car, Alex turns off his bike and kicks the stand down as he swings a leg over and dismounts. He knocks twice on the door, hears her moving around inside before she appears behind the frosted glass panel.
“Alex?” she tilts her head, pulling her phone away from her ear and covering the speaker. “Is everything okay?”
He steps past her to get inside and nods. “I was wondering if I could see the old photo albums,” he says. “My baby pictures and stuff. Home videos, maybe.”
She frowns, closing the door. “Oh. Well, you know you’re welcome to anything you can find up there. I’m working from home today, so I’ll be in the office if you need me.”
“Thanks.”
She’s talking into the phone again by the time she reaches the hallway, and Alex turns the opposite direction to head upstairs to the attic. It’s nestled behind a small door in one of the guest bedrooms, the knob stubborn when Alex turns it but eventually gets it open.
As he probably should have expected, it’s all a mess. He doubts his mom ever paid any attention to any of this since the moment the movers put it all up here. There’s holiday decorations on one side and Leo’s expensive but untouched woodworking bench on the other, all of his and June’s boxes behind those.
Alex scans through the bulk of it from a distance, propping his phone flashlight up beside him when the bulb threatens to flicker out overhead. His old trophies are scattered on the top layers, his jerseys and sports uniforms. He tugs forward a smaller box of his old art and smiles. Steals it for himself and puts it in his bag so he can look through it later. It’d be nice to see how far he’s come since then.
The photo albums take longer to find but they’re there, up against the back wall. Alex clears away dust and spiderwebs from the box as he grabs it off the shelf and rifles through it, pulling out a couple of the books with his and June’s names and some VCR tapes that he can get burned onto a CD or USB at some point if he remembers.
Once his bag is thoroughly loaded down and can’t fit much more, Alex forces the button to close and takes one more long glance around the room. He doesn’t need the awards or certificates. He wants everything from before that was all that he thought was important.
When he closes the door again and heads back downstairs, his mother isn’t in the office anymore. She’s leaning up against the kitchen island, a glass of wine in her hand, and she looks up when she sees him. Alex’s stomach drops, like he’s sixteen again and was caught doing something bad.
He wars with himself for a second, caught halfway between the kitchen and the front door. He stays in his spot when she clears her throat.
“Find what you were looking for?”
Alex tugs the strap higher on his shoulder. “Yeah. Think so. You finish working already?”
“Between calls at the moment,” she explains shortly. She nods toward his backpack. “Would this happen to have to do with those two you brought over for the party?”
Still, always, straight to the point.
“Henry and Artie,” Alex corrects pointedly. He scuffs his boot on her nice rug. “In some ways, I guess, yeah.”
Two mistakes happen in the span of a few seconds. His mother doesn’t open her mouth again but she exhales through her nose, her face halfway hidden by her glass.
And then Alex asks, “What?”
She turns toward him, leaning her hip against the counter. “Are the two of you…serious?”
Alex raises a brow. “You haven’t already asked June?”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything about it.”
God. He loves June so fucking much.
“We’re pretty serious, yeah.”
His mom furrows a brow, avoids his eye. “Remind me how the two of you met again?”
“He came into the shop with Artie. Artie’s really interested in tattoos, so—” This time, the noise she makes is obvious as it echoes into her glass along with her sip. Alex grits his teeth. “Is there something you’d like to actually say to me?”
“Alex, come on.” She looks over at him. “You’re just…different than they are, is all.”
“Yeah? So?” Alex asks. “That means I can’t love them?”
Her forehead wrinkles, gearing up for an argument that Alex refuses to have. “Of course it doesn’t,” she says. “It’s just a little confusing. You’ve always told us that you wanted a different kind of life for yourself. That you didn’t want the picket fences and the private schools and—”
“I can have both sides of those things. You understand that, right? I just didn’t want the decision made for me,” he emphasizes. “Plus, I was a kid then. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted.”
“You still are,” Ellen interjects loudly. “You’re not even thirty yet, Alex. Have you thought about this? Logistically?” She sets her glass down and finally gives him her full attention. “I’m not saying they aren’t nice, but you’ve known them less than a year. And there’s a kid in the picture. You’re thinking about forever when that might not even be what you want this time next year.”
Her words hit him like salt in the still burning, still fresh wound. He feels the hurt ricochet against his ribcage, feels all the versions of himself experience it at once.
Feels the weight of it finally fall off of him when he realizes that he doesn’t actually need her approval anymore.
“You know,” he says, stepping toward the door, “you criticize dad for leaving us constantly. But if you’re really honest with yourself, he’s not the only one who wasn’t there when we needed you. At least he doesn’t fucking pretend to be something he’s not.”
“Alex,” she argues, following after him. He stops midway, satisfied at the way she stops, too.
“I won’t let you make me feel like my decisions aren’t good enough anymore just because you don’t agree with them. Every time I try to share my life with you, it’s never right. It’s never good enough. I’m done. If you want to continue to be a part of my life, you’re going to have to act like it.”
“Alex—”
She keeps calling his name even after he’s out the door and taking the front steps twice at a time to get back to his bike, kicking the hitch up and swinging his leg back over. He doesn’t stop.
He doesn’t stop for a long time, in fact, until he feels far enough away from the whole conversation that he can breathe again. Alex pulls off the road by an empty park and pulls out his phone, dials his dad’s number by heart. The dial tone sounds like maybe, maybe, maybe —
He gets the voicemail.
Swiping frustrated tears from his eyes, Alex drops back against the tree and stares out at the open road in front of him.
He might’ve wanted approval pretty overwhelmingly at some points in his life. If he’s really honest with himself, he still does sometimes, no matter how much distance he puts between himself and other people’s expectations.
But he doesn’t need it anymore. And certainly not from the same people he did back then.
He pulls out his phone again and opens up a text to Henry to tell him that he’s going to be back in the city earlier than he thought for dinner. This— them —he’s sure about.
The motor whirs to life again between his legs as he swerves back onto the road, the wind so loud in his ears that all he can hear is his own heartbeat, and he sets his sights on home.
+
For all the time Alex spends around needles, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t like the one in his arm right now.
It’s probably the least of his ailments, though, to be fair. There’s a sling on his right shoulder and his leg’s propped up under the thin hospital blanket, a dull pounding in the back of his head that’s being lessened by the pain killers.
“I’m fine, Bug,” he rasps, wincing at the soreness in his throat. He squeezes her fingers with his good hand. It’s just the two of them since he woke up a handful of minutes before and finished talking to the doctors, and Nora’s gone to get him something to drink.
“I’m throwing out that bike,” she swears, still sniffling as she scrubs at her eye. “I’m slashing the tires on that thing, Alex, I swear.”
He attempts a chuckle and then has to press a hand to his ribcage for it, and June starts fussing over him all over again.
“You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t think I’m gonna be back on that thing any time soon.”
He’s surprised that the idea doesn’t immediately make him defensive. Maybe he doesn’t need so many ways to escape anymore. He wants to be here.
“I’m just glad it isn’t too bad,” she sighs, fluffing his pillow. “They said you could leave as early as tomorrow if everything looks okay.”
He leans back into it and exhales. “That sounds good. I’d fuckin’ love to be home right now.” He blinks his eyes open again, glancing around for his bag. “Hey, did they give you my phone? I need to call—”
The door to his room creaks open again and Alex lifts his head just as Nora steps through the threshold. She offers him a small smile and moves out of the way.
“There’s some people here to see you.”
He’d been okay just a second ago but seeing Henry’s face in the doorway is what ties Alex’s throat up in knots. His eyes burn, like he’s somehow absorbing the cloudy worryshockrelief that’s showing on his face, his mouth open and half a step taken forward.
There’s someone else barreling toward him before Henry can.
“Papa.”
The tears in Alex’s eyes spill over, the breath knocked out of his chest as he ignores the ache in his limbs to wrangle Artie up into his lap on the cot. It’s jarring, how small he feels right now when he usually seems to take up so much space.
He’s not a little adult, like they joke about. He’s a child, fragile and folded into Alex’s chest, his tears soaking the gown just like Alex’s are. He feels June step away to give them a moment as he tucks his face into Artie’s hair, feels another weight on his left as Henry joins them.
“I’m okay,” Alex croaks, getting an arm around both of them. “I’m okay. It’s okay.”
“You never showed up for dinner,” Henry whispers, “and then you didn’t answer your phone, and—” his breath hitches as he bites back another sob, and Alex’s heart fucking breaks.
“I know. I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m—”
“No, God, don’t be,” Henry shakes his head. “I’m just—I’m so—”
Alex tugs him back down, and their lips slide together for a slick, off-balance second before they’re all collapsing into each other again. He hears the door click shut distantly, leaving them fully to themselves.
He presses his lips to Henry’s forehead and exhales. The answer has never been more clear.
+
June and Nora head home eventually, only once June has spoken with the doctor twice more and promised to return the next morning with breakfast. Later, when Alex’s stomach finally stops rolling with nausea from the meds, he’s able to get some bland hospital food down, sharing a coke and whatever’s on his tray with Artie while Henry snacks on some crackers and a Gatorade from the vending machine down the hall.
Artie doesn’t have much to say and is obviously exhausted, but he refuses to leave Alex’s side, even when the nurse comes in to take his vitals again before bed. He falls asleep on Alex’s chest promptly after that, Henry watching fondly from his chair-bed right next to the cot. It feels too far away.
“Come here,” Alex whispers, holding out a hand.
He thinks Henry’s going to argue about the space but he just stands and accepts the invitation, slipping in on his side in the empty spot Alex isn’t taking up. Their legs pressed together under the sheet, Alex maneuvers Artie slightly so he’s right in between them, Alex turned onto his good side to face Henry as they both look down at him. His mouth twitches.
“Papa, huh?”
Henry exhales a quiet laugh. “I…did not know he was going to say that,” he admits, eyes flickering up to Alex’s, “but I’m—I don’t mind it. Unless you do, of course. I know that we haven’t really spoken about that yet.”
“No. I love it.” Alex rests his cheek against his arm, holding his gaze. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“Oh,” Henry has the nerve to say, as if this is surprising information. “Well, I—I suppose I thought that maybe—but I wasn’t certain, and—”
Shifting very carefully across the small space, Alex leans forward and kisses him quiet, drifting his fingers across Henry’s cheek. When he pulls away, he drops his hand to find Henry’s, linking their fingers together over Artie’s knee.
“I love you too,” Henry smiles. “We love you.” His eyes fall to their hands, and then to Artie’s face, his voice dropping lower. “I’ve…I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him like that before.”
Alex frowns. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. He was—he knows a little about what happened with dad but not the full story, and he doesn’t have any fear of injuries or doctors. But he overheard me talking to June and—” Henry shakes his head as if clearing away a memory. He squeezes Alex’s hand harder. “We’re just so glad you’re alright.”
“I’m glad I am too,” Alex says slowly, a wrinkle in his brow. “Which is weird, because, like. Of course. It wasn’t even that bad. Like, I’m okay.” He takes his lower lip between his teeth. “But I was thinking, before all of this, when I texted you…”
Henry swipes a thumb over his knuckles. “You were thinking…?”
“Just. About what I want. Who I want.”
Alex holds his breath in the momentary silence, watching Artie’s chest rise and fall, his glasses crooked on his nose.
“And?” Henry whispers.
“I want this,” Alex says, glancing at them both. “I want this really, really bad.”
Something relieved flits across Henry’s features, and he lifts Alex’s palm to press his lips to the bottom of it. “Me too, love.”
Alex swallows. In for a penny. “Like. I don’t—I don’t really see myself ever not being with you guys again.”
He gets a front row seat as Henry’s smile widens, warm even though he’s tired. Alex wants to trace every single tiny line around his eyes one by one. Thinks that might actually be a realistic endeavor, now.
“I think we’d like that very much.”
They share the space for a while, Alex isn’t sure how long. He hasn’t bothered to check his phone—everyone he’d have wanted to see has either already been here or is still here, now. It’d be good if they could get some sleep but Alex can tell that the same restlessness he’s feeling is in Henry right now too. They’ve both lost people in the past. Alex isn’t going to deny either of them the opportunity to keep checking to make sure the other is still there, the steady beat of his heart on the monitor, the sureness of Henry’s palm against his.
Eventually, though, his shoulder begins to ache again as the pain meds taper off. Alex winces as he tries to subtly shift more onto his back, then panics when Henry moves to stand.
“No, no—don’t go anywhere,” Alex rushes quietly, tightening his grip. “I’m just moving my arm.”
Henry helps him adjust the pillows and lower the tilt of the bed a little more with the remote, and then props another folded blanket underneath Alex’s opposite shoulder when he asks. He’s just about to pull away when the sheet falls a little, and the spot where Alex’s relatively fresh ink lies is right there in the open.
“Alex, is that…” he points, trailing off.
“Oh. Shit. Yeah. Forgot to tell you.” Alex chuckles. “I, uh. I hope you like it?”
Gently, Henry reaches over to trace his fingertip around the outline of the kit from his books, something like awe on his face. “How did you even figure it out?”
“Art asked me to read to him that night, when you were away. The writing and the drawings were kind of familiar.” Alex tosses him a slow grin, then nudges him more seriously. “You guys make a really good team, you know?”
“The three of us,” Henry amends. He lies back down to get comfortable again, but his eyes stay on the tattoo, a half-smile on his lips.
“So you’re okay? With me knowing?” Alex asks. “I should’ve told you. And I know it’s not like, a normal thing to do. But a lot of what you wrote just resonated with me so much, and I…” Alex doesn’t even have the right words, but Henry seems to understand.
“Alex. You don’t owe me an explanation. That’s why I wanted to write them in the first place. To connect to people.” He reaches for Alex’s hand again and nods to Artie. “He’s going to be amazed to see his art on you.”
“Good.” Alex grins, glancing down at the new ink that seems to simultaneously stand out and blend in with the assortment of others. “I think it’s a perfect addition.”
+
Madison,
I was able to move some things around, and I’ll be making a trip to Austin soon. If the offer’s still there, I’d love to come in for an interview for next year.
Alex
.
.
.
“I’m just saying, I think it’d be wise to start phasing out the coil machines at the shop before I leave. Not altogether, of course. There’s still people who prefer them. But the others seem to be more popular now.”
“True, but what about storage? The newer machines tend to come with less surface area but that also means you’ve got to store all of the supplies you’d need to purchase separately just to operate them.”
Alex purses his lips as he pushes the meat around the skillet with the end of a spatula, watching it sizzle as it browns.
“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll just add a couple more shelves in the back.”
Artie’s eyes widen from the dining table, glancing up from his homework. “You’re going to trust Liam with shelves?”
With a snort, Alex turns off the stove and moves the skillet over onto a towel on the counter by the rest of the food. “Yeah, okay, that’s—that’s a fair point, actually. I’ll figure it out later. Still got a few weeks left.”
He’s pulling out seasonings when the front door lock turns and David jumps up to run to it, the familiar sound of Henry’s shoes thudding against the rack as he removes them. Alex is smiling before he’s even visible, terribly smug when Henry pauses in the doorway to the kitchen, eyeing the outrageously large bouquet of red roses on the island.
“And what’s all this?” he asks, peeking around them to find Alex’s eye.
Alex shrugs. “Artie and I did some shopping earlier.”
“I can see that,” Henry says. He steps around them and a hefty stack of moving boxes to the table to press a kiss to Artie’s head in greeting, then finds Alex behind the kitchen counter with his own kiss to Alex’s now fully healed shoulder. “They’re very lovely. Thank you both.”
Alex leans into the pressure, his hands occupied with the food.
“Happy anniversary,” he smiles.
Henry kisses him again, on the lips this time. “Happy anniversary, love.”
Moving to the sink, Henry washes his hands before he comes over to help finish up, taking the tortillas out of the warmer and cutting the rest of the cilantro Alex hadn’t finished yet. A throat clears from the table.
“Technically, your anniversary has already passed.”
Alex raises a brow and looks to Henry, then back to Art. “How do you figure?”
“Dad had already made up his mind before we even introduced ourselves, if you count from that day.”
Henry chokes beside him, his cheeks flushing, and sends a not-so-subtle glare past Alex’s grin over toward the table. Artie only pushes his glasses up his nose.
“That is…” Henry searches for words, cutting the cilantro more aggressively now, “I couldn’t have possibly known that.”
“You told auntie Pezza that you were going to get married.”
“Artie.”
Very slowly turning back to him, Alex hip checks him—gently, since he is holding a knife—and tongues at his lip ring.
“Married, huh?”
“Do not.”
“First comes love…” Alex sings suggestively.
Sighing, Henry scoops up the cilantro and places it onto the serving platter with the rest of the fresh ingredients. “If you’re aiming for the nursery rhyme, I believe we’ve skipped a few steps.”
“Eh, doing things the normal way is boring. I’m cool with baby first, then marriage.”
“Well, I should hope so.” He takes a brief pause to pour himself a glass of wine from the cabinet, then returns to press their arms together. “But how about we start with the house in Texas. And then…”
Alex reaches over to steal the first sip. “Then?”
“And then…” Henry grabs it back, “we have the rest of our lives to figure it out.”
He can’t believe it’s only been a year. Can’t believe he’s allowed to just have this without a catch, that he gets to move back home with his dream job and dream kid and dream boyfriend who he’s determined to make his husband one of these days.
Alex isn’t worried. They’ve got time.
“Sounds good to me, sweetheart.”
Artie gathers up his homework noisily and shoves it aside, then rests his clasped hands on the wood. “Are y’all almost finished? I’d like to eat sometime today, please.”
“‘You all’ implies that there are more than two other people here, you know,” Henry tells him, bring the serving tray over to the table.
“Of course it does. I’m referring to David as well.”
Exhaling heavily, Henry pulls out his chair and sits down.
“You’re not gonna get him to stop,” Alex grins, setting the plates down between them.
He walks back to the kitchen to grab Henry’s wine, unable to keep his eyes from going to the neatly scrawled words on notebook paper on the fridge. ‘Love’ in Henry’s cursive, ‘papa’ in Art’s structured lettering. Alex’s last ink he’s getting at the shop before he leaves it to Liam and Spencer.
The playlist he and Art curated flows from the corner speakers from Alex’s phone as they talk and make themselves plates, Alex’s brow furrowing when it cuts out momentarily. He glances over to check it and sees his dad’s contact flash on the screen.
“I should take this,” Alex hesitates.
“Go on,” Henry urges him with a smile. “We’ll be here.”
Alex heads back over to the island so he won’t disturb them, leaning a hand on it and using the other to pick up the call. He isn’t really sure what to expect. Their phone calls are usually short and surface level, and he’s even more cautious since the fight with his mom.
It’s also made him even more interested in finding out who’s going to be there in the long run, though. Alex inhales.
“Dad?”
“Alex, hey.”
“Hey. It’s—it’s been a while. How are you?”
“It has,” his dad sighs. “I’m so sorry I missed your call. I’ve been traveling for the past couple of months for work, but now I’m back home. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m actually gonna be down there by you pretty soon.”
“Oh? Well, I’d love to see you, if you’ve got the time. And you know the lake house is always yours, if you need it,” he says. “Raf tells me you’re thinking about coming back here and teaching? You’ve got to catch me up on everything, but I think that’s amazing, mijo.”
Alex glances back over to the table at the word—he’s heard it a million times in his life but it feels different now. More complete.
“What’s your schedule like the next month or so? There’s some people I want you to meet.”
“Probably open, if all goes to plan. I can make some time, if not,” he insists. “Who am I meeting? You’ve got me intrigued.”
There’s a loud squeal and a bang, which Alex quickly realizes is Henry’s knee hitting the table leg as he reaches across to attempt to grab the handful of cheese Artie has threatened to consume sans Lactaid, most likely as a result of being denied an after-dinner Jaffa Cake.
Fuck, Alex loves them. Loves being a part of something. Loves the way Henry sends a panicked look over his shoulder at Alex for help, like the whole thing wouldn’t work right without him. Alex grins and holds his eye.
“My family.”