Chapter Text
No one takes the train anymore.
No, scratch that. No one Alex knows takes the train anymore. It's a six-hour ride from Boston to Washington D.C. on the Amtrak Acela, which seems like a waste of time when compared to the efficiency of airplanes.
But Henry decided at some point in the scheduling of this tour to exercise his romanticized roots and leverage his sway at Mountchristen to book them on a 6 a.m. train out of South Station. Luckily, Alex can spot at least three coffee shops on their way to boarding. Henry doesn't even stop him, which means he's either given up on trying to condense Alex's caffeine intake or he's saving the scolding for later. The joke's on him—Alex will be more awake, caffeinated, and have all his talking points at the ready.
They're sitting in first-class, which is just a more spacious version of the cafe car, and not nearly as cramped as coach. He and Henry are splitting space at a fold-out table, facing one another and sharing the window view as the New England coast passes them by. The wifi continues to be trash.
There's a ten-minute turn over at Penn Station. Alex no longer has the impulse to make a break for it when they stop.
He spreads out on the table with his laptop, sorting his inbox into actual high priority emails and ones that can absolutely wait another day before needing a reply when someone nearby crunches into something loud. This isn't the Quiet Car, and there's no moratorium on food noises, but it's still early enough in the morning to find it a little annoying. And as the nominally appointed King of Annoying, Alex thinks that alone speaks volumes.
He glances around the car and—what?
Alex slept. He's been thoroughly plied with coffee, water, and a mediocre microwaved breakfast sandwich. So, he believes something is terribly wrong or they've entered the Twilight Zone via railway when he spots the person across from them.
The guy is generally unassuming: shaggy brown hair, cargo shorts, and a nondescript band t-shirt. But the peculiarity, and the whole reason Alex is staring at him in the first place, is that the guy is cupping the bottom of a sizable cucumber and eating it top down. Alex has, just, so many questions. Mostly, is this real? He needs a second opinion.
He nudges Henry under the table with his foot. Henry goes delicately red at the tips of his ears and sucks in a breath so sharply that someone might have thought Alex stabbed him. He does not have the urge anymore, thank you very much. It takes Henry a second too long to compose himself, raise his eyes to Alex and ask, "Did you need something?"
Alex mimes zipping his lips, and does the most contained tilt to indicate over there.
Henry is being obvious when he turns to look. Alex is going to need to have a conversation with him about discretion in public places. But Henry's brows ride high on his forehead when he sees it too. Great, perfect, Alex is not having some liminal space psychosis.
Henry mouths to Alex: cucumber? Alex nods, glances back to confirm inconspicuously (he hopes Henry is taking notes), then nods again.
For the next twenty minutes, Alex and Henry keep checking to see if the guy is still there and if he finishes the cucumber. The guy—forever henceforth known as the Cucumber Guy in Alex's mind, he deserves the honorific—finishes it minutes before he exits the train in Delaware.
"It's, like, a power move or something," Alex says, once the train starts moving again.
"How is eating a cucumber like that a power move, precisely?"
"Because who eats a cucumber like that? A person who wants to assert authority, who doesn't care what people think. It's not in slices or bite-sized pieces or anything. He wasn't even holding it like someone who was eating a whole cucumber on the train would. You know, around the—the shaft." He references the hold in the air, as if Henry isn't clearly aware of what Alex means. Henry stares blankly at Alex's hands. "I mean, the guy was just shoving it down his throat like a—"
No, Alex is not going to finish that sentence. He takes out his notebook instead.
"What are you doing?"
"I need a list."
"A list?" Undoubtedly curious, Henry leans over the table to get a better look.
"It's just a thing I do," Alex says. He feels self-conscious explaining this to Henry. A real, legitimate worry is that Henry will ask about other lists that are currently a work in progress and singularly about him. Or worse, that Henry might judge Alex over his unconventional methods of organizing his mind, even on trivial topics. "When I need to work things out. Things just make more sense on a list. Actionable items."
His fears are for nothing. Henry inclines his head in knowing appreciation, like Alex's explanation makes the most sense. No need for further scrutiny.
Alex writes at the top of a clean page: How to Threaten the Cucumber Guy Back with Equal Power Moves.
"That is assuming he can be threatened," Henry points out.
"Are you going to contribute to this list, Fox, or are you going to critique very valuable information in case there are more like him? And trust me, there are more like him. That's learned behavior."
Henry gives him a little smile and motions for him to continue.
"One," Alex emphasizes as he starts to scribble down on the page. "Eat a cucumber the same way while making eye contact."
"Will you be adhering to the… cupping?" Henry asks so goddamn seriously that Alex squints at him trying to see if Henry will crack. He doesn't. Interesting.
"f*ck yeah, I will. Two, cut a cucumber in front of him, while making eye contact."
"Sounds dangerous. And likely to lose a finger in the process." Henry is forlorn, and possibly preemptively, mourning the loss of Alex's fingers to a cucumber power move and an inopportune serrated object.
Alex waves the pen in front of Henry's face. "Discussing the merits and pitfalls of the list comes after making the list. Keep up."
"Three," Henry cuts in, pushing the pen out of his face and shutting Alex all the way up. This should be good. "Consume an equally confusing, but significantly bigger vegetable," Henry says. A beat passes before he adds, deadpan, "While making eye contact, of course."
The statement surprises a laugh out of Alex, loud, bright, and more disruptive than crunching on a cucumber. He can't even hide it, and realizes too late that he laughed. He laughed at something Henry said. He laughed with Henry. So it turns out Henry can be funny.
Henry is giving Alex a curious little smile, staring at Alex with his chin in his hand, like he can't believe he made Alex laugh either but is thrilled he did. Alex is not looking at this too closely,
Soon the smile turns into a frown. "You're not writing it down. Does it not meet the requirements of the list?"
Alex writes it down. "No, no, it's good. But what do you consider an equally confusing but significantly bigger vegetable?"
Henry spends a tease of a second to answer. "An aubergine?"
He opts for drawing it instead, followed by a little note that indicates it's an eggplant and not a dick (despite their connections via texting), and Henry scoffs something that sounds unmistakably like you Americans.
The historic Hay-Adams Hotel might be the most ridiculous place Alex has encountered in his life. It's bougie, like old-money white people bougie. His teeth hurt from clenching his jaw so that he doesn't say anything off-the-cuff to get him immediately kicked out. Valets are at every door, rushing to grab the handles before Alex can even think to reach for it. The interior is covered in plush burgundy rugs, thick brocade curtains, slick wood paneling, and ugly as sin chandeliers. Sure, its proximity to museums, parks, and the White House make it a prime location for tourists to blow money for a deluxe experience in the nation's capital. But there is something so viscerally unsettling about the distinct haunted house aesthetic the whole place is giving off.
Alex doesn't feel safe staying here, despite every inch of the hotel screaming Very Rich! Very Fancy! He drums his fingers on the front desk counter in a physical manifestation of his anxiety while they look up their reservations and does not—does not—read into the way the staff member stares him down. Alex needs a distraction. He thinks about all the research he's going to do about this place, what old guys probably died here, find out if they might be stirring about and conjured through some urban legends, and—
"Do you suppose there might be ghosts in this hotel?" Henry whispers near his ear.
Alex startles. He was not expecting him so close. Henry, the self-satisfied bastard, did it on purpose. Almost like he could sense Alex needed the mental diversion. Almost.
Ever since the train, maybe even before that, something has unlocked in Henry. He's more honest, a little more carefree. The bar was on the ground when it came to being anything but the tightly-wound author Alex had concocted in his head, but Alex notices. Alex actually thinks this new Henry Fox looks good on him. Who knew?
"Maybe. Distinct f*cking possibility," Alex says, not censoring himself. The sensitive ears had already formed their opinion of him the moment he walked in with Henry in tow. A well-placed swear is not going to make it worse. He thinks. He'll ask Nora to run the numbers on it later. "If your next manuscript ends up saying 'all work and no play makes Henry a dull boy' over and over, I think I'm required to exorcise the sh*t out of you."
Henry's answering smile is small, private, but no less electric than the ones Alex has managed to coax out of him since Boston. "I'll allow it.
They're handed their key cards. Alex turns it over in his hand, half-expecting them to be brass skeleton keys for conceptual purposes. "Meet downstairs in half an hour? We have to take some touristy pictures for the Gram."
Henry's expression turns sour. "I'm only agreeing to that if you never call it the Gram again."
"You're going to have to bribe me for my silence. I know you're good for the money."
Alex
do you think we're wasting our budget on fancy hotels?
irl chaos demon
Describe fancy.
Alex
[IMG_1057.jpg]
irl chaos demon
You mean ugly.
Alex
i mean ugly.
UGHHHH
i just keep thinking about all the stupid sh*t we spend money on for optics when we could totally just stay at one of those capsule motels that at least don't give me the f*cking creeps, and save some money, which all would add up to send one of our midlist authors out to like regional shows or a festival. god maybe another ad placement, literally f*cking anything.
every time we have to trim the budget it's from my authors and then i see this. sh*t.
i have to stay in a room where i'm afraid to touch anything or be cursed by the spirit of nixon's grandmother
irl chaos demon
Think of it this way, by touching nothing you'll break nothing and it won't get put on the hotel tab and waste more money.
Alex
not the point Nora!!!!
irl chaos demon
All right, you must be possessed by something. This is the longest you've gone without complaining about Henry.
Alex
so?
irl chaos demon
If you actually finished him off, don't tell me. I'd like to have plausible deniability.
Alex
it's not like that. it's a long story.
and it's way more work to weekend-at-bernie's him for the next week and a half
irl chaos demon
In that case, I expect every sordid detail when you're back
Alex
only if ur paying for lunch :)
Since Henry is one of the featured authors of the festival, the Library of Congress invited their literary guests (Henry Fox) alongside their plus ones (Alex Claremont-Diaz) to tour the upper offices that afternoon before the gala. Henry arrives in the lobby in another bland ensemble and Alex thinks he might lose his goddamn mind.
Instead of hello, Alex opts for, "Do you wear any other color?" as a greeting.
Henry plays along, since Alex is positive Henry's used to his non-standard opening tactics by now, but his brows pinch together, regardless. "Is this a legitimate question?"
Alex gestures to Henry and all of his gray, plain, boringness: yes, duh, obviously.
"Gray is a color, thank you," Henry says, smoothing down the front of his sweater, unaware that the issue is not the clothing itself but the lackluster color.
"But like anything fun? You always look so serious. Sad Man Gray," Alex says, in his Happy Man Blue blazer and shirt.
With an assessing perusal, Henry lingers a little too long on Alex's outfit. "You are going to be incredibly disappointed by my tuxedo this evening then."
"As long as it's not gray, you can only go up from here."
Henry sighs as he follows Alex out the hotel doors, which are opened again by a valet, when automatic ones would be just as valid. Alex will never not find this whole set up weird. Is this what it's like to be rich? Should he be tipping them? Hell, he needs to get out of here and picks up the pace.
Mountchristen Publishers @mountchristenpub
[3 Image Carousel: 1. Henry Fox sitting in a seat on the train, papers and pens spread out on the table in front of him, holding up a copy of A Brief War in December, while pretending to read it. 2. Henry Fox standing outside a wrought iron fence with the White House in the background, not as stiffly posed as his previous full body shots. 3. A tour graphic, in the colors of the cover of A Brief War in December, listing out the remaining dates of Henry's appearances in Chicago, Austin, Tucson, Los Angeles.]
Don't miss Henry Fox at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. this weekend! Check nationalbookfestival.org for scheduling!
#HenryFox #ABriefWarInDecember #ABWID #NationalBookFestival #NBF
The upper level of the Thomas Jefferson Building is actually kind of lame.
Alex's excitement is saved for bumping elbows with authors and literary legends, and not acting like a complete fanboy in the process. He wants to sip bespoke co*cktails and eat mediocre hors d'oeuvres, while standing underneath the extravagant architecture in the Library of Congress rather than trapped between the beige walls and outdated blue flooring of what is, honestly, typical-looking corporate offices. The exception is that the oil paintings of previous cabinet members scattered around the walls are originals and probably worth more than his rent, ten times over.
He yawns. He catches Henry hiding his own. Alex would blame sheer boredom, but he’s going to guess another sleepless night coupled with this never-ending day. Alex almost suggests skipping this altogether and grabbing a Redbull; he's desperate.
The most compelling thing is when their tour guide, a plucky girl who introduced herself as 'Gabrielle but everyone calls me Gabi!', shows them the guest book. There are two of them: one is the actual guest book, an oversized leather-bound tome with rough yellowing pages. The other book is smaller, with laminated sheets, acting as the index of where to find each famous person's signature in the other. It's filled with not only celebrated novelists and poets going back a hundred years, but also renowned journalists, famous actors, and legendary musicians. Alex stands at Henry's shoulder, while he pours over the pages. Alex spots signatures from Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash in their joint perusal.
As the tour group splinters into idle chatter, moving between other hallways and a decorative sitting room with a view that has more promise of being visually fascinating than the rows of wood veneer desks, Henry lingers over a bold, cursive scrawl: David Bowie.
His index finger traces over the signature. "My sister would love to see this."
"Is she a big time literature fan like you?" Alex asks. He knows Henry has other family members, but admitting that he knows feels oddly invasive.
"No, not nearly. Music was her passion," Henry says, flipping to another page. There's a smile on Henry's face, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes
Alex is smart. He catches the past tense, but doesn't catch his mouth from asking the question. "Was?"
"Is, still, I suppose." He sounds a little distant, as far away as the memory he's pulling to the forefront. "Other priorities have kept her from pursuing it in the same lengths she did before our father died, but she's trying."
sh*t, Alex definitely stepped right in it. He's been actively trying not to bring up Henry's dad. Between the interviews and public-facing events over the past five years and three (now four) books, Henry has never mentioned him. Not when he was alive and not after he passed. Alex dug around online—though he feels kind of gross, now that he thinks about it—finding only one brief mention of Arthur Fox: his obituary. Loving father, devoted husband, pancreatic cancer, survived by his children (Philip, Beatrice, Henry) and his wife (Catherine).
For all his obsessive tendencies, Alex realized he didn't really know much about Henry at all. Only the highly curated, public persona he chose for everyone to see. Alex winces.
"Bea and I would tell you to stop making that face. It's all right. Sometimes there is no avoiding talking about it when it's the truth."
But still, Alex wants to say. He opts for something less combative. "I just feel like I've forced you to bring it up twice in two days."
Henry shakes his head. "You didn't force me. It is not as though I dislike talking about him, I…" He takes a breath to flip the page, but Alex doesn't think he's focused on the book in front of him. "I don't know how to."
Alex doesn't push, but he also doesn't fill the silence like he wants to usually do. He'll wait. He'll wait forever for Henry if he has to. Alex doesn't think anyone has ever given Henry the space in a conversation to sort through whatever feelings he has and vocalize them. Even their friendly banter is at a frenetic beat, skipping over anything that might be of substance. Alex thinks they've gotten close: in Boston, with the Sargent murals; in the car, on the way home from the Brookline event. And now here, in an unremarkable space looking at remarkable things.
They're circling each other again, but not in a fight, not in their tongue-in-cheek antagonism, but in a genuine desire to show their respect for one another. An equal understanding that the hard personal feelings are just that: hard. Alex hopes whatever face he's making now assures Henry that Alex is, no matter what, willing to listen.
It takes a while. Henry looks like he reluctantly comes to the same conclusion about Alex's receptiveness, but he requires a few more page flips and a prolonged silence before he puts it to words.
"There is this guilt," Henry says slowly, as if he's unsure if the words he is using are the right ones to convey his emotions properly. Like he has never had to before. "It stains all the memories I have of him, it is unbelievably unbearable most days."
Alex watches Henry's hand come to his chest in an abandoned gesture like he wanted to soothe his aching heart and realized almost too late that he couldn't—it's trapped behind the skin and bones of his very human body. "Sometimes I will catch myself laughing or I will find a few moments of peace from everything when it becomes overwhelming, or there's a day that goes by and he somehow didn't cross my mind. And I ask myself, how can I be happy right now? How can I allow myself to be this way when he's gone? How can I have this life and move on when he doesn't?"
Alex opens his mouth to interrupt him, but Henry quickly waves him off. "I know, you don't need to say it."
He does need to say it. Again, Alex wants to argue with Henry. Again, they are in a public space, having a conversation that is so fragile that Alex is afraid his stubbornness might cause one of them to drop it, and cause it to shatter it across the navy carpet.
"And so, instead of talking about him with the people who knew him best, or anyone, really, I simply didn't at all. That was worse, in hindsight. I spent so much obsessing over all of the regrets I had, all the things we didn't do before he died."
Henry clears his throat, as if the two of them are in the middle of polite company and Henry has brought up unsavory gossip rather than the emotional damage he's been fighting for years. Alex watches Henry shrug the mask back on and let the guilt, once again, dictate so much of his life. Alex thinks f*ck that.
"That’s normal. The guilt is normal, having regrets is normal. It would be weird if you didn't," Alex says, and his mouth keeps running because he's not going to listen respectfully, anymore. Not when he's spent so little time with Henry and seen so much. Alex recognizes that those are the pieces he's kept hidden because of the goddamn guilt.
"You shouldn’t be afraid to talk about him. Even if it hurts, even when it hurts, because it's going to hurt. But it doesn't always have to," Alex says. He wants Henry to look at him, to know what Alex is telling him is real, irrefutably important. "I don’t know anything about your dad, but I’m sure as sh*t he’d be upset if you were worried about living your life because of him."
Henry hums in agreement, but Alex knows he doesn't believe him. Not yet.
The conversation sort of drops out after that. Nothing else to say, nothing else to do. Alex waits for Henry's rebuttal but nothing ever comes. Alex wonders if he might always be, metaphorically, waiting in this spot for Henry to open up to him.
They've lost the group. He and Henry have been standing in front of this credenza for so long, forgetting the whole point of the guest book, that he suspects their security escort, Cash, is getting suspicious of why they haven't moved on. Cash directs them to the left toward the rest of the guests.
Alex stops in front of a harmless-looking door. Plain, ordinary, with a huge glass window that leads to a balcony? A small landing? Somewhere outside from what he can tell. But what grabs his attention is the big, bold letters: CALL POLICE BEFORE OPENING.
Henry is unnecessarily close to him, attempting to sort out why by himself. Alex goes straight to the source, points at the sign, and asks, "Why?"
Cash taps the door handle. "Access is extremely prohibited. No one should be out there. So if they spot someone outside on the rooftop without giving a heads-up, you'll tip off the snipers."
The snipers? Alex notices, only then, which is bizarre, how close the Library of Congress is to the Capitol Building.
Alex looks at Henry. Henry looks at Alex. Alex mouths what the f*ck? as Henry guides him away from the door by the small of his back before the intrusive thoughts become intrusive actions. Alex doesn't put up a fight and allows himself to be led away.
Except, except, that one errant thought that hovers over him after they leave: Alex would gladly put himself in mortal peril to have Henry's hand on him again.
In an unprecedented move, they decide to walk back to the hotel. Even in March, the Capitol is still cold, but the bitter crisp air is oddly invigorating. The scenic route takes them past the National Monument, the National Gallery of Art, and alongside one of the Smithsonians. Alex doesn't bring up the conversation from the Library, but he spends too much time contemplating what it all means. No rest for the chronic overthinker.
Naturally, his jumbled thoughts form into an uncategorized list.
- Henry opened up to him, even if it was strained and uncomfortable, about something personal.
- He probably hasn't said that to anyone. Or anyone, recently.
- This is not the first time
- This is not the last time.
Alex doesn't know how he earned it, or if he even deserves that openness from Henry. But Henry chose him to be brave about his troubles, and Alex isn't going to take it for granted.
He doesn't feel pressure to talk about his family in order to match Henry, but he doesn't want Henry to think he's just going to hoard all the information. This is a reciprocal friendship, after all. Wait, are they friends? Henry knows his coffee order, and Alex knows his book tastes, and there is something intimate enough in their interactions to move them past acquaintanceship. Alex isn't going to ask Henry to weigh in on where they stand, it's just asking for rejection. Ignorance is bliss.
Their route takes them along the backside of the White House, separated by a wide green lawn and a high fence. Alex remembers a few years back when his mother's bid for candidacy wasn't so far off. When he believed he'd be peering out the windows of the East Wing from his privileged spot among the Capitol's elite, watching tourists like him and Henry wander past from a safe and secure distance.
"My mom wanted to be president. I thought I would be living there one day." Alex points. And just like that, Henry is added to the very small group of people who know that information. New York and publishing peers don't care about almosts and possibilities.
"Did she change her mind?" Henry asks.
"No, she's still in politics. Just not President of the United States politics, obviously. She lives just outside of D.C. though. Works in the city."
"Are you going to see her while we're here?" A loaded question. Alex wants to, but his mom's lack of response makes him feel roughly 50/50 whether or not it will happen. Not that Henry needs to know that.
Alex shrugs, going for casual and nonchalant. "Trying to."
"I promise that I will be fine for one evening if you'd like to," Henry offers, shoving his hands into the pockets. "I can order my own dinner from room service and everything."
There was a time when Alex didn't actually believe that. He realizes that Henry is proposing his self-reliance because he might believe Alex thinks he's incapable, overly detailed itineraries notwithstanding. "Don't worry, it's not you. Her schedule is just unpredictable."
Henry is watching him as the wind picks up, staining his cheeks a noticeable, blustery pink. "I hope you do. Family is important."
Alex calls a car to take them to the gala. It's excessive, they really could just walk over like they did this afternoon and avoid the unreasonable traffic. But something about tuxedos and dress shoes on tourist-packed sidewalks does not mix. And, well, Alex has never worn a tuxedo in his life. He wants to be somewhat presentable when they first arrive.
He's fussing with the buttons, rolling his shoulders in the ill-fitted rental, and constantly touching at his bowtie to make sure it hasn't come undone—he should have found a clip-on, but too late now—when the elevator doors open.
Out steps Henry who looks, who looks—sh*t, Alex has no words. He is literally out of words, in English and in Spanish. What's the point in being bilingual if not having double the chances of word vomiting something coherent? Alex would settle for a simple hello, but nothing is happening with his stupid, useless mouth.
If Alex wasn't completely firm in his bisexuality before, Henry wearing a perfectly tailored tuxedo would absolutely do it for him. No questions asked. No one, absolutely no one, is allowed to look that distressingly good in a tux. But Henry wears all the clean lines and sharp silhouettes like he was made for it, like he doesn't know what he's doing to Alex's troublingly fragile psyche. He has to know, he has to.
After days of feeling nothing from Henry's monotonous and monochromatic suits and after years of hating his face, Alex's sleep-deprived, stressed-out brain decides: sure, now would be a wholly inconvenient time to discover you have a very particular interest in men dressed in custom-fitted formal wear. Good luck!
f*ck you, brain.
Maybe it's just the tuxedo. Maybe if Henry took it off, there wouldn't be a problem. The mental images that sentence conjured up are worse. f*ck you, again, brain.
Henry walks right up to Alex like he's not having an equally upsetting mental crisis in the span of three seconds. Henry asks him a question, which honestly is offensive on so many levels because Alex still hasn't rebooted his verbal disk drive. The small touch Henry gave him during the tour is f*cking with his ability to have completely normal, platonic thoughts about him. This is all Henry's fault. It's insane, he's insane, Alex is going insane.
Alex feels a little like a deer caught in headlights and doesn't trust his voice to do anything but emit a questioning hm? which sounds too high and distrustful to his own ears.
"Your tie," Henry repeats, gesturing hesitantly, waiting for consent. "If I may?"
Alex nods, and lifts his chin, exposing his throat to Henry in a way that reads far more vulnerable and submissive than he knows it should be. Henry's hands are at his neck adjusting whatever was wrong with his bow tie—everything, probably. So much for YouTube tutorials on a time crunch—and then gone again.
He’s still so close that Alex can feel his residual body heat, his warm breath on an exhale, his blue-eyed focus on his collar. Henry's sandalwood and vetiver cologne is fogging up all his other senses. So, unavoidably, that's when his brain decides to form words.
"I'm not disappointed," Alex says before he stops himself.
Henry tilts his head, visibly perplexed. He wants to tell Henry, don't worry, I'm confused too. He's not sure where this is going either. This is a dangerous choice for his rogue mouth to make without the guidance of his brain.
"You said I would be disappointed by your tuxedo, I'm not." Save it, Alex. He needs to save it because the words he is saying are not something that is appropriate for this, for them.
He finds steadier ground, and somehow stops the mental spiral that the tuxedo invoked. Get it f*cking together, Diaz. "You look like James Bond, which is much better than the super serious author you usually go for."
The corner of Henry's mouth ticks up, fighting a smile. "I suppose that is a step up."
The co*cktail hour takes place inside the Great Hall of the Library. Alex gawks at the lofty ceilings, rising a steep two stories, and ending in radically intricate stained glass windows above them. After their visit in Boston, Alex finds himself looking everywhere, trying to find the pieces that cursory glances would miss. It's not just a historical building, but there is a purpose in the choices and a beauty in everything, even in the absence of something. Henry taught him that.
Henry is across the room, engaged in conversation with two Foundation members and a poetry fellow. It's all very professional and networky and Alex doesn't want to interrupt Henry embracing his extroverted self. He's halfway through one of the evening's signature co*cktails—a boozy mix of cognac, triple sec, and grenadine, named after a playwright—when he catches eyes with Henry. His whole face lights up and he cants his head as a clear signal for Alex to join them.
Alex is introduced to the group as Henry's publicist. Alex slides into the conversation, rolling through notable headlines to do the heavy-lifting and give Henry a breather: book banning, Big 5 mergers, the sorry state of Amazon on bookselling, and an international poetry prize dispute that Alex holds a random amount of information about.
Now that he and Henry are friends—he decided, it's official, even if Henry doesn't know this yet—Alex finds it easier to notice things about Henry that were not so apparent before. Not just the good things, but the nervous things, the parts that Alex had mistaken for annoyance or Henry's attempts to stuff back his irritation. (Although, that's to be determined. Some of it might have been actual irritation; Alex was being purposeful about drawing that out of him.)
But in each other's company they fall into an easy rhythm: hyping up Henry's work, discussing the tour and rallied excitement, exchanging looks with one another: you answer this one and no, you. Every so often, Henry stops twisting the ring on his pinkie and shares a thankful smile with Alex. It makes Alex feel. He feels. It's good, right?
But Alex can also see the exhaustion slipping in, and how Henry hides it with politeness and drilled-down manners. Alex finds ways to pull Henry out of conversations; invents a plausible excuse or some unrelated question to ask him, away from others.
It shouldn't be this easy.
They split ways when Henry is ushered backstage with the other speakers and Alex is left to navigate into the auditorium. He opts for not standing in the back of the room when there are plenty of seats off to stage left. He can give his feet a break from the square-toed dress shoes.
The lights dim. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, makes a few welcoming remarks and introduces their "first prestigious speaker, reading from his new novel, A Brief War In December, Henry Fox."
At the podium, Henry runs through the obligatory thanks: to the hosts, the Library of Congress, the National Book Festival organizers, the committee of literary judges who have given his novels so much consideration over the years, the rest of his fellow authors who have done such groundbreaking work this year, and to the readers—always the readers.
He clears his throat, looking up to the back of the auditorium. Whatever Henry is searching for, and ultimately doesn't find, changes the way he stands. There's a drop in his shoulders, a disappointment sliding across his face. Before Alex can look for himself, Henry starts reading.
"Theo wanted to kill everything that loved him," Henry begins. "It was an ugly sort of thought, but Theo could not bear to take up room in hearts that did not belong to him. He would not be so careless, and he would not let others be thoughtless with something so precious. But that was before the boy.
"The boy, the most incredible thing he had ever witnessed, stood at the back of the room, watching him with unabashed ease. And in that moment, Theo knew that he would be his downfall. The complicated knots in Theo's chest were crumbling—the ones that were tight, unmoveable, and unable to be unknotted. But they've weathered storms and sunlight, rotted with the elements. How easily they become untangled, how slowly they unravel. They were not strong enough to hold on to that misplaced self-loathing for love. And maybe they never were.
"Theo allowed himself to dream endlessly, selfishly, briefly. What would it be like to be loved by that boy? To be set on fire with the absolute audacity of being loved in return? Theo couldn't stand the concept; it was profane, an uproar of disgust in his chest. He was not someone worth loving, but he could love. He could love. And perhaps, that would be enough..."
A scratchy untouchable feeling inches up the back of Alex's neck, scraping faintly against his mind. A knowledge he should have but can't place. A word on the tip of his tongue but in another language he's not familiar with. Alex doesn't know why it forms and builds around Henry's words but it does, emerging as whirring white noise in his ears. He doesn't, he can't hear the rest, even though he's trying. He's trying. He's trying. His mind skips like a loose spoke, unable to catch on the chain, and making a horrible rat-a-tat-tat against his skull. The mental dissonance makes it impossible to concentrate.
Henry finishes. On autopilot, Alex claps with the audience as Henry nods, full of humbled gratitude, and walks off stage. He's swiftly replaced with another author at the podium and Alex wonders if maybe he imagined it all.
He doesn't have Henry beside him to ask immediately about the opening passage, and the indescribable sensation is gone. Like waking from a lucid dream, only to find it deteriorating with consciousness.
It’s just gone.
The awful hour of the morning greets Alex again. He's too tired that he slingshots past exhaustion and finds his second—or third—wind. He's also still a little too drunk to sleep. He never undressed from the gala, just promptly starfished onto his bed with an undone bowtie, an equally undone dress shirt, and tossed his tuxedo jacket over a chair. A replica of Alexander Hamilton's portrait judges him. It's not Alex's fault they share a name.
Whatever possesses him to grab A Brief War in December and start reading it when he should be sleeping is something for future Alex to figure out.
He's roughly fifty pages in and scoops up his phone to text Henry. There shouldn't be an expectation that he is also fighting his world-class insomnia and likely awake, but Alex relishes in the possibility that they both are haunting the evening hours with a hallway between them.
Alex
does he ever talk to the boy?
Bishop
Does who ever talk to what boy?
Alex
in the book. your book. does theo ever talk to him?
The longest stretch of time passes between the texts. The bubble pops up, then disappears a dozen times. What Alex expects is a several-paragraph explanation. What he gets is:
Bishop
You haven’t read it?
Alex
i'm reading it now
i STARTED reading it now
look, h. i have a TBR pile as tall as me. i don’t have time to read everything i want to let alone things i need to for my job
it's like when people assume all that librarians do is read when really 99% is just dealing with the public who are trying to shut them down bc of a pride display during june
don't quote me on that statistic nora will kill me for spreading misinformation
Bishop
Your secret is safe with me.
Alex
are you really not going to tell me?
Bishop
I believe you should find out for yourself.
Alex
you're no fun.
Bishop
So I have been told.
Alex doesn't text again. He doesn't pick the book back up. He falls asleep awkwardly, stretched across his empty king-sized bed and tangled in the duvet. He can't stop thinking about the first line, one that repeats at the beginning of every one of Theo's loops: Theo wanted to kill everything that loved him.
The main events room of the convention center is connected by the employee access corridor, paved with old linoleum and lit by dim fluorescents. Alex and Henry are led by their appointed volunteer past catering carts, down wide hallways, and a janitor's station. It's not exactly classy back here, but it is nice not having to navigate through the attendees and being stopped every few seconds when someone recognizes Henry. Alex thought it was diva behavior to be snuck through the back door, but he appreciates the quiet as they slip in backstage without interruption.
There are cameras broadcasting on CSPAN and massive projector screens on either side of the stage so everyone from any seat can get Henry Fox in high definition. It's all very professional and gives Alex second-hand nervousness.
Henry takes off his jacket backstage so they can run with wire up the back of his shirt. Alex gladly accepts it to hold, but when Henry reaches for it to put back on, Alex moves it out of his grasp.
"Trust me, you don't need it."
"Alex." There's a warning in Henry's voice, a don't start, not now.
"Would I make you look bad?" Alex asks. Henry opens his mouth to answer, and Alex quickly covers it with his free hand. "Don't answer that."
He feels Henry smile against his skin but makes no other move to protest or pull away. Alex hates that he’s the one hiding it but is pleased that it’s also somehow all for him, private underneath his palm. He’s afraid to move it and lose that smile to the rest of the world.
But Alex can’t exactly come on stage with Henry like this.
Shanna DeWitt, the PBS Books correspondent and moderator for Henry's panel, approaches them. Henry jerks away so fast that Alex still feels the phantom shape of Henry's mouth against his hand. He rubs it away on his pants.
"Mr. Fox, are you ready? I’m going to introduce you and then you can walk on stage. It's a full house," Shanna says, excited. Henry forces mutual excitement, but Alex much prefers the subdued version of Henry who was walking with him in the bowels of the convention center.
"That’s my cue." Alex backs away with a salute. He isn't fortunate enough to have reserved seating at the front, and hurries in line, flashing his badge, to find standing room space at the back.
The panel isn't revealing anything groundbreaking, but Henry's demeanor is unlike other events. He speaks in a new animated way, with his hands moving around on every word, inordinately passionate about his work. Alex can't remember a time when Henry was like this. He blames it on the constricting nature of his clothing. Henry can thank him later from the freedom from fashion Alex bestowed by refusing to return the jacket. You're welcome.
"You have four novels now, and you're working on a fifth, and each one is so different but no less spectacular than the others," Shanna says. Henry ducks his head, in equal parts modest and embarrassed, like he doesn't know how to accept these compliments despite the years he's had to adapt to receiving them constantly. Alex knows now that he really doesn't.
"How would you describe how you 'do it' as critics say?"
Henry takes a deep breath and turns to face the whole room. Alex thinks, impossibly, that Henry is looking for him. There's no way he is. And even if Henry is, the stage lights are too bright, the room too dark. Alex is a shadow in a sea of other blown-out, nameless faces. But Alex smiles encouragingly anyway, willing some sort of confidence toward the front of the room. For Henry.
"When I was younger," Henry starts, holding his hand roughly three feet off the ground to indicate how young he actually was when this story takes place.
"I brought home a paper bag from school labeled: beautiful things. I was tasked with filling it, so that we could share with the rest of our classmates the next day. And so I collected anything I could find that was beautiful: pinecones, rocks, leaves, feathers, shells and sea glass, buttons, bottle caps, tarnished coins and old keys, beads. All things shiny, smooth, or brightly colored. It was, inevitably, overflowing as you might imagine. There simply wasn’t enough space in the bag for all my beautiful things. I was a bit of an overachiever and asked my father to help me find another."
Henry takes a long pause and swallows hard. His eyes go unexpectedly distant. Alex has seen this before, but he never understood why or bothered to question it. He never cared enough to. But he starts to notice the signs now—when Henry has a memory too hard or too painful rising to the surface, when he can't linger in it, when he needs to push it back down, down, down.
Alex's heart thumps, sharp and sympathetic, in his chest at the image of Henry on stage, alone with his thoughts. But Alex watches him return to the present, force a smile, and finish answering. Ever the professional author.
"And that is what I try to do with all my novels. They are my paper bag. And I fill them with all the wonderful, impossible, hopeful, beautiful things that I can until there is simply not enough room left inside for anymore. So how I do it is driven by why I do it because if I don't, it's as though I am saying there is nothing beautiful left. And that is not a place I want to be."
Backstage, after the panel, Alex meets Henry again as he's divested of the mic pack and returned to his coat. Alex strains to get his attention, but Henry averts his eyes every time Alex catches them. Eventually, Alex gives in and asks out loud, "You good?"
"Always," Henry says, automatic and detached, as he rolls his shoulders into his jacket. Alex doesn't believe him. He wishes he hung onto the piece of clothing longer. It feels too much like the physical representation of Henry putting armor back on, stiff and unyielding.
He knows they have a break for lunch before his other presentations in the afternoon. Henry can have time to decompress from the urgency of the festival, or Alex is going to fight someone. Literally. Fists and all.
Alex takes his elbow, and Henry finally, finally, looks at him. "Let's get out of here."
A Novel Idea @anovelidea
[Instagram Live Transcript]
Emily Clarke: "Hi, I'm Emily of A Novel Idea and we're live from the National Book Festival, interviewing your favorite authors around the show! Right now, we have Generations author Henry Fox with us. We're so excited to have you!"
Henry Fox: "Thank you for having me."
EC: "We've been asking authors, in ten words or less, what is your favorite part about being an author?
HF: "The community, and the experiences everyone brings to the table."
@fberger420
who is the hottie in the bg who is clearly holding his stuff????
Alex slides Henry a brown-boxed lunch, and settles in beside him at the table in the greenroom. Like the rest of the convention center, the space is less room and more grand conference hall. It's hardly intimate, but the floor-to-ceiling windows are a nice touch.
"Eat. You've got about thirty minutes before your second panel in the South Building on the second floor. And then you have an interview with Aaron Schneider at the New Yorker in the media room next door."
Henry is opening his prepackaged meal, a little awed. "How did you know I—"
"You were picky at the lunch spot in Boston. Figured I'd save you the trouble and decide for you. No tomatoes, right?"
"I was not picky, I was indecisive."
"Same thing," Alex says around a mouthful of sandwich. Propriety and table etiquette are lost when scarfing down his only real meal for the next few hours. His mom asked for late dinner, and Alex knows he'll be clawing at the ceiling by the time they make their reservation.
"Hardly," Henry says, admonishingly, "But thank you."
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex watches Henry rifle through the box: a sandwich, chips, and a plastic-wrapped chocolate chip cookie. He pulls something else out that Alex can't tell what it is until a red-and-white checked paper bag is pushed in front of him. Whatever is inside is leaking through and reeks of vinegar.
"A snack for the train later." Alex is so suddenly and deeply confused. They aren't taking a train later. They aren't taking a train at all. Their flight is tomorrow morning. Henry continues. "It looks like they were out of cucumbers but I believe pickles would be the next best thing."
"Oh, you dick," Alex says, but in his own power move, he attempts number one of their co-authored list and bites into the pickle without breaking eye contact with Henry.
It mostly works. It's not a power move, but Henry laughs and calls him a menace. Alex thinks that's a better-than-expected outcome.
He doesn't realize he's been staring at his inbox for twenty minutes. Solid.
It's such f*cking bullsh*t. Alex is angry and sad, and all kinds of other sh*t in between but the feeling that he failed, like really honestly failed, comes crashing into him. He refuses to leave the spot on the floor of his hotel room that immediately claimed him with the news.
From: Rafael Luna <[emailprotected]>
To: Alex Claremont-Diaz <[emailprotected]>
Subject: Cardenas AuctionAlex,
I'm not going to sugarcoat this: we lost the auction. I know you poured everything into that marketing acquisition plan for Santiago Cardenas' book, and it was goddamn solid. It came down between us and Hachette. Richards and the rest of board had a cap, but they wouldn't meet it. Between you and me, they wouldn't take the monetary risk on a debut.
Losing to a Big 5 is a blow when it comes down to dollars and cents, but you know how these things go.
We can talk more when you're back. Sorry, kid.
—Raf
He's supposed to be at Founding Farmers and Distillery in Chinatown. He's supposed to be eating some kind of fried chicken or pork dumplings with one of their single-malt whiskeys. He's supposed to be spending one lousy dinner with his mom while he's miraculously in Washington, D.C., where she doesn't grill him about his choices to avoid law school or his decision to pursue publishing instead.
What Alex is actually doing is rotting in a stool at the hotel bar, Off the Record, scrolling up and down through hundreds of messages to his mom, with significantly fewer from his mom, only to get stuck on the one from tonight.
Mom
Sorry, baby.
Got caught up at work
Raincheck?
His dinner is a bowl of mixed nuts and a glass of whiskey, neat. He takes another sip, and finds his tumbler empty. So, scratch that, make it two whiskeys for dinner.
Alex knows he can't stay here forever—the bartender kicking him out at closing time doesn't count—but he wants to wallow. It feels good to wallow, where the only things that can see him feel so spectacularly low are strangers and the framed caricatures of notorious political figures on the wall. He can drink away his disappointment, encased by the black-and-crimson color scheme of the speakeasy decor.
He wants to text June and complain that this always happens, even after swearing it didn't—and wouldn't—bother him. But he predicts an I told you so from her and he's just not in the f*cking mood.
His thoughts twist maudlin and cynical under the weight of the alcohol in his system. Alex was an idiot to hope: to hope that his mom might pick her head up from her policy-making legalese and governmental paper-pushing. To hope that she would be just as eager to carve out a few hours for her own son as he was to be with his mom. But dinner is not an opportunity, Alex doesn't hold value in a simple companionable meal. It's a little dark, and maybe a little hyperbolic, to assume that he has depreciated with age and agency in his mother's eyes.
Whatever, sue him, he's been drinking. He's allowed to think he's worthless, when no one, not even his traitorous brain, is going to stop him.
A person slides in beside him, signaling the bartender. "A gin and tonic, please."
Despite droning on about ghosts since the second they arrived, Alex hadn't encountered a single one. Until now, with Henry spooking him by appearing out of thin air. "What are you doing here?"
"We are staying at the same hotel," Henry says, fiddling with the corner of a co*cktail napkin. "And you looked rather sad drinking by yourself."
"How long were you watching me to gauge that I was sad?"
"You're alone in a bar when you told me you were having dinner with your mother. So not that long."
He is a little too buzzed for this conversation, but Henry's presence is cutting through the alcoholic haze and Alex doesn't have the energy to tell him to piss off. He orders another drink.
"Not that I am complaining," Henry says once he's slid his gin and tonic and he's taken his first cautious sip. "But you are unusually quiet."
He knows he is. But, well. Alex still feels like a burden and a little tender about being abandoned by his mom for work. He doesn't have an easy way to tell the story linearly, but he also doesn't have the energy to talk about anything else but this. Saying he's upset that his mom didn't have dinner with him sounds so unrealistically petty when Henry doesn't know the hundreds of other things that led Alex to this point. Getting into the root of the problem without coming off like he's trauma-dumping on Henry feels insurmountable.
Henry is already dealing with his own stuff. Alex is not going to add his parental issues to it. They aren't immediately solvable, anyway.
"You don't want to hear my sh*t. It's just typical family stuff," Alex says, running his finger around the rim of his glass.
Henry's voice is so forceful that Alex actually leans away when he says, "You need to stop doing that."
"Doing what?" Alex's instinct is to get defensive. He does.
"Believing that you or your problems are not worth anyone's time." The certainty in the way Henry says it is more sobering than a cold shower. Alex actually watches Henry compose himself from the outburst. "I may not be the ideal candidate, but I'm here to listen. However long you want to talk."
Alex recalls the conversation with Henry in the offices in the Library of Congress and his desire to wait forever until Henry said what he needed—what he wanted—to say. The fact that their roles are reversed, and Henry is putting real words to the sentiment makes Alex feel lightheaded. It's not dissimilar to the feeling he chases after his calls with June.
"She's not a bad mom. But her priorities aren't people unless it's herself." Alex has never said that out loud before, this universal truth about his relationship to his parents.
"And what about your father?" Henry prods, so, so gently that Alex is concerned he imagined the question.
"Packed up and walked out when the fighting was overshadowing the good stuff about their marriage. But I was in highschool, and had my own life to keep intact. It wasn't like I was in diapers. I could deal with it."
"You shouldn't have to."
"Yeah, but there's a lot of sh*t people shouldn't have to deal with and they do anyway. And I had June, it was okay."
"Was it?" Henry asks. Alex knows the question is innocent, but it cuts deep. There are layers to it. When he looks back on it, there used to be this bolstering effect. Alex, younger than all of his friends, was given his own autonomy to act and do things without restrictions. It was cool. It was formative. It was very adult. He was forced to grow up and learned to be independent without leaning on others.
But there are other times when Alex can admit, only to himself, that he was a good kid. He joined extracurriculars, and studied hard, and overloaded his schedule for AP classes and early admission courses, in order not to think about absenteeism from his parents. And that maybe if he was good enough at all of these things, he could shave off a bit of their attention. He drowned himself on purpose, assuming someone would throw him a life jacket when he struggled to keep his head above water.
All he wanted was his childhood back, before his mother's political tenacity became about putting only herself first, before his and June's careers and accomplishments were a competition for adoration, before his parents' love fractured by their own ambitious careers, forcing everyone to every corner of the country.
So no, it wasn't okay. But Alex can't say that, he can't.
His emotions are likely betraying him, because whatever answer Henry sees on Alex's face, he decides to take control of the conversation to spare Alex having to carry it.
"When my father died," Henry says, and he doesn't waver in front of Alex. It's growth, as small and undeniable as it is. "My siblings and I needed my mother the most. But she pulled away, left us to bear our grief alone and individually, and hasn't been the same since. It doesn't make her a bad mother, and it doesn't negate the times before, but you can want so much from a parent and still not get it."
"But I'm an adult now. I shouldn't get bent out of shape because my mom has a life and it doesn't line up with mine." Alex sounds like he's attempting to convince himself rather than Henry.
"It doesn't make it fair to you, to always be left disappointed. You should be allowed to want care and attention from your parents without strings attached, and to get it. People, your family, the people that care about you, should choose you first. You deserve that much."
Alex isn't used to people choosing him. Just the idea of being first to someone is a lot. A fantasy that shouldn't be a fantasy at all. Alex's attention is a little unfocused as he assesses Henry next to him. Alex wasn't Henry's first choice for the evening, but they are each other's choices at the moment, and that's enough.
They sit in companionable silence, a first for Alex, and finish their drinks.
Henry pays both of their tabs. "Are you certain you don't want to get dinner?"
"No, I'm good." Alex rubs his eyes. He's tired but he has sh*t to do. "I'm just going to chug a ton of water and go to bed."
Henry looks sad and concerned, but the whiskey won't let Alex examine Henry's expression any further. "All right. Do knock if you need anything Alex, I am, as always, right across the hall."
He's stressed. That's normal. Alex runs on a low-level baseline of stress. But there's an angry email from another agent languishing in his inbox, asking about lack of coverage and lamenting their disappointment. There's another email from an author who is upset, even though Alex did everything he could. The news cycles were brutal, pushing or killing coverage of anything that wasn't current events or most anticipated books.
Then, there's the auction email that doesn't hurt less after the half-dozen times he's read it and still hasn't compiled a simple reply. And he can't help but think about his semi-drunken, unglamorous conversation with Henry at the bar and whether or not he should be feeling embarrassed about it. Alex keeps pressing on emotional bruises and seeing how long he can withstand the pain.
The feeling from Henry rallied him long enough to pull on pajamas and climb into bed, but now it's too far away to grab onto when he made the mistake of checking his email, slightly tipsy. He feels like sh*t. It's all his fault. And probably the alcohol.
When he first hears it, Alex assumes the noise is an auditory manifestation of his massive hangover forming. The noise is so loud that Alex starts to think he might have fallen asleep and this is some f*cked-up nightmare making even his unconsciousness restless and miserable. Stress dream on stress dream. It wouldn't be the first time his brain was an asshole, even when sleeping.
But the more the persistent blaring continues, the more he realizes it's the fire alarm, and the hotel might be actually burning down.
This is how it happens. He's really is going to become a f*cking ghost and have to spend this weird purgatory limbo sharing the same square footage with some dead president's twice-removed cousin's sister's friend or whatever, if he doesn't leave right now.
At the same time Alex is throwing himself out the door of his room, shoving on his dress shoes (the only ones he could immediately find) and his glasses (he's certifiably blind without them), Henry is there.
Henry is there, standing across from him, looking frazzled and out of sorts, wearing a sheet mask, a pair of green pajama pants, and a long sleeved henley. The buttons at the collar are undone, the material stretches sinfully tight across his chest and around his arms, and accentuates everything Henry has ever hidden underneath his starch-pressed suits. Alex sees it all in stunning clarity.
So it wasn't the tuxedo then.
The thing is. The thing is, the shirt is also gray. Which, based on past experiences, should not be doing anything for him in any way. But Henry was right: gray certainly is a color.
f*ck, f*ck, f*ck. Alex has so many regrets. He takes back every bad thing he has ever said about the color gray and the color gray on Henry. Alex is not remotely artistic, but finds himself desperately, suddenly wanting to be. He's going to build a monument to Henry in shades of gray: his smooth skin in pewter, the shadowed contours of his cheekbones in gunmetal, his hair in winter solstice, the wide line of his shoulders covered in thundercloud, his lips dashed with graphite, his body awash in nordic storm.
His mouth is simultaneously dry while salivating, which is so inappropriate and entirely unfair. Since the library, the tuxedo and now this, Henry Henry Henry has resulted in a hostile takeover of 95% of Alex's brain capacity.
How is he supposed to get anything done? How the hell is he going to stop staring? (Because he is staring, he can feel the burn in his eyes from the unforeseen inability to blink.) And worst of all: why is Alex thinking about how attractive Henry looks right now when they are possibly going to be ash in less than five minutes?
What is absolutely not helping this situation is Henry's face is doing that weird complicated thing again behind the sheet mask. The corner of his mouth twitches. Alex has the nearly uncontrollable urge to touch.
But it's Henry who speaks first. "You wear glasses."
"You have something on your face," Alex blurts out in response. It's not even a question or an answer. Just a fact. Henry doesn't get it until he does, swears a beautifully delicious Christ as loud as the fire alarm that is still going off, and pulls the mask from his face.
"Do you think it will stop?" Alex asks, recoiling when the emergency lights start doing that strobe-light thing.
Henry starts heading toward the end of the hallway. "I would rather not find out if it doesn't."
Panicked hotel staff usher them down the emergency stairwell, and it's not until they are outside that Alex realizes how goddamn cold it is. With arms crossed, bouncing on the balls of his feet in his sweatpants and a thin t-shirt, Alex thinks forget the fire. He's going to die from hypothermia.
Instinctively, Alex huddles closer to the nearest body—which just so happens to be Henry—and does the only thing a sane person, who is suffering the same arctic fate, would do. He slings his arm around Henry's waist. For warmth, obviously. Nothing else. Henry stiffens for a moment too long, where Alex thinks he's overstepped some kind of unspoken boundary, before Henry follows, by draping a tentative arm across Alex's shoulders.
Alex feels measurably better leeching heat off Henry. He tucks so nicely against his side, and Henry settles against Alex in the same way Alex is against him.
His body however does not stop shaking like a terrified chihuahua. "It was nice knowing you."
Henry huffs and Alex can see his breath in the air. "Let us not start with the goodbyes now. We are still both very much alive."
"I like to be prepared on the eve of my popsiclization. Popsiclizing? Help me out here, New York Times bestselling author."
"You must know that neither of those are words," Henry says. He seems to be considering something before he tips his chin down to ask, "At the risk of sounding macabre, do you have a list for your potential transformation into a popsicle?"
"At the risk of being contradictory," Alex mocks in Henry's voice, but it's a little teeth-chattery and honestly a terrible impression, "I don't. Not for this. Didn't think I would have to add what to say about me when frozen outside because of a stupid fire alarm."
"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty."
"Yes, and as you can see with your perfect vision, mine is not. I'm already f*cked."
"We'll go down together then."
Together. Alex finds solace in that.
Two fire trucks, one police car, and a predictably false alarm later, everyone is given the all clear and allowed back into the hotel. Alex and Henry climb the several flights of stairs to their rooms instead of waiting for the line of guests at the elevator.
Their steps slow as they come up on their rooms.
"I guess I'll see you in like three hours," Alex says, fussing with his keycard to get back into his room. Henry does the same.
"Despite the possible threat to our lives, this was more interesting than what I would have been doing."
"Hey, self-care is important," Alex says, tapping his cheek as a reminder that he did, indeed, see Henry's nighttime routine and will, indeed, remember that fact forever.
Henry rolls his eyes, but his smile is soft and endearing. "Goodnight, Alex."
"Goodnight, Henry."
He waits until Henry disappears behind his door and hears it lock behind him. The empty space that he once occupied feels lonelier than it has any right to be. Alex wants Henry to come back out. He wants to spend the next three hours with him, rather than separate in their respective rooms, where Alex knows neither of them will sleep. It's silly to wait, he knows it is but—
Alex lingers in the doorway. He can't stay there all night, but he wants to take a second look. Just in case.
