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It starts with a memory.
Alex can’t remember when his mother quit smoking. But he does remember her with a cigarette in her hand, the way it dangled from her elegant fingers and the cloud of gray smoke drifting up into the air around her. He remembers the way she’d inhale; the faint smell of it that was both unpleasant and compelling; the way she’d sometimes hand her cigarette off to his dad and they’d share it, without words; the intimacy of it, one of the few acts of ease he saw between them as he got older. They didn’t fight over cigarettes, and there was always a sense of calm that came over his mom’s face when she exhaled smoke into the air.
That’s what Alex remembers most. The calm.
There’s also his father’s cigars, and that distinct smoky smell that he carries everywhere on his skin, a scent that can take Alex back to being five or six in an instant; the pervasive image of his dad smiling around a cigar, looking warm and relaxed. And the way his mom’s fingers still twitch sometimes, especially when she’s nervous. Like a cigarette could fix everything that’s ailing her.
It’s that part that Alex is focusing on today. The solution of it all. It’s April; Henry has been in England for the better part of two weeks, attending ribbon cuttings and church services and smiling that press smile that Alex hates so much because he knows that it isn’t real, isn’t his Henry. At the same time, there’s school-- so much of it, all the time, that he feels like he’s drowning. Exam week looms on the horizon, marked on his calendar in bright red pen that taunts him every minute of the day.
He’s slipping. He knows he is; it’s just so hard to remember to eat or pick things up or take breaks or monitor how much coffee he’s drinking when Henry isn’t around. Not because Henry is responsible for making him do these things-- Alex is a grown man who takes good care of himself, most of the time. It’s just that his brain works better alongside Henry’s, when their routines are in sync and he can follow the steps Henry sets for them. David has gone with Henry this time around too, which is fair because David is Henry’s therapy dog, technically speaking, and god knows Henry needs all the comfort he can get and it’s not coming from Alex, who’s so busy and buried in revisions and papers and highlighted study notes that he’s not sure he’ll ever dig his way out.
So it’s just Alex, alone in the brownstone; technically, he still lives in his own apartment, but he’s here more times than not and he’s been camping out since Henry left under the guise of watering Henry’s plants and looking after the place. Really, he just likes being in Henry’s space, especially when their calls and texts are so few and far between. He knows that they used to do this long-distance thing full time, but for the life of him he can’t remember how it was ever bearable. Maybe it wasn’t, but he just hadn’t yet learned what it felt like to have Henry in reach any time he wanted.
He’s not sure what time it is when he wanders into the kitchen for more coffee between revising a particularly tricky section of a paper he’s working on and discovers that he’s out. The bag is there in his hand, empty and taunting, but he still can’t entirely comprehend it. Cursing under his breath, he sets out for the corner store with Cash following behind like always, hat jammed on his head in a rush over his unkempt curls. He’s been in need of a haircut for weeks now, but like everything else-- he just doesn’t have the time.
It’s one of the things he likes about Park Slope, though, and New York in general-- that virtually no one gives a shit about the First Son, and that a hat is more than enough to keep people from bothering him most of the time. It won’t take him long, he reasons, to grab more coffee and maybe something to eat-- he can’t remember what he had for breakfast, and there’s a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like June warning him that he can only self-destruct so much. He pushes that away-- it’s not destructive, not really. He just has a lot to do right now, and things will get better soon, anyway. Henry’s return is marked on the calendar in blue pen; a respite from the red, only four days out now.
He can make it that long, he reasons, and then their routine will fall back into place and it’ll be easier. He’s taking his coffee and bananas to the checkout, already fishing around in his pocket for the cash he’d hastily picked up from the bowl near the door in Henry’s entryway, when his eyes land on something else.
He feels Cash’s eyes on him when he walks away with a fresh pack of cigarettes, but he pretends that he doesn’t.
It’s bad for him. He knows. It’s just that he doesn’t sleep well without Henry anymore, and there’s this paper looming and two smaller tests, not to mention the actual exams, and he’s stressed, and there’s this picture in the back of his mind of his mother’s face going calm under a cloud of cigarette smoke. He doesn’t like it, but he does it anyway-- forearms on the windowsill facing the tepid spring evening at the back of the brownstone where there’s a small patio and a fence, thoroughly vetted by his and Henry’s security. He knows better than to be seen like this, but it’s quiet here. Nobody’s going to bother him.
Maybe that’s the thing. There’s no one around to bother him, except Cash who wouldn’t, and June who would, but she’ll never know about this round of Alex’s favorite game-- testing which of his self-destructive habits will clear his head enough to allow him to cram a little more information into it. His heels are still raw from the run he’d tried two days ago, which hadn’t worked; meanwhile, the coffee has long-since lost its efficacy. He’s been out of cinnamon for three days now, long past the point of drinking it for enjoyment.
He draws in a breath, and thinks back and back-- back to the days of his mom’s cigarettes and his own habit of taking little pills out of Liam’s bathroom cabinet. The cigarette in his hand is like that, a little. The lighter version, the grown-up shadow of his younger self peeking out from his hiding place.
He’s okay. He is. It’s just harder like this, and maybe it’ll be easier if he can take the edge off, reveal the mask of calm underneath.
Alex breathes in, allows his lungs to expand, and suppresses a cough. He exhales, and the smoke drifts. Just like his mom’s used to do, dissipating into the air until it was pale, and then nothing.
And Alex calms.
The pack of cigarettes is forgotten after that night, two missing and the rest untouched.
Alex sleeps, and wakes feeling better. One test goes well, and that helps. Henry will be coming home soon, which also helps. He channels his energy into cleaning and cooking, making sure that there’s something nice to welcome Henry when he gets home.
The kitchen is alive with the vibrant scent of spice-- not too heavy, Alex was careful-- and sizzling meat and fresh tortilla when Alex checks his watch, knowing it’s almost time for Henry to be back. He’d received a text in confirmation of that fact not long ago, and he’s been jittery with excitement ever since. Unable to wait any longer, he reaches for the stray zip-up jacket he’d left on the hook near the door a couple of nights earlier, and shrugs it onto his shoulders, slipping out into the April air on the front steps to wait.
It isn’t long-- a matter of three or four minutes-- before Henry’s car is pulling up to the curb and there it is; that familiar stumble in his chest at the sight of him, blonde and broad-shouldered and familiar, strong-armed and warm. David bounds up the steps to Alex, and Henry follows, suitcase in hand, and they tumble over the threshold, both of them feeling home.
And then, in a matter of moments, everything tilts on its axis and goes wrong.
One second, Alex is wrapped up in Henry’s arms, and the next, Henry is pulling away, distance between them.
“Baby?” Alex asks, when he moves to follow and Henry only pulls back further. There’s an odd look on his face and a box in his hand, and-- oh.
He’s holding the cigarettes Alex had forgotten about entirely, plucked from the pocket of his jacket, and a flash of humiliated guilt burns through Alex’s chest at the suddenly closed-off look on Henry’s face.
“What is this?” Henry asks. His voice has taken on a quality that Alex doesn’t quite recognize, it’s been so long since he’s heard it.
“Uh,” Alex answers eloquently. “Cigarettes.”
Henry’s blue eyes are sharp. Suddenly, Alex wishes he were anywhere but in the entryway of Henry’s-almost-their home.
“It’s not a big deal,” he starts. He can’t help it, to go on the defensive, to want to do anything to smother the flame of conflict that’s sparking between them. It comes with a wave of something like desperation; he’s missed Henry so much, and only wants them to be okay, only wants to hug Henry and taste him on his mouth and forget about the depths of the places he’d taken himself in his absence, places that he’s ashamed of in ways he can’t articulate.
But it’s entirely the wrong thing to say, and he knows it the minute something bright and awful flashes over Henry’s face.
“Not a big deal?” Henry repeats, voice pitched high as he gestures with the pack of cigarettes. He looks so tired, Alex realizes suddenly, seized with the sudden and fiercer urge to draw him close and kiss the exhaustion off of his face. “Alex. Did you smoke these?”
He hesitates. “Yes,” he says. “Two of them. But—“
“Then it is a big deal!” Henry exclaims. “Are you out of your mind?”
“No,” Alex answers, automatic and defensive in spite of himself. “It was just— one rough night, Henry, it was stupid—“
“Well, you’re right about one thing!” Henry says. “It was stupid—“
“Hey,” Alex interjects, fighting back a reflexive streak of anger that rushes in. He’s not angry with Henry, not really, but Henry is the one in front of him, pointing out all the ways in which Alex has failed.
The concern written into every line of Henry’s face escapes his notice in the moment.
“Alex,” Henry says. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” Alex grits out. “I was stressed! I was— I don’t know, Henry, I was tired and stressed out and—“
“And you didn’t even call me?” Henry asks, aghast. “You supposed that the-the cancer sticks were the better solution than reaching out to someone?”
“Reaching out to—“ Alex sighs, running an anxious hand through his curls and leaving them a mess. “You were busy, I couldn’t just—“
“Did it ever occur to you,” Henry starts, raising his voice to interject, “that cancer killed my father, Alex? That maybe I would rather be interrupted than to lose someone else I love to another kind?”
His voice wears thin in the middle, threatening to break, and it all comes crashing down on Alex at once, torrential and pouring and singularly awful.
He blinks, and his eyes burn with tears.
Across the room, Henry’s hardened expression flickers.
Suddenly, all Alex can smell or taste is the lingering smoke on his jacket. He hadn’t even noticed it before, but now it feels oppressive, choking. He scrambles to get it off, clawing at the fabric and tangling his fingers in it in his haste to fling it to the floor, where it falls with the faint click of the zipper hitting the hardwood.
And then, all at once, Henry’s there— back in his space, pack of cigarettes similarly discarded on the hall table. His hands find Alex’s shoulders, and he draws in a breath that smells like bergamot and home.
“I’m sorry,” Alex says, horrified to find that his voice comes out choked. “God, I didn’t even— I’m so—“
“Hey,” Henry murmurs. Alex raises his head, and it’s all ocean blue eyes and the warm tide of concern— no sign of the anger he’d seen before. Henry’s face blurs through a fresh onslaught of tears.
“Alex,” Henry says. His hands are on Alex’s face, warm and familiar. “It’s alright, love. Breathe with me.”
It’s hard, but Alex tries; eventually, he gets past the lingering phantom feeling of cigarette smoke in his lungs and drops his head to Henry’s shoulder tentatively.
Henry’s response is to wrap him up into a hug, and Alex’s breath shudders.
“I’m sorry I snapped with you,” Henry murmurs. Alex shakes his head quickly, pulling back enough to look into his face.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathes. “I didn’t even think, Henry, it was so selfish, I—“
Henry nods, reaching up to smooth one of Alex’s curls behind his ear.
“It’s alright,” he says softly. “It’s okay, Alex, I know. You’re alright.”
It’s clear now, in the light of Alex’s tears and the sound of his shuddering breath, that there’s more to this than just an impulsive decision. There’s other evidence, too-- bloodstains on the backs of Alex’s tennis shoes where they wait by the door that hadn’t been there when Henry left for England.
Alex looks up at him, exhaustion plain in the bruised darkness beneath his eyes.
“I shouldn’t have--”
“No,” Henry murmurs. “You shouldn’t have. But-- you’re not selfish. It was a lot, while I was gone? Hm?”
Alex nods. It’s difficult to admit, but the words settle into his chest with a stone weight.
“C’mere,” Henry mumbles, and then Alex is pulled in, wrapping Henry in the tightest hug he can manage, until his fingers are wrapped in Henry’s shirt and their heartbeats stumble into sync. “I got you,” Henry whispers into his ear.
Litanies of apology rise to Alex’s tongue, but Henry catches them before they can find air: presses his lips gently to Alex’s mouth, swallows down his confession and apology all at once, and only pulls back to look at Alex’s face, sweeping a warm look of concern over his features.
“It didn’t help,” Alex whispers, warm breath against Henry’s cheek.
Henry hums, the vibration of it echoing through the bone of Alex’s jaw.
“I know, darling,” he says softly.
There’s a beat of silence.
“I didn’t mean to—“ Alex starts.
Henry shakes his head.
“We’re alright,” he insists. “Promise.”
There are three soft squeezes to the tender spot on Alex’s waist where Henry’s hand has settled: the proof of the promise, the certainty.
And there will be more to this, a real conversation; a hard look at Alex’s habits that he knows he needs. But for now, they’re okay. Alex lets out a soft breath and puts his hand on Henry’s cheek, reveling in the way Henry’s smile tugs under his touch-- the real one, the Henry one. The one that’s just for Alex.
And so, tonight, there’s this: Henry and Alex, tired but okay; tacos and a clean house; the pack of cigarettes tossed into the garbage and forgotten. A zip-up jacket pulled off of the floor and thrown into the washing machine with the detergent Henry buys for Alex’s sensitive skin because spare pieces of his laundry get mixed in so frequently.
And Henry, kissing Alex deeper and deeper and longer until they’re equally out of breath in the incandescent light of the kitchen.
And Henry, pulling back and smiling.
“I see your two crisis cigarettes haven’t affected your lung function,” he says dryly, eyes alight.
Relief washes through Alex, and he chases it with his sharpest, sweetest grin.
“Come on, baby,” he says. “Let me show you how my lung function is.”
Henry’s clear, ringing laugh lingers all the way up the stairs.