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Alex and Henry are not that couple. The one so disgustingly in love that everyone else around them is slapped in the face with it repeatedly—
“False.”
Henry’s chest shakes with barely restrained laughter, and Alex leans back against him firmer without looking back. “The fuck do you mean false?”
June raises her eyebrows, and motions towards them. “Look at yourselves.”
Alex looks down at himself; his left arm is strewn across his chest diagonally, fingers delicately laced at his shoulder with Henry’s. Legs stretched out in front of him, bracketed by miles and miles of Henry’s legs; one of Henry’s legs is folded up, and Alex’s free arm is resting upon it.
He twists around to where he’s pressed up against Henry’s chest, sweet warmth radiating between them, the faintest echo of a thud of a rushing heartbeat that may or may not be in sync with his own pounding up against his shoulder blades. He tips his head to the side to slip past Henry’s chin and look up at him; finds him already watching, a coy little smirk radiating fondness and joy on his lips, eyes twinkling with mirth as they dip down to Alex’s lips almost unconsciously before returning to his eyes.
Heat swashes over Alex’s cheeks, a tender blush at being seen, and known, and loved in spite of it all.
“See!” June exclaims.
“Right there, that’ll do it,” Nora adds, nodding as she brings her beer to her lips.
Alex tears his gaze away from Henry, even as Henry dips his chin to press a kiss to his temple. “Okay,” Alex says, “but it’s his fault. You’re telling me someone looks at you like that and you wouldn’t swoon? Bullshit.”
Henry presses his lips to the shell of Alex’s ear, a gentle breath coasting over the skin. Alex represses a shiver in a near miss, his eyes fluttering, as Henry murmurs, “swoon, is it?”
He huffs, despite himself, and lightly jabs his elbow at Henry. “Don’t let it get to your head, Wales.”
“Dunno,” Henry murmurs, the ghost of a smile stretching along the words. “Might keep that one for a good, long time.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Begrudgingly.”
“ Elatedly .”
“Did you forget we’re here again?”
Alex groans, turning back to his sister. “ Why are you still here?” She blinks, unimpressed, and he sighs, long and exaggerated and maybe, perhaps, a bit childishly. “Whatever,” he says, waving his free hand, even as Henry turns his smile into his hair. “You and Nora are equally co—“
“I know he’s not about to say we’re as codependent as them,” Nora interrupts, sitting up.
“Couldn’t possibly be,” June adds. “Not when they haven’t let one another out of arms reach all night.”
“I can let him go whenever I want to.”
June motions for him to do so.
An arm winds around Alex’s stomach and tugs him closer to Henry. Pulling him up tighter against his chest. The phantom feel of his heartbeat feels so much more real; Alex can’t even begin try and articulate where his begins and and Henry’s ends. Two hearts in sync, flush and aligned and right where they belong.
“No,” he says, petulantly, as he settles his free hand overtop Henry’s. “I don’t want to.”
Henry smiles, before lifting his head and nodding. “I concur.”
Nora turns to June. “Did you hear that?”
“I did.”
“He concurs.”
Henry presses a kiss to the top of Alex’s head, and Alex leans into the pressure as June and Nora start giggling and talking to each other rather than to them.
“We need a new friend group,” He says.
Henry huffs a laugh into his hair. “This one’s lovely.”
“They bully us.”
“Because they love us.”
Alex harrumphs, and Henry holds him tighter. “Just like I love you.”
If there were a way to physically turn into a pile of goo; here lies Alex, gooey and disgustingly in love and actually, as it turns out, when he twists back around to meet Henry’s gaze again, he doesn’t really care that they are that couple. Because there’d been a stretch there, where this reality, this beautiful fucking reality where they can be at ease and themselves and happy and sickeningly in love had been nothing more than fantasy.
A dream drafted on a dock washed away with the sea.
Only the winds picked it up, and the universe dusted it off, and Alex and Henry took it in hand and gave it the strength and the courage and the determination to make it real, and now, here they are:
Sitting on the floor of June and Nora’s apartment during movie night, carefree and wonderful and June and Nora tease, but he sees the pride in Junes eyes when she looks at them; the curl of Nora’s lips when she rolls her eyes at them. They’re just as happy that they have this as they are.
Alex puckers his lips. “I require sustenance.”
Henry raises an eyebrow. “You’ll have to move if you want me to grab you another beer, love.”
“Get up?” Alex scoffs. “Fat chance. I’m comfy. And I wasn’t talking about a beer.”
“Then?”
“You’re gonna make me say it?”
Henry grins. “I am.”
Alex rolls his eyes and tugs on the hand laced with his own. “Kiss me, damn it.”
“Oh,” Henry says, smile softening as he leans in. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”
“‘M always nice.”
Henry laughs, vibrant and loud before pressing the laughter to Alex’s lips, gentle; fleeting. He pulls away in slow motion, the laughter dying as he blinks and meets Alex’s own hazy gaze. He hugs Alex tighter to himself.
Alex sinks into his warmth, nuzzling into him and turning back to the movie.
They’re that couple.
He smiles to himself as Henry kisses his temple and settles against the couch, molding Alex to himself until they’re both functionally comfortable.
Fuck it.
They earned this.