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Alex wakes with a post-it note slowly peeling away from the vaguely sweat-sticky skin on his forehead. “What the fuck,” he grumbles, rolling over in search of Henry—the only possible culprit unless Nora has broken in again.
But he finds the bed empty and chilly on Henry's side, and his heart rate picks up without his permission. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and the post-it dislodges and flutters across his face and into the bedding. He opens his eyes. No need to panic yet, he reminds himself firmly (read: flimsily); Henry at least left a note this time—a small consolation if he's gone and—
Alex finds the square of baby blue paper and squints at it.
Good morning, my love.
As much as I adore our sleepy mornings in bed and as difficult as it was to draw myself from your side, I couldn't sleep and didn't want to wake you. I'll be reading in the lounge and missing you already.
Enjoy your well-deserved lie-in and text me when you wake up; I'll have coffee and crepes ready and waiting for you just as I am and always will be.
Yours ♡
Alex finds himself swiping relieved tears from his cheeks and huffing out the last of his anxieties in a nervy chuckle, finally relaxing and melting back into the mattress. He sinks into his pillow before shoving it out of the way and pulling Henry's under his cheek instead, and he falls easily back to sleep with the note clutched in his hand.
When Alex wakes up again, he carefully smooths out the post-it and stows it in his nightstand.
HRH LOML ♡
baby
come back to bed for cuddles
don't even fucking care about coffee
just get your cute butt back in here, wales
Bossy much?
you love it
You are an entire plague, darling.
and yet u love me!!!!
so who’s the jsakajslañasksla ksñalbdlwñwfbr hh rvrgr sklñ
“Mmph!”
Henry smiles soppily down at Alex from where he’s hovering over him, hands braced on the bed on either side of Alex’s head. He leans down and smacks a kiss to Alex’s cheek. Alex lets his phone get lost in the blankets and gazes up at Henry, utterly and entirely pleased with the consequences of his tendency to be a little shit.
“Cuddles over coffee, hm?” Henry says, all low and grumbly, “My, my, do I feel special.”
“Cuddles and then coffee,” Alex corrects defiantly.
Henry raises a brow.
“Ooh! And crepes, you said?” Alex says giddily, “Cuddles, coffee and crepes—perfect way to soothe the fucking heart attack I had when you—” Alex feels his eyes widen in disbelief at his own traitorous mouth, so he squeezes them shut and turns his face into Henry’s wrist. He kisses the soft skin there, and then bites him.
“Oi—” Henry says around a huff. But Alex can still feel the soft, pinched look on Henry’s face, so he quickly brings his thighs up around Henry’s waist and flips him underneath Alex.
“I…” Alex starts clumsily, “Sorry. I promise I’m trying not to hold it against you.”
Henry frowns up at him. Alex kisses the crease in his brow.
“You scared me,” he says. “I thought that you…”
Henry swallows and nods. “I left you a note.”
“I know. Thank you,” Alex says, “It helped. A lot.”
“I’m an insomniac,” Henry says gently. “You’re not often going to wake before me.”
“I know.”
“Okay,” Henry says. “All right, my love. What can I do to—”
Alex shakes his head. “No. It’s not your fault that I’m so scared of—” He averts his eyes and chews on his lip until Henry reaches up to nudge it free from his teeth.
Henry’s mouth pinches and he says slowly, “Well. I certainly didn’t help when I ran away and left you in Texas.” He looks… relieved, somehow, and Alex realises that Henry’s never said it aloud before. They’ve talked about it, of course, and Henry has apologised profusely and proven through his actions since that he’s committed both to Alex and to working on communicating instead of running when things get complicated.
“If there’s anything I can do to assuage that fear in any way…”
“Marry me,” Alex says. He squeezes his eyes shut and rolls off of Henry, landing on the bed with a little bounce that doesn’t remotely belong in the tense air of the moment. “I meant move in with me,” he says desperately, dragging his hands down his face. “Or—well. Let me move in with you. You can’t run away from me if you’re stuck with me living right on top of you in your own house.”
The bed shifts.
Alex shivers at the rush of cold air that replaces Henry’s warmth beside him, and he flails, reaching out for Henry. “I—”
“I’m right here, love,” Henry says, catching one of his hands and holding on tightly. “I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I’m quite prepared to promise not to ever—”
Alex flutters his eyes open to find Henry smiling nervously and clutching a ring box in his free hand. Alex’s breath catches in his throat and his eyes grow wet. “Yes,” he chokes out before Henry can even ask. “Hell fucking yes, baby.” He shakes his head and laughs a little hysterically. “Unless that’s not what I think it is because—”
“Breathe, will you, darling?” Henry says, “If you give me my hand back for a second and let me—”
“No,” Alex says quickly, holding onto Henry’s hand for dear life. He reaches out with his own free hand and wiggles his fingers expectantly, and together, giggling their way through it, they get the ring box open.
Sitting innocently inside is a shiny silver key and an even shinier silver ring.
“Share my life with me,” Henry requests softly, “and let me share in yours. Move in with me, marry me—Mmph—”
Alex laughs into the kiss and bites Henry’s lip accidentally and then again on purpose. “You motherfucker,” he says breathlessly. “I hate you. I love you so, so fucking much. Yeah, sweetheart. Yes yes yes—”
Henry makes use of his favourite way to shut Alex up and kisses him again, guiding it into a softer, sweeter thing than the last one was. It’s no less easy to get carried away, and Alex revels in the immense, intense love they each push into the kiss, the taste of tea on his lips. He noses at Henry’s cheek, kisses his jaw, and draws away.
“Gross,” he mutters, “You’re kissing me with my morning breath?”
“Well,” Henry says, “it is a special occasion after all.”
“Oh, is it? And what might that be?”
Henry rolls his eyes and searches for the ring box, lost in the sheets. He holds it up between them. “It’s not every day that a man gets engaged to the subject of his adolescent fantasies,” he says wistfully, “If only little teenaged Alex could have foreseen this turn of events, hm?”
“Hey!” Alex cries, laughing and shoving at Henry’s chest. “I’m gonna kill June for telling you about that,” he grumbles. “Besides, you’re the one who—”
“Has loved you from the beginning. Yes, I know,” Henry says softly, “I’m no longer ashamed of that, thanks in no small part to you.”
“Sap,” Alex accuses, eyes wet and smile wobbling precariously.
“Yes, dear,” Henry says patiently, “I’m afraid that’s not quite news, either.”
“I love you so fucking much,” Alex says, “Fuck. Gimme the ring before I start crying and drown us both.”
Henry laughs prettily and takes Alex’s left hand. “Alex, my love…” He looks down at the ring box and rolls his eyes. “Together?”
Alex grins wetly and accepts the box so Henry has a hand free to take out the ring and slide it onto Alex’s finger. “Forever,” Alex says. He brings his hand up to cradle Henry’s jaw, staring giddily at the ring resting against Henry’s flushed cheekbone. They meet in a lingering kiss that leaves them both breathless, and as Alex forces himself to breathe, his attention falls back to the key in the box between their bodies.
“I already have a key to the brownstone,” Alex says, “What’s this one open? Your diary?”
Henry pinches Alex’s side. “Yes,” he says, rolling his eyes. He shakes his head and laughs. “No, you bloody cretin. It… I—” He winces and closes his eyes against Alex’s curious, adoring gaze.
“Sweetheart?”
Henry blinks and meets Alex’s eye. “You believe me when I say I don’t ever want to leave you again?”
“I… Yeah,” Alex says carefully, “I do. But I know you didn’t want to leave the first time.”
Henry nods slowly. “I want you—us—forever. I want this life with you. I don’t think I quite trust yet that I’ll let myself have it.”
Alex frowns, gaze darting between Henry, the key, and the ring on his finger. Henry takes the key from the ring box and presses it firmly into Alex’s hand.
“Against the enormity of the love I have for you, the physical walls of Kensington Palace are the last and most impenetrable defence I have. I don’t want them, and I hope to have the strength never to retreat behind them again, but we shouldn’t pretend as if they aren’t there. So, this… This is a master key,” he says quietly, “In case I ever need you to rescue me from the clutches of my grandmother or to shout at me for being an obtuse arsehole again.”
“Henry…”
“I hope so terribly that you’ll never have need for it, and I will forever be grateful that you didn’t let the palace walls stop you once already, but I hope, too, that you—”
“Will always fight for you. Promise,” Alex says. “I don’t think we’ll need it,” he adds confidently, “I believe in you, baby. But, fuck. Thank you, for trusting me with your heart and your walls. This is…” He looks down at the key and grins. “This seems like a huge security flaw.”
Henry smiles—sad and amused both. “My mum had this made for Dad in secret, in case she decided to run away and needed a rescue. I didn’t even know we still had it, but… Philip found it for us. He even had it polished and engraved.”
“Philip as in the dickhead brother who hates us?” Alex says. And then, less surprised and more delightedly intrigued: “Engraved?” He brings the key up to his face and squints at it until Henry laughs and slides his glasses onto his face for him. “Break in in case of obtusity.”
Henry wrinkles his nose. “I’d have chosen something a little more poetic, but…”
“It’s perfect,” Alex says, laughing. “See, I knew I’d convince him to come around and be a person! Look at him breaking all kinds of protocol for his brother’s mouthy American boyfr—”
Henry cuts him off with a kiss. “Fiancé,” he says, “My mouthy American fiancé.”