Chapter Text
There was a time, not too long ago, when Alex would have rejected the idea of getting a Saturday morning coffee with someone else.
He probably developed this view because his old roommate at NYU – a threat to Alex’s sanity named Hunter Huntington – was a verifiable nightmare. At the time, Xpresso House – a downtown, run-of-the-mill chain store with questionable spelling choices – became Alex’s sanctuary from his roommate’s messiness, poor understanding of personal space and negligible grasp on when to shut the fuck up.
Alex also has a poor grasp on the latter, so his frustration with Hunter is really saying something.
For a long time, Alex spent his Saturday mornings poring over textbooks or Face-timing June, even though she complained about how early it was. He’d sit there for hours, avoiding his room and simultaneously enjoying the soft, morning light of the New York morning, the low buzz of the weekend shift and as many shots of coffee as the staff would give him. Usually, it was seven. Any more and he was considered a heart attack risk.
Over time, he became part of the furniture and – despite being a very committed extrovert – enjoyed the small slice of solitude Xpresso House afforded him. Which is why it still feels odd to crave someone else’s company at seven thirty on a Saturday morning.
Alex really doesn’t mind the sight of Henry – his new housemate and committed tea drinker – sitting in his booth. ‘Doesn’t mind’ might be an understatement, but he decides it’s better not to think about these things.
He’s already ordered with the new kid at the counter – a fresh face with an undercut and an Australian accent – and slightly taken advantage of his inexperience by requesting an latte with eight shots. It doesn’t take long for a much more familiar employee to come power walking from the back, two bags of coffee beans in her arms.
“So sorry for the— Oh, hello, Alex.”
“Lucy!” he grins. “You're burning daylight here, but I guess I'll forgive you.” She shoots him a suspicious look as he watches her throw one of the bags of beans down under the counter, before ripping open the other and pouring it into the top of the grinder. “Just this once.”
Lucy snorts derisively. “You really have no choice,” she mutters, turning to the machine that spits out the coffee order. “No where else in this city is going to let you sit at that table for hours and— Oh my god. Eight shots, Alex? Really?”
Alex shrugs and shoots her a nonplussed look. She’s been at the store for a year or so; only ever on the weekends. Alex suspects that she’s still in school or college or something – she looks even younger than he is – and somehow she reminds him of June. Well meaning but a little bossy, someone who can put him in his place. When it comes to his out of control caffeine addiction, he kind of needs it.
“I mean the new guy took my order so…I guess eight shots is fair game.”
“It is not fair game,” Lucy replies, raising her voice as she turns on the grinder. “You took advantage of the new counter staff.”
“Last time I checked this was a free country—”
“He’s my brother,” she adds, frowning at Alex. “So, we’re gonna have words.”
“Oh, come on,” Alex backtracks, wondering why he didn’t put two and two together when he heard the similar accent. “Don’t take it out on the kid. He doesn’t even know the rules yet.”
“I meant with you,” Lucy says drily, now turning her attention to pressing buttons on the machine, simultaneously filling another handle of coffee. “And I’m gonna put a wanted poster of you up in the staff room, so no one gives you more than your mandated seven shots.”
“I’m famous,” Alex quips, quirking an eyebrow. “Awesome.”
“Infamous," she corrects, changing over the handles so another two shots drip into a large takeaway cup. "There's a big and very important difference."
"Did you learn that word recently?" he goads, grinning as she scowls at him from over the pot of boring Earl Grey she's now making for Henry. He always orders the same thing every Saturday and yet manages to constantly come up with new insults about Alex's caffeine habits.
"Yeah," she bites back, turning off the hot water. "When I was googling how to describe my most annoying customer."
"You pronounced 'loyal' wrong."
She laughs shortly and rolls her eyes, all pretence of annoyance gone from her expression as she slides the tea and takeaway cup across the counter.
"You should bring in your own mug next time," she tells him. "For someone who cares so much about the environment, you use way too many of those takeaway cups. Your excessive shot count doesn't fit in our glassware."
Alex frowns, looking down at the brown cup in his hands. "Darren told me I couldn’t. Some issue with food standards, or something."
Lucy smirks and wipes her dark fringe out of her face with her elbow. "What Darren doesn't know can't hurt him, right?"
Alex grins back. "I like your attitude."
"One more thing," she calls, beckoning Alex back as he turns away, beverages in hand. He knows what she's going to ask before the words leave her mouth – a Saturday ritual that started around about the time Henry started coming to Xpresso House. "How's your boyfriend?"
"Not my boyfriend," Alex sings, giving her a pointed look along with his usual reply.
His tone may be nonchalant, he thinks, turning away from the counter, but his thoughts about Henry definitely aren't.
“How many shots are in your coffee today?” Henry asks without looking up from the newspaper. It’s unnerving how well he knows these things. Particularly because they’ve only been living together for three months.
“Three,” Alex lies, sliding the tea onto the table. He hopes that Henry will make a noncommittal noise and continue reading, rather than questioning his relatively low shot count. In hindsight, it would have been more believable to say five.
Instead, Henry’s eyes shoot up to meet his own, clear and blue and perfect in the soft morning light. “You’re a horrible liar, Alex,” he says drily. “But thank you for the tea.”
“You’re welcome,” Alex grins, taking a sip of his coffee. It’s burning hot and so strong it’s practically gasoline, which is exactly how he likes it.
“I thought you had a seven shot maximum in this place,” Henry hums, turning the sheet of the newspaper idly with long, lithe fingers. Alex is a little obsessed with Henry’s fingers. He’s been obsessed with them ever since he learned that Henry is practically a classical pianist. And maybe for some other, significantly less G rated reasons.
“I never told you how many shots are in here,” he points out, frowning. “Or were you eavesdropping again?”
“Christ,” Henry says softly, looking over his shoulder for a moment. “I don’t have supersonic hearing.”
“That’s not a ‘no’,” Alex surmises, arching an eyebrow.
“Fine,” Henry relents. He is, admittedly, a better liar than Alex, but not that good. “I was eavesdropping. I know you got eight. That’s very unhealthy, by the way.”
“Thank you for your unwelcome opinion,” Alex retorts, taking another sip. “And I hope you don’t mind that I told Lucy you’re not my boyfriend.”
“I’m not your boyfriend,” Henry says lightly, looking back down at his newspaper like this isn’t a devastating statement. In another world, Alex wonders whether Henry could have been his boyfriend. Except that Henry is Alex’s roommate, and already has a boyfriend named Paul.
Paul is fine, Alex supposes. He’s boring and takes ages in the shower and runs all their hot water out, but he’s fine. Alex’s main issue with Paul is that he occupies the role of Henry’s boyfriend, which, when Alex is struggling to sleep at night from his multiple shots of coffee and staring at his ceiling, is a position Alex admits he would very much like to hold.
He also gets the impression that Paul doesn’t truly appreciate what he’s got, something Alex has concluded after collecting some crucial evidence over the past three months of subletting Henry’s spare room.
On the other hand, Alex does have Paul to thank for meeting Henry in the first place. Alex was desperate to move out of his NYU dorm, or more accurately, desperate to get away from Hunter, and he found Paul through the legal grapevine. Basically, a friend of a friend of a friend knew Paul, and Paul knew his boyfriend was looking to sublet the spare room in his Williamsburg apartment.
Alex met Paul before he ever met Henry. Paul was a little snobby and – as a licensed attorney – clearly thought he was too good to be seen in a Manhattan coffee shop with a law student. Paul’s boyfriend, who swept through the door five minutes later with flushed cheeks, several manilla folders stacked in his arms and the softest-looking hair Alex had ever seen was the complete opposite. Alex wonders whether, in hindsight, he’s been head over heels for Henry all along.
Alex quickly learned that Paul and Henry work at the same firm – Paul as a hot-shot Manhattan attorney and Henry as a paralegal – which is one of the main reasons Paul rationalises that they can’t live together. Apparently, living and working together would be far too much, even though neither of them work in the same team. Alex gets the sneaking suspicion that Henry finds this a little odd and Alex can’t blame him. If Alex were Henry’s boyfriend he’d be after as much shared time as possible.
Plus, Alex has seen Suits. He wouldn’t say no to a rendezvous in the filing room.
Henry doesn’t even want to be a lawyer, he’s just working at the firm to pay his bills while he writes his first novel. It’s something he keeps under heavy lock and key and away from prying eyes, and even though Alex is desperate to read even the tiniest bit, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t pleased that Paul hasn’t been allowed to read any either.
“What the fuck?” Alex hisses as Henry kicks his shin under the table. When he looks up, Henry is fixing him with a very innocent expression. “What was that for?”
“I was asking about your weekend plans and you turned your selective hearing on again,” Henry explains. “And it wasn’t that hard, was it?”
“It’s going to bruise,” Alex says petulantly, even though, in hindsight, it was a tap rather than a kick.
“No it’s not,” Henry says drily. “I don’t know how you manage to zone out after consuming that much caffeine.”
“I haven’t finished it yet,” Alex grumbles. “And besides, I think I’m going to get another one for the walk home.”
Henry squints at him. “Alex.”
“Henry.”
“What on earth do you need more caffeine for?”
“Just a frappe or something,” Alex explains, taking another sip of his coffee. With every mouthful, he feels himself enter another state of consciousness. “A fun one.”
Henry frowns, taking a sip of the tea he’s evidently poured during Alex’s momentary departure from reality. “A fun one? A coffee that can wake the dead isn’t considered fun?”
“No,” Alex protests. “This is purely functional. I need a wake-me-up coffee and a pick-me-up coffee. Plus, a frappe has ice, so it’s extra hydration.”
Henry frowns at him. “You could just drink water.”
“Water is boring,” Alex replies, “and has no additional source of energy. You were asking about my weekend plans? I’ve got a whole paper to write in forty-eight hours. So I need all the help I can get.”
“The frappe has about seven pounds of sugar in it,” Henry muses. “I’m not sure that bouncing off the walls is conducive to writing a paper.”
Alex shrugs. “I guess you’ll just have to hold me down then.”
Henry visibly swallows. “Er—” he starts, suddenly looking quite flustered. “With what exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Alex replies, even though his internal alarm system is telling him that this conversation is taking a nosedive into something completely inappropriate. “Don’t you and Paul get up to some kinky shit from time to time?”
Henry practically chokes on his tea. “Christ, Alex,” he mutters.
“Okay sorry,” Alex relents. “You’re right. It’s totally not my place. Bad joke.”
“No, it’s fine,” Henry says, brushing the front of his sweater as if he got anything on it in the first place. He didn’t, because Henry is perfect at everything. Including spluttering on hot beverages. “It’s just— It’s not really like that. Between Paul and I.”
“Wow, Henry,” Alex says, covering up his burning desire to know more by letting loose a sharp laugh. “I didn’t think we'd be doing sex therapy at eight in the morning.”
Henry scoffs. “You brought it up!” he protests. “Besides, I wasn’t going to get into any physical detail—”
“Oh sure,” Alex interjects. “You’ve already gotten physical by kicking me in the leg, so I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“I barely touched you,” Henry says, rolling his eyes. “I’m worried about this frappe. You’re already feral this morning and I fear it’s only going to make you worse.”
Alex laughs again, sliding himself out of the booth as he drains his coffee. “You like me worse,” he replies, fixing Henry with a grin and accompanying it with a wink for good measure.
Henry's cheeks flush a beautiful shade of pink, and Alex takes that as his first win of the day.