Chapter Text
ACD’s Fall From Grace and Rise to Fame in “the dichotomy of a fallen angel” | Rolling Stones Review
‘Kensington’ Sweeps with Seven Oscar Nominations
Henry Fox Breaks Down His Career | Vanity Fair
ACD Breaks Down His Tattoos | GQ
-
“You have got to turn off your Google Alerts.”
Henry doesn’t even get out a token protest before Bea is pulling his phone out of his hands, pointedly pressing the power button, and setting it facedown on the tablecloth. Somehow, even in those platform combat boots, he hadn’t heard her come back from the bathroom.
The lights are low in the nondescript Italian place they’re hiding in tonight—one of their staples, where none of the waitstaff are phased by their faces anymore. Or, if they are, they’re pretty damn good at hiding it. He knows that he’s safe from cameras here. It doesn’t hurt that their marsala is the best in California.
“It was a text from Shaan…” Henry tries to fib, but it ends up sounding more like a question than a statement.
Bea raises one perfectly manicured brow at him, incredulity clear in the dainty, elegant movement. She’s always had a preternatural way of seeing through him completely. Neither of them are surprised that the singular quirk of her brow is the only push he needs to cave.
“Alright, it was Google Alerts. I like to see the headlines before my phone starts sounding off because of them.”
A shake of her head. “You and I both know that you weren’t looking at your headlines, dear.”
How rude, even if he deserves the call out. Bea knows better than to speak his name aloud anywhere even remotely public, but they both know exactly who she’s talking about.
It’s ridiculous, really, how much of his headspace that Henry allows Alex Claremont-Díaz to occupy, especially after everything that’s happened between them in the last two years. His only solace is knowing that he occupies just as much of Alex’s head, based on the texts he gets every couple of months at one in the morning. Henry only answers them half of the time.
“A little grace, please,” he mutters, raising his glass of water to his lips to try and cover the bitter twist of his mouth that he can’t stop. “I think I deserve it today.”
Bea takes a long moment to stare at him. He knows she’s got her fair share of opinions on the matter. They’ve been here for hours—plates long cleared away, talking to each other over their respective glass of water and club soda. Their server had already come by to pick up the signed check, likely at the end of their shift. Normally, they’re not the types to linger, but Henry knows that she’s doing it for him.
In approximately an hour, Alex’s new album drops. Inevitably, Henry will pour himself a glass of wine, listen to the entire thing, and spiral about it for at least forty-eight hours. The lead single had already sent him on a bender last month, paired with that damned music video—Alex, with nothing but a corded microphone in a too-similar hotel room crooning about his tendency to push people away. As if Henry doesn’t fucking know that.
Bea chews on her lip, one of the nervous habits she’s never been able to break. Henry hates it. He’s not so fucking delicate about all of this that she has to tiptoe around it. He’s a well-established, Oscar-nominated actor in his own right. Maybe he keeps crawling back to a man with commitment issues the size of his home state, but that’s his business.
“Perhaps,” she starts, “it would be best if you didn’t listen to it.”
That’s… a new take. Henry’s heard a few different opinions at this point: Pez had offered to show up with tequila; Bea had previously volunteered to distract him with dinner beforehand; Shaan had suggested a fluff event to attend to occupy his night. In the end, he’d decided that this was something best tackled alone. He’s not sure he could stomach company while Alex sings about the mess that the two of them have made.
It’s a bit presumptuous to assume that anything on that album is written about him, as Bea had tried to reassure him when the announcement had dropped months ago. All of those protests had faded away the moment that the first single had been released. Henry will hear the lyrics for the rest of his godforsaken life.
“I want to hear it,” he steels himself, righting his slouched posture. “And not simply because of—” he waves his hand in a half-aborted gesture. It’s the only way he can possibly try to encompass the muddled remnants of what had once been him and Alex.
Henry would rather die on the spot than admit out loud that he craves the intimacy of Alex’s voice, even if it makes him no different than the rest of the world eagerly awaiting his third album. At one point, he’d had the privilege of knowing more, but that time has passed. Henry has learned his lesson. Clearly, Alex doesn’t want anyone closer to him than what they can find in his lyrics.
Bea takes her straw between her fingers and swirls it through what remains of her fourth club soda, poking at the lime slice sitting at the bottom absentmindedly. “You know I worry.” She glances up at him under mascara-covered lashes. “I remember the last time.”
The thing is, Henry doesn’t. Last time is lost in the gray of two days in bed and drawn curtains, an empty house and David’s snuffling whines. The only thing he can pull from the haze is the security of Pez’s arms around him on the tarmac when he’d returned from the Maldives two days early, eyes red rimmed and hands trembling.
“I know,” he breathes. There’s another half to that sentence somewhere, but it gets lost in translation.
Bea reaches across the table to take both of his hands in hers, squeezing them tight with affection. “I love you, Henry. And I refuse to watch you destroy yourself over the same man again.”
-
sarah (alex’s version) @clarefoxdiaz
hey alex, darling, why is there an h tattooed on your hip?
[Attached: A clip of ACD’s Tattoo Tour with GQ. ACD is turned away from the camera, holding up the back of his shirt and talking about the script on his spine. As he turns, righting his shirt, half of a Times New Roman H is briefly visible above the waistband of his jeans.]
met acd 04/14/22!! @ACDefghijk
there is no fucking way alex and henry were a pr stunt r u fucking kidding me look at this?????? THAT PHOTO OF THEM IN THE MALDIVES???? HELLO?????
[Attached: A screenshot of the official lyric video for ACD’s “odysseus” The lyrics read: ‘Drowned us in that aquamarine sea / If I got on my knees, would you come back to me?’]
jamie! @diazmonds
these are all bangers but also alex are you okay blink twice if you need help
[Attached: A screenshot of the Spotify lyrics for ACD’s “prometheus” The lyrics read: ‘Everything leaves my hands with gashes / Oh, baby, the only thing I could make of us is ashes’]
t-0 days until dichotomy release @alcxcnderz
cannot believe that a white british man did this to acd, i do not care how blue his eyes are
-
By the time the last chord of the album rings out through Henry’s home speakers, he’s already cracked open a second bottle of wine. By the fourth track, he’d already been halfway through his second glass. He’d finished the first one during the third track when the unfiltered electric guitar had come in and he’d realized that he’d heard the melancholic riff before. The entire tracklist is a fucking joke—he’d laughed so hard when it had been released that Bea had been utterly bewildered.
In the interest of his own mental well-being, Henry rarely spends any time on social media. If anything important happens, he can count on a text from Shaan letting him know; otherwise, it only acts as a drain on his energy. And yet, Bea isn’t here to snatch away his phone this time as he swipes past the dozens of texts flooding his phone and doom scrolls through the shitshow of Twitter on his burner account.
Somehow, it’s worse than he could’ve seen imagined—he’s fucking trending—and yet, simultaneously the most gratifying thing he’s ever heard.
The vindictive part of him, the part that’s still licking at those aptly called gashes that Alex has left in him, is all too pleased by how many songs are simply Alex piling the blame on himself for the disaster between the two of them. The part of him that he’d left in the Maldives cries for what they could’ve been, if only Alex had bothered to talk to him about any of it, rather than dump it on top of a chord structure and release it into the world after the damage had already been irreversibly done.
David huffs gently at his side, digging his nose into Henry’s hip. He runs a hand down the beagle’s back, letting the familiarity soothe him amongst the storm in his head.
He doesn’t finish the second bottle.
It’s not until the lights are turned off and he’s under the covers that he finally caves, opening that text thread he’s been ignoring for the better part of a year. The last text is from a month ago—one in the morning for him in California, which means it had been just past bar close for Alex, who’d been photographed on the Upper East Side. Once, there had been a heart emoticon next to the contact name, accompanied by a cowboy hat and a guitar. Only the hat and guitar remain now.
fucking miss you
know i shouldn’t
Henry hadn’t replied then. He still doesn’t. Instead, possessed by some specter that still chases after the echo of Alex’s laugh, he types—
Beautiful work, as always.
His thumb is hitting send before he can think better of it. This had been exactly what Bea had been trying to prevent, probably. But if Alex gets to text him in the middle of the night after getting photographed with a carousel of blond-haired, blue-eyed models, Henry deserves the same privilege.
It’s not until morning, nursing his wine headache with a cup of Earl Grey, that he sees the reply.
-
Henry wishes that Alex would just fucking sleep.
Both of them are self-proclaimed insomniacs; it had been what had first pushed them together in the oversaturated world of flashing lights that they occupy. It’s just that Henry never sleeps better than when Alex is in the same bed, and he wishes he could give Alex the same. The shame shrivels between his ribs, further wilting when he wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of a guitar.
Alex’s mind is beyond brilliant. Henry spills poetry into journals and phone notes and on the back of restaurant receipts, but it’s incomparable to the cadence of Alex’s lyrics. Where Henry’s words are long and willowy, meandering their way to the point, Alex’s are sharp as a knife, just like him. Anyone can see the brilliance, but few see the way that it never fucking stops.
Henry couldn’t count the number of times that Alex has had to stop in the middle of something—a movie, a dinner, and one rather memorable time when Henry had his mouth on him—to scribble down a singular lyric or hum a melody into his voice notes. It would be endearing, if not for the fact that he seems to be so ashamed of it. It’s one of those things that Henry will never understand; Alex doesn’t seem keen to let him try.
It’s a beautiful little loop of fingerpicking, something deceivingly simple that’ll no doubt lie beneath a heavy drumbeat and a set of devastating lyrics. He’s playing quietly, strings mostly muted as he cranes his neck to watch the frets. Henry can see the furrow of his brow backlit by the light of his phone on his knee, the screen open to his voice memos app.
Part of him doesn’t want to disrupt Alex; he’s in his element, entirely lost in his own little world, and Henry could write sonnets about the gentle pull and release of defined muscles underneath tattooed skin as deft fingers shift along the neck of the guitar. The other part of him knows that he has an early flight in the morning. Clearly, Alex doesn’t care about that,but Henry does.
His voice is raspy when he calls Alex’s name, barely louder than the Fender’s croon in the tranquil early morning quiet, the lilting sound created by Alex’s mastery. The strings squeak as he abandons them, twisting his torso to look back at Henry.
“Go back to sleep, baby,” Alex calls back just as softly. He doesn’t move from where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.
It’s the same routine that they do every time Henry ends up tangled in Alex’s sheets, in between movie sets and tour dates and awards shows. Always at Alex’s, never at Henry’s, and if he lets that thought linger, he knows it’ll ruin the fraught peace that’s settled over them. He shoves it away.
Instead, Henry pushes the covers down, pulling himself up onto his elbows.
“Darling,” he starts, though he doesn’t get much further than that before Alex interrupts with a shake of his head.
“I’m almost done, H. Go back to sleep.”
“Come here,” he tries again, reaching out for him, for anything at all.
A long pause. Alex finally sets down the guitar, ends his voice memo, and places his phone back on the nightstand. Then he’s lying on top of Henry’s chest, his riotous curls are between his fingers, and yet—Henry can’t get rid of the thick taste of defeat festering in his mouth. He presses a long kiss to his temple, murmurs ‘Wake me before you go?’ The kiss that Alex returns to his collarbone isn’t an answer, but it’s all that he gets.
In the morning, he wakes to ice cold sheets and the intrepid noise of New York City rush hour. Henry doesn’t know why he’s shocked. In retaliation, he snatches a leather jacket that he knows Alex has been photographed in off of his desk chair and wears it out.
The tabloids tear them to shreds. It doesn’t incite any contact.
He doesn’t hear from him again until he texts, two weeks later.
what do you think of the maldives
When Henry meets him on the tarmac, Alex pulls him down for a filthy kiss—tongue and teeth and wet, swollen lips—like he wasn’t the one who left Henry alone in bed. He’s got a ring-covered hand in Henry’s backpocket, keeping him close as he whips out that familiar crooked grin and says, “You look good in my clothes, baby.”
-
The distinct sound of shuffling feet; relentless pacing echoes through the entire message. A sharp breath. When he speaks, his words slur together. Drunkenness or exhaustion, Henry can’t tell.
I cut a song called ‘pyramus.’ I wanted it to be where “heracles” is, but my producer wouldn’t let me send it to the label. She barely let me fucking record it. I kept crying in the booth, like I had any fucking right. The Maldives had been—
A shakey, aborted inhale.
I can’t forget how red your shoulders were. The freckles on your cheeks. I swear to fucking God, baby, I saw Cassieopeia in them,and that probably says more about me than it does about you. But, fuck, you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever fucking seen, and I knew I had to run as fast as I fucking could because if I stayed I knew you’d break me in two. But—
His breath hitches, a choked confession like the blade of a guillotine.
—I think I did that to myself, years ago. I wrote it in Austin, on the baby grand in my mom’s living room. I kept imagining what you would look like there. I—We—You—Fuck. Fuck. God-fucking-damnit. I’m supposed to be at my own release party. I’m supposed to be curled up next to you on your old couch that I’ve never seen, but you love so fucking much. And I wish I’d met David so I could thank him for taking care of you, but I know I don’t fucking deserve it.
The beagle’s ears perk at the sound of his name.
Did you listen to all of it? I still have that voice memo on my phone. I listen to it, sometimes, when it’s the middle of the night and every note I play sounds wrong and my hands won’t stop shaking. I close my eyes and I remember the way you screamed at me. The only thing I have left of you is a sweater that doesn’t smell like your cologne anymore and a two a.m. voice memo where I left you in the dark. I’m sorry I—
A tremor, and a flood. Words fall like rain.
Do you remember it all like I do, baby? Sometimes I stare at the ceiling and imagine all of the things I could’ve done to staunch the bleeding. The stitches I could’ve woven when the wound was fresh. I dream about showing up at your door and reaching for your hand and telling you everything my stupid fucking pride wouldn’t let me, then. Would you have let me? Would you have slammed the door in my face? Would you still? I’d deserve it. I fucking love you, baby, and I know I’m a year too late but I need you to know that I fucking mean it. I need you to know that I’m sorry for running and I’m sorry for turning my cheek and I’m sorry for dropping your hand and I’m so, so fucking sorry for the things I said. I didn’t mean any of it. You know that I didn’t mean any of it. You have to, Henry…I didn’t mean any of it.
A buzz, and a faded murmur like a curse.
Fuck—what the fuck are you doing? He doesn’t fucking want you—Zahra’s calling for my head. I shouldn’t send this, what a fucking mistake. Shit. I’m just—fuck, just fucking delete it, Alex. Christ.
-
Henry knows that Alex does care.
It’d nearly be a foregone conclusion, if not for the way Alex flits in and out of his life on his own whim. It would be charming, really, if Henry knew how to say no to any of it. Alex fucks him on white sheets in the dark and keeps a box of his favorite Earl Grey for the mornings; Alex leaves him alone in hotel rooms and gets photographed cuddling up with other people on the other side of the continent. It’s maddening, and he doesn’t know how to walk away.
Something had changed between them, after Lake Tahoe, like Alex had suddenly realized how much of himself he had given away to Henry and decided to try and wrestle it back. Texts had gone dry, calls unanswered, except for the occasional schedule lineup to see if they were in the same city for a night or two.
At first, it had sent him pacing in circles, David whining at his heels as he’d tried to wrap his head around what it is that he could’ve done to send Alex running. Later, it had sent him spiraling into a short stint of dark days, curled beneath his covers and so painfully numb that he didn’t even think of Alex for two days.
And yet, Henry is the one that Alex always comes back to, not the model he was spotted with in New York. When bold interviewers ask, Alex always smiles at Henry’s name. Henry is the reason Alex catches cross-country flights to spend a single day on one of his sets before he has to leave again for some rockstar obligation. It’s a little addicting, actually, how easy it is for Henry to call and Alex to come.
Henry can call, and Alex will come, but Alex won’t stay, is the problem. They’re both busy people with incredibly busy lives watched under the microscope of celebrity; Henry’s had relationships before, however ill-fated they’d been, and he knows how hard it is to have something normal between the flashing lights, but Alex doesn’t even seem like he wants it. Alex kisses him like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be before he laughs off a probing question on an awards show red carpet. Alex tells him the codes to his New York City residence right before he brushes off Henry’s attempt to tell him how much he’d like it if Alex was his date to the BAFTAs.
Alex is intoxication made corporeal, all warm skin and dark curls and whiskey eyes. Everybody wants him, and Henry is cursed to be one of many. Just another indiscernible admirer in a long line of them. Henry has no shortage of his own admirers, but it’s not the same; the way the world falls at Alex Claremont-Díaz’s feet is awe-inducing all on its own.
Every moment that he can steal Alex is just that—one infinitesimal shred of his attention. It’s more than most people will ever get. It’s more than he ever thought that he could possibly have, in the aftermath of how much of himself he’d foolishly given away on the porch of that cabin. So, Henry will take the snatched bits and pieces that he gets and he’ll clench them between tired fingers over and over again.
It’s easy to forget how fleetingly Alex slips through his fingers when they’re close like this.
The Grammys afterparty is loud and the lights are low. Everyone wants a piece of Alex—a piece of ACD, who just won Album of the Year—and yet the only person who he seems to have eyes for is Henry. Reckless, unabashed, and unrepentant, entertaining their fellow partygoers with an easygoing smile while refusing to let Henry stray more than two feet from his side. It’d be more off putting if it wasn’t exactly what he’s been aching for.
Another music producer that Henry doesn’t recognize walks away after a short, awed conversation about the distortion used on one of Alex’s songs. He’s not particularly knowledgeable in music production himself, and had ended up pivoting away from them to get another round from the bartender. By the time their Maker’s on the rocks and gin and tonic have hit the bar top, the branding hand on his hip is pulling him ever so slightly closer.
Their legs slot together; Alex leans forward to rest his head right over his heart, nearly tipping over the bar chair he’s sitting in. Henry doesn’t have it in him to feel shame as he slips one hand under Alex's open collar, pressing fingers into the ever-present knots in Alex’s shoulders. The other ends up tangled in his curls. The hand Alex had wrapped around his glass finds a new home splayed low against Henry’s back, fingers cool enough from the condensation that Henry can’t contain the shiver that runs through him.
Even in the dark, even at an event full of industry people and safe from cameras, it’s terrifyingly intimate. It makes Henry’s chest bloom with hope he hasn’t allowed himself to feel in weeks. Perhaps they could be more, perhaps Alex will stop slipping between his fingers like water and understand that Henry does not want to keep him, he wants to hold him, with all the care and affection he can possibly muster from the depths of himself.
“Tired, dear?” He asks, dipping his head low. Riotous curls brush against his lips.
The sigh that escapes Alex is deep. “It’s been a long year. I’ve never been to so many useless fucking parties.”
The laugh escapes him before he can contain it. Henry’s all too aware. He tries not to linger too much on it, knowing that Alex had only bothered to designate time to see him during this useless fucking party, as he’s called it, when Alex has been in California for over a week. Still, Henry doesn’t know how it had all changed so quickly. “It’s all rather… bread and circuses, isn’t it? Drowning in overindulgence and gratuitous finery.”
“Roman political thought at this time of night, baby?” Alex fires, all quick wit and rapid intelligence. “Talk dirty to me.”
“Well,” he murmurs, lowering his voice, “the Romans—and the Greeks, for that matter—were certainly onto something. They knew to honor the divine when it visited Earth, drenched worship onto what surpassed mortal capabilities and human understanding.”
As he speaks, Henry uses the hand woven into dark curls to force Alex to meet his eye. He leans down, ever drawn into Alex’s inescapable orbit. Their lips brush together as he speaks. “And you, darling, are tonight’s guest of honor. All of it is yours.”
“I can’t believe they gave it to me,” Alex scoffs, deep and bitter. “I’m not really—“
He cuts himself off, but Henry has lived long enough in this industry to know exactly what he means. Alex is biracial and queer and unapologetic; not exactly the cookiecutter image that the Recording Academy tends to award. The divine ichor in his veins defies all of it.
“You deserve it,” he says, just between the two of them. “Truly, Alex. You deserve everything.”
Alex turns his head away so quickly that he nearly bumps Henry’s chin. Those eyes—warm with liquor and affection, liner ever so slightly smudged—go carefully blank. Bitterness and apprehension well up in the pit of his stomach. It’s not a look that Henry’s ever seen on Alex’s face before, at least not directed at him. It makes him want to crawl underneath the dirt and die.
“Thank you, baby.” The words that come out of his mouth aren’t a lie, but Henry can feel the way that they ring hollow.
It’s the first time that Alex has so clearly locked him out. Clearly, Henry’s said too much, too soon, too recklessly for Alex’s careful sensibilities. It fucking hurts, like a knife driven between his ribs with careful precision. The blade twists as Alex leans up to press a kiss to the long line of Henry’s neck, letting soft lips linger like some sad facsimile of an apology. The metal of his lip ring is cold and unforgiving.
“How about we get out of here? I’ve only got you for a night, after all.”
So, Henry lets himself be laid out on white sheets and rendered breathless. Alex is always attentive; he’s never left him wanting for anything between bedsheets, ever the overgenerous lover. Yet, when they’ve exhausted themselves and Alex’s breathing has evened out into sleep, Henry stares at the ceiling fan and lets the tears he’s been holding back since that silent drive home from Lake Tahoe well in his eyes.
For months, hope has planted itself in his chest, a stubborn little weed that Henry has done everything to keep alive even as Alex has grown more and more distant. Now, with swift, surgical precision, he finally tears out the roots he’s let fester for too long in his chest.
-
Henry does not reply to the voice message.
It’s a deliberate action. Instigating Alex will only lead to disappointment; it’d been a hard lesson to learn, but Henry is too familiar with it to falter now. They’d pushed and pulled for an entire year, ripping off pieces of each other in retaliation over and over again until Henry was no longer sure which parts were him and which parts were Alex.
He’s more cautious now—the inherent romantic in him has withered, replaced by something colder and meaner. He doesn’t like it. It’s probably why he’s failed to be in anything even remotely resembling a relationship since he’d left Alex in the Maldives. There are notebooks of poetry dedicated to the glint of Alex’s lip ring in the sunlight and the guitar calluses on his hands; there are twice as many of them dedicated to waking up alone and screaming on picturesque beaches.
Part of him had loved the chaos. Alex is a whirlwind of passion in all aspects of his life; it’s what lures people into his orbit, deliberately or not. Henry is just another victim of his gravity, forever fated to be pulled back to him. He’d made the mistake of demanding more, and that’s when everything had fallen apart in his hands.
Henry has a couple weeks until his next movie starts filming, which means he can avoid the public while social media continues to buzz about Alex’s new album. It’s for the best that he does. The last thing he wants is to be caught unawares without a Shaan-approved answer at the ready for whatever probing questions they might have for him.
Pez sends him a Twitter link while he’s sipping his second cup of Earl Grey in the winged-back armchair in his study. His copy of Pride and Prejudice is beside him. The tweet reads: henry your man misses you.
Which is… categorically false. Alex has never been his. He’d actively avoided it, actually, despite it being the only thing that Henry had wanted for a year.
The video attached is shaky. It’s vertical, clearly off of a phone, and pointed directly at Alex, who’s sitting cross legged on the floor of the small stage with an electric guitar. His hands are covered in rings, black nail polish chipped horribly. He has his head tilted downwards towards the instrument in his lap, the beautiful tattooed floral sleeve on display through his plain black cutoff t-shirt. The pair of dark jeans he has on are nondescript, the soles of his well-worn Docs on display under the stage lights. It’s an achingly casual look entirely unlike his usual stage ensemble. It reminds him of days spent lazing around Alex’s apartment; Henry reading a script on the couch while Alex fiddled with his acoustic on the living room floor.
Henry knows, logically, that Alex had a one-night-only show—just himself and his guitar and less than a hundred fans—at a tiny venue in Brooklyn that also had a DJ playing EDM on the rooftop to celebrate the release of his new album last night. In the middle of the night, he’d spoken of it sometimes—how grateful he was to play arenas but how much he missed small, intimate shows where he could skip all of the fanfare and strip back his music to its barebones. It makes Henry’s chest ache, watching his figure in the video. Alex looks comfortable in a way that Henry’s never seen him before.
“I’m really proud of this album,” Virtual-Alex says, strumming a few chords on his guitar and fiddling with the tunings. There’s no distortion on the electric. “I’ve had a lot going on in my life, and writing really helps me unravel the mess in my brain. Someone I love told me once that I look at everything through a rearview mirror. I tried to imagine this album through a windshield instead. I tend to, ah, look at everything through the filter of past experiences. If I imagined it all as a pathway to the future rather than a reflection of the past, maybe it would change the outcome.”
Virtual-Alex begins to play in earnest, fingers effortlessly twisting across the fretboard in a familiar motif. “I guess what I’m trying to say in this long-winded ramble is to trust what’s ahead of you. Don’t turn around and stare at what’s already gone. I learned my lesson too late, but I hope you guys all learn faster than I did.”
With that, he launches into the verse of orpheus, crooning lyrics about spiraling ascents and wavering faith—a second-guessing in his deadly devotion that makes him turn around, forsaking the one thing he’d been searching for by nothing more than his own folly.
The trip they’d taken to Lake Tahoe comes back to him, vivid in its hurt. Alex, driving a touch too fast to be safe amongst the snow until they’d arrived at the cabin that he’d rented for them. They’d hidden away for four quiet, gluttonous days. Curled up together in a blanket, Alex had spoken of late nights spent racing down the 101 before he’d discovered songwriting, pedal pressed to the floor until his mind was quiet enough to sleep. He’d quietly confessed to knowing that he tended to damage everything in his wake—hadn’t bothered to acknowledge how much damage he’d already done to Henry.
Henry’s not even paying attention to the video anymore, the rough cadence of Alex’s voice fading out in favor of the ringing in his ears. When he’d heard this song on the night of the album release, it had been in the middle of pouring his second glass of wine. He’d heard it, but he clearly hadn’t processed it, because Henry had said those words to him once, pressed together under the covers in the dead of night in Alex’s penthouse.
Fumbling fingers close out the Twitter link, cutting off Alex’s unfiltered baritone as he swipes back to his text thread with Pez.
What am I supposed to do with this?
Pez’s reply is lightning fast, because of course it is.
you both deserve some closure hazza
you know that i’m always on your side
and your dear alexander did act like an upright prick the last time you were together
but you haven’t fared all that well either
Henry barely gets to type out two words of denial before Pez’s next text comes in.
and don’t think i don’t know about that text!!!!!
It doesn’t surprise him as much as it should that Pez, in his omniscient glory, knows about the wine drunk text he’d sent Alex two nights ago. At least he doesn’t know about the excruciating voice message he’d received in turn, how he’s tossed it over and over again in his mind and listened to it so much that David had begun to put together the connection of Alex’s voice causing his anxiety to spike. Not his finest moment.
No. Henry hadn’t replied to the voice message. But he’d kept it, and he knows that Alex must’ve gotten a notification. He hasn’t gotten any followup yet, not even a cursory apology for sending something that Alex had clearly not meant to send. Henry had brushed it off as shame until now. Until Alex had referred to him as someone that he loves in front of a captivated audience and their phone cameras. It’s foolish. It’s utterly mad.
He goes and listens to the voice message one more time, takes in every hitched breath and passionate expletive that Alex spills into his microphone. It’s raw and unfiltered in a way that he’s never known Alex, who’s always kept his cards so close to his chest. It’s a year too late, and yet—
In a fit of delirium, Henry hits the little phone icon on the corner of the text thread. It rings once, then twice, then three times, long enough that he’s considering hanging up and playing it off as a misdial. His thumb hovers over the red button when the screen changes, cutting off the middle of the dial tone.
For a moment, neither of them speak. Alex breathes heavily into the microphone. Henry can hear traffic in the background, muffled and faint. He must be in a car somewhere, jettisoning around like the international rockstar that he is. Fuck, his schedule is probably packed with performances and interviews; he just released an album, for fuck’s sake.
“Henry?” Alex asks, voice small and shaky, forever the one to take the plunge. It makes him shudder; he’d forgotten what his name sounds like on Alex’s tongue, the two syllables carefully caressed.
Henry’s not sure what he thought he would say, but the words force their way out of his mouth, even-keeled and achingly neutral. “Did you mean it?”
“Yes,” he answers, without asking for clarification. “I still do.”
“You hurt me,” Henry murmurs, staring down into the dredges of his tea as if it’ll hold the answers to the universe.
“I know.” Alex doesn’t say it, but he can hear the pet name on the tip of his tongue. What once would’ve been given out without care now cautiously reserved. “I know.” The words are repeated, softer. Defeated.
“Where are you?”
“New York,” Alex answers, “SNL rehearsals for this weekend. Not that important.”
It’s a bald-faced lie. He isn’t just the musical guest—he’s hosting the whole damn thing. SNL is a sacred thing, and Alex is surely aware of that. Henry hears what he’s trying to say: not as important as this. It makes his heart race, palms going clammy enough that he has to set down his empty mug at risk of dropping it onto the hardwood instead.
“So, you’ll be there all week?”
A pause, then the sound of shuffling. The whir of a privacy divider. “Henry, what are you really asking?”
What is he asking? Something foolish, something reckless, something that the Alex of before had denied him over and over again, but if he means it, truly, like he says he does, then maybe, maybe—
That tiny seed of hope, the one that Henry thought he killed, gently sprouts again. Fragile and easily crushed by careless hands, in need of nurture to keep alive, but it’s there. It’s real. And it makes his breath catch in his throat.
“I think we should talk.” His voice tremors, “I—”
“I’ll turn this car to JFK right now,” Alex declares, taking over when Henry’s voice falters. “Say the word, baby, and I’ll be there.”
It’s the stupid pet name that does it. Alex had always used it like a weapon, another edge of the knife he’d always held, another way for him to draw away Henry’s attention from where he didn’t want it and make him look somewhere else. He’d loved and hated it in equal measure. Now, it’s a plea, a mark of devotion, said in hopes of comfort or reassurance. The cadence is entirely changed on Alex’s tongue. It’s enough to make him stand from his chair, a new resolve settling in.
“No.” Henry shakes his head, even knowing Alex can’t see it. “No, go to your rehearsal. I’ll be in New York tonight. I’ll send you the address of my hotel.”
Rarely had he ever gotten a hotel in New York when he and Alex were together, in the vaguest sense of the word. He’d always found himself in Alex’s penthouse instead, so much so that the hotel rooms had been rendered useless. Part of him expects Alex to offer again, but he must know that Henry would deny him.
“Okay,” Alex acquiesces, “and then we’ll talk?”
“And then we’ll talk,” Henry echoes back, standing in the doorway of his bedroom. “Have a good rehearsal.”
It’s a clear dismissal; Alex takes it for what it is. “Have a safe flight.”
Henry ends the call and stares at the barebones text thread left behind. He swipes away from it, opening up his browser instead. In the search bar, he types:
LAX to JFK