Never Did Run Smooth

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/35454019.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, June
Claremont-Diaz/Nora Holleran, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Characters: Alex Claremont-Diaz, Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, June
Claremont-Diaz, Nora Holleran, Zahra Bankston, Shaan Srivastava,
Hunter (Red White & Royal Blue), Other(s), Original Female
Character(s), Original Male Character(s), Rafael Luna, Percy "Pez"
Okonjo, Beatrice Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Catherine Fox-
Mountchristen-Windsor, Philip Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Reality TV, Alternate
Universe - Reality Show, Kissing, Pining, POV Henry, Social Media,
Bisexual Disaster Alex Claremont-Diaz, Best Friends, Sexual Content,
Panic Attacks, Jealousy, Sex Toys, Praise Kink, Baking, Mildly Dubious
Consent
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2021-12-01 Completed: 2022-02-23 Words: 67,424 Chapters:
14/14
 Never Did Run Smooth
by clottedcreamfudge

Summary

"You and me? Best friends. Stellar. Love that for us. But we could absolutely fake being in
love. Dating. Whatever. I know literally everything about you—" (No you don't, Henry thinks
firmly) "—and you know everything about me. We would absolutely fucking annihilate the
other contestants.”

"You're too drunk to apply," Henry points out, like he himself isn't about as wasted as it's
possible for him to be without curling up and going immediately to sleep. "I doubt you could
spell your own name right on the application. Or mine."

Alex grins and pulls something up on his phone; it looks like it takes him a few tries. "Wanna
fucking bet?"

***

Or: Henry's life is a comedy of errors; a patchwork of oopsie-daisies; a quilt stitched together
with hauntingly terrible mistakes. And at the centre of it all is his best friend, Alex
Claremont-Diaz; director of said comedy, threading together his oopsie-daisies into a flower
crown, rolling around in the quilt of his own making, and this analogy is going to shit
because Henry's so in love with him he wants to die.
 Chapter 1
Chapter Notes

How many chapters is this going to be? Good question! I just need to get the answer for
you out of this safe, for which I have lost the combination.

NOTE: regarding the new tag (mildly dubious consent) - some people have been
concerned with some of the themes around boundaries, and with consent not being
explicitly stated at all junctures. This tag has been added so that people can make an
informed decision about whether or not something here might make them
uncomfortable; while there is no coercion and nobody is an unwilling participant,
consent is not always explicitly stated. I appreciate that sometimes both feedback and
the RESPONSE to feedback can be immediate and reactive, but I hope this helps to
make this a more user-friendly space.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

"Listen," Alex says seriously, like he hasn't had a whole bottle of Pinot Noir to himself
already this evening. And several shots of tequila. And a beer. "Henry - Henry, listen. Are
you listening?"

Henry nods solemnly. "I'm listening." And watching; mostly watching, actually. Alex had
apparently got too warm about half an hour ago, and had taken off his shirt for some reason.
Henry is fine.

"You and me? Best friends. Stellar. Love that for us. But we could absolutely fake being in
love. Dating. Whatever. I know literally everything about you—" ( No you don't, Henry
thinks firmly) "—and you know everything about me. We would absolutely fucking
annihilate the other contestants.”

"You're too drunk to apply," Henry points out, like he himself isn't about as wasted as it's
possible for him to be without curling up and going immediately to sleep. "I doubt you could
spell your own name right on the application. Or mine."

Alex grins and pulls something up on his phone; it looks like it takes him a few tries. "Wanna
fucking bet?"

Henry does not. "No."

"Too late," Alex says, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and closing one eye
so he can focus properly on his screen through the haze of alcohol. "Hey, do they need all
twenty of your names, d'you think?"

"I don't have twenty names."

"Close enough, sweetheart."

Henry drains his glass of wine and sets it on the edge of the coffee table with unsteady hands.
"I am going to bed. You should also go to bed." Alex definitely needs to sleep if he’s bringing
out the pet names; Henry just needs to be wherever the pet names are not.

"You're right," Alex says, nodding but not looking away from his phone. "We should
definitely start sleeping in the same bed. For practice."

"Fuck off," Henry says succinctly, before stumbling off to his bedroom and falling onto his
face on the bed. He's asleep in seconds, and when he wakes up he doesn't remember a single
word of his ridiculous conversation with Alex about his plan to enter them in 'Fake It Till You
Make It.'

Two Months Later

"Fuck," Alex says from the kitchen, and Henry ignores him. He's trying to beat his high score
on Solitaire and shake the creeping feeling of dread that only seems to come at 3pm on a
Sunday. He doesn't dislike his job, but he'd certainly prefer not to have to do it, if given the
choice.

Alex appears in the doorway that leads from the kitchen through to the living room, glaring at
Henry when he looks up. He actually looks a bit sick.

"Did you not hear me?"

"I heard you say 'fuck'," Henry says levelly, eyes dropping back to his laptop screen, "but
given that it is your favourite word in any language, and you use it in relation to good dogs,
particularly nice biscuits, and your coffee being colder than you'd like, I wasn't about to
follow it up with a line of questioning."

Alex continues to stare at him for a moment, and Henry eventually sighs and closes his
laptop; when he meets Alex's eyes again, he looks frustrated and oddly guilty. Did he use
Henry's fancy Guatemalan coffee blend again? He's already said he doesn't mind, so he's not
sure why it always causes this moral quandary.

"Should I have followed it up with a line of questioning?" he asks slowly, and Alex groans
and shoves his face into his hands.

"We got in," he says, voice muffled by his fingers. Henry blinks at him.

"Sorry, you've lost me there," he says. "We got in where? I wasn't aware we were attempting
entry to anything in particular." He has a sudden urge to ask if it's a Blue Peter competition,
but he has to remember that Alex didn't grow up with the inherent desire to win a little white
badge with a ship on it from some people on the TV.
Alex looks up and grimaces. "We got into 'Fake It Till You Make It'. I thought there would be
interviews and stuff, but apparently we tick some boxes or something and—"

"Wait," Henry interrupts him, holding up a hand to stop him. "You actually applied? For us?
To do this together?" He suddenly understands why Alex looks ill.

"They must've needed a gay couple, and of course I had to go and be fucking honest and say I
was half Mexican, so that probably makes us extra useful for diversity." Alex is actually
looking a little panicked now, running his hands through his hair and worrying his lower lip
with his teeth. It's making him look, annoyingly, even more attractive, and Henry thinks he
probably needs to stop.

"Well, it could be a laugh, I suppose?" he says slowly, and Alex freezes.

Henry's not sure where that came from; this is probably the worst idea Alex has ever had, and
he's had to charm his way out of an arrest before. He just looks so vulnerable though, all
worked up and guilt-ridden; Henry wants it to stop.

"You'll — hold on, are you saying you'll do it?"

Henry shrugs and puts his laptop on the coffee table. "There's a cash prize if we win, right?"
Alex nods, mouth slightly open in shock. "Well, all we have to lose is our dignity - and I'm
fairly certain you, at least, lost that in our first year of uni, after you misunderstood the
instructions for a themed party and turned up in nothing but a thong."

"I learned an important lesson about skim reading," Alex agrees, then goes back to chewing
on his lower lip. "Okay," he continues eventually. "So, you don't hate me, and you're willing
to do this. What's the catch?"

"You're going to be on dish duty for a month."

"Okay. That's... reasonable."

"I thought so."

"One more thing," Alex says, face suddenly completely unreadable as he unfreezes from his
position in the doorway, striding across the room to stand in front of Henry on the sofa.

"Yes?" Henry asks, eyebrows raised in bewilderment. "You’re already asking for my dignity.
Do you want my collection of Jane Austen novels as well? My first born child? Perhaps—"

He's cut off before he can continue listing ridiculous requests by Alex's thighs either side of
his own as he clambers into Henry's lap.

Then Alex's mouth is on his and there's nothing but heat and static, and an odd sort of
tingling in all his extremities.

"Okay, so," Alex says when he pulls back a moment later, having just had his tongue in
Henry's mouth. "First of all - nice. Second of all, you need to look a bit less like I've slapped
you if this is gonna work, okay? We need to fool, like, nine other couples that we're legit. We
need to look like we do this every day."

Every day, Henry thinks faintly, and nods on autopilot, closing his mouth.

"Sorry," he says, even though he wasn't the one who got them into this fucking mess in the
first place. "Yeah, I'll—"

"We'll practise," Alex says simply, then leans in to kiss him again.

Henry's going to die. He's not sure what he did to deserve this.

‘Fake It Till You Make It’ - new season airing soon!

We’ve all seen it; we’ve all told ourselves we’re going to stop and then got sucked into yet
another episode while folding the laundry. We’ve all pretended we knew who the fake couple
was and then been completely surprised by the reveal at the end of the show.

We have all, in short, been transfixed and completely mesmerised by ‘Fake It’.

If you don’t own a television or have somehow managed to avoid the phenomenon that first
swept the nation five years ago, here’s the lowdown on the wildly popular TV show, ‘Fake It
Till You Make It’, which will be returning to our screens in the fall.

Ten couples move into a luxurious villa on a tropical island (where do we apply?!) and go
through a bunch of fun challenges to prove that they're the best couple around; the most
desperately in love (guess that rules us out, actually). Challenges in the past have included
friendly baking competitions, pottery classes - sadly without the hot ghost of Patrick Swayze -
and boat building.

The twist? Only seven of these couples are actually couples. Three out of the ten are in fact
red herrings, and are competing not only for the prize money, but for the chance to say that
they managed to 'Fake It' to the top. The first five weeks involve our couples trying to suss
each other out, voting each other off the island until votes are opened up to the general
public for the final four weeks.

It is, in short, beautiful chaos, and we have our wine chilling and a bag of popcorn in the
microwave, ready to go.

'But what makes this season special?'

Well, we've been let in on a little secret; this is the first season to include same-sex couples,
and we're STOKED. It's a whole new world, and we're ready for it.

Are you?

One Month Later

"You're not afraid of flying," Alex says, gritting his teeth and digging his fingers into Henry's
leg to stop him from bouncing it up and down, "and I know this because we're horribly in
love and I know everything about you. So why the fuck are you so nervous and why do I now
want to yeet you out the fucking window?"

Why is Henry nervous? He shoots Alex a look and tries to ignore the pressure of Alex's hand
on his knee.

"I'm nervous," he explains quietly, voice tight, "because we are flying to a remote island to
live with a bunch of strangers for three months - which is, by the way, the weirdest sabbatical
request anyone has ever had to make at my place of work - and have to pretend to be a couple
for the entirety of that time, while broadcast semi-live on television. Additionally, we cannot
tell anyone what we're doing until it starts, will have no contact with the outside world, and
my mother already thinks I'm being inducted into a cult that doesn't agree with technology.
Flying is, quite frankly, not even on my radar right now. You could load me into a catapult
and tell me there was a 50/50 chance of me arriving at my intended destination, and the level
of anxiety I would be feeling would not change."

Alex nods slowly, taking in Henry's outburst with a reasonably straight face. "Alright, fair."
His hand is still on Henry's leg.

"Sorry, I'm just... This is going to be taxing," Henry says shortly, and Alex rolls his eyes.

"Please, we're basically dating anyway," he says breezily, and something in Henry's stomach
tightens horribly in response. No they're not, because if they were, Henry wouldn't have to
look away from Alex's throat every time he downs the last dregs of his beer on film nights,
and he'd probably be wanking a lot less.

"Can we drink on this flight? I'd very much like for you to say 'yes'."

They can drink, and Henry finds himself a lot more relaxed once he's on his second mimosa.

Alex's hand is still on his leg. It’s fine.

Their handler ("What am I, a fucking dog?" Alex asks later, and Henry rolls his eyes so hard
they almost fall out of his head) picks them up from the airport, getting them straight into a
waiting car and sliding into the back alongside them. He's a good-looking guy, not much
older than them, and he looks as though he could probably break a man's arm without a single
drop of sweat marring his complexion.

"I'm Shaan Srivastava," he says, giving them both a firm handshake before they buckle up.
"I'll be looking after you for the duration of filming, making sure you're where you need to be
at all times, and keeping an eye on you. You already signed your contracts, but just to
reiterate: if at any point your relationship becomes real during filming, you come straight to
me, and we do the necessary rewriting to make that part of the drama of the season. You
won't win the prize money, but—"
"We'll have found true love," Alex says, voice sickeningly sweet as he grabs Henry's hand on
the seat between them. Henry glares at him. Alex grins back.

"Get it out of your system now, love," Henry says warningly, "because you have to pretend
the sun shines out of my arse for as long as it takes people to figure out the truth."

"Then we go home and I wash all the dishes."

"For a month."

"For a month," Alex repeats solemnly, then squeezes Henry's hand. Henry looks back at
Shaan and thinks he sees something knowing in his eyes, before his expression is once again
business-like and no-nonsense.

"The entrance ceremony is tomorrow, so you have some time to settle in and get acquainted
with your suite," Shaan says as the concrete around them very quickly gives way to trees and
salty air that Henry can practically taste, even with the windows up. "You can leave your
room, but just remember that not everyone plays by the rules here; some of the handlers can
be..." He struggles to find the word.

"Sneaky fuckers?" Alex suggests, and Shaan raises his eyebrows, then inclines his head.

"For lack of a better description," he says drily. "Walls have ears, and the only place you'll be
afforded any privacy - other than the lavatory - is your suite. If you want to win this, you'd do
well to remember that."

"Trust nobody," Alex says solemnly. "Pee alone. Got it."

"You might not get us chucked out," Henry says thoughtfully, "but it's possible you'll get us
murdered."

"Fair."

Shaan looks a little like he regrets his assignment; Henry can relate.

"Holy shit," Alex breathes as they climb out of the car behind Shaan; his hand is still joined
with Henry's as he tugs him out of the open door and onto the glittering expanse of white
pebble driveway that leads up to their new home for the next three months. Henry's been
trying not to think about it too hard, in case his sweat glands start to overreact.

Fortunately, it's easy enough to forget that Alex's fingers are slotted neatly between his when
faced with such a ridiculous show of luxury overspending.

"For once," Henry says as Alex eagerly starts to pull him up the driveway, "I'm going to have
to agree with you wholeheartedly. Holy shit."

"That sounds so weird in your accent," Alex says fondly, turning to grin at him. "Say it
again."
"Sod off," Henry says brightly, and then Alex is stopping where he is and spinning around,
stretching up on his tiptoes to press a quick kiss to Henry's mouth.

"No," he says firmly, then turns back around - hand still in Henry's - to continue dragging him
inside the building. Henry tries to arrange his features in such a way that suggests that being
kissed by Alex like it's nothing at all is a regular occurrence; like Alex lays one on him like
that several times a day, and it has now become a part of their routine and life together. He
probably just ends up looking constipated.

When they enter the cool interior of the house - although 'house' probably isn't the correct
word for a building of this magnitude - there's a sudden flurry of activity. There are cameras
everywhere, filming wide shots of the hallways and foyer, and those big fluffy microphones
that Henry vaguely remembers having something in their name like 'zoom' or 'boom'; it's
really not his area of expertise.

"Are we the first couple to arrive?" Alex asks Shaan as he leads them through the maelstrom,
and Shaan shakes his head immediately.

"About half of you are here already," he explains as they make their way up one of the
staircases (there are multiple, which seems a little excessive) and along a very long and well-
appointed corridor. It's wide enough that there are chaises longues and unnecessary tables
with flowers on them at various points; there are also a number of paintings, and Henry
doesn't want to look too closely, but he's fairly certain he's spotted a couple of very expensive
originals.

They eventually stop in front of a door that has their names on in what appears to be gold
leaf, and Henry suddenly feels very foolish for not looking around at the other names; he
hadn't realised they'd be on the bloody doors.

"This is you," Shaan says, turning and handing them a room key each. "Remember what I
said earlier, and if you need me, my number's in the directory on the coffee table."

"Thank you, Shaan," Henry says seriously, suddenly overwhelmingly glad that they seem to
have been given a handler who just wants to do his job well. Henry elbows Alex in the ribs.
"Say thank you."

"Fuck off," Alex says pleasantly, but turns to Shaan anyway. "Thanks, man. It's been a real
slice."

"You shouldn't be allowed out in public," Henry says flatly, leaning around Alex to swipe his
key card and open the door. He then shoves Alex inside, sending an apologetic grimace
Shaan's way before following Alex and closing the door behind them.

Alex then pushes him against it with a grin, and Henry drops his bag on the floor in surprise.
If he'd been allowed to bring up all of his own luggage, he probably would have made a
racket worthy of a one-man band, complete with sad trombone noises.

"What on earth are you doing?" he asks incredulously, trying to calm the overwrought samba
of his heart. Alex is too close; he's always too close, lately.
"Trying to get you used to me pushing you up against things," Alex says, which makes
absolutely no sense at all.

"People in relationships don't do that," Henry says firmly. "They do not push each other up
against things all the time, because they don't have anything to prove. So, arguably, you
shouldn't do that to me at all. Ever."

"That sounds boring, but I'll take it under advisement," Alex says with a grin as he finally
steps back and lets go of Henry's shirt front. "Okay, so I'm hungry as hell - can we get room
service?"

"I assume there will be further information in the extensive dossier I can see on the coffee
table," Henry says drily, his heart making its way back down from his throat to his chest
again as he picks up his bag and makes his way over to the bed in the middle of the suite. It's
really a very nice room - more like a small, self-contained apartment than anything else - and
the bed is extraordinarily large; it's likely that he and Alex won't even need to touch in the
night.

This is the best news he's had so far today, frankly.

"Oh my fucking God, they have actual caviar," Alex exclaims from the living area, sounding
amazed and disgusted by the thought.

"If you order that, I'm leaving you for another man," Henry says as he unzips his bag and
pulls out a book. "I mean it. I'll figure out the other fakes through sheer force of will and see
if any of them are willing to take me on instead. I'd rather enter into a three-way than watch
you throwing up caviar at 2am."

Alex stubs his toe on the coffee table and swears. "Fuck - ow. Fine."

They order a couple of truly obscene black-and-blue burgers and a plate of fries between
them, eating on the floor with an episode of some trash TV show playing in the background
while they try not to make too much of a mess.

"See, this is the footage they should be getting," Alex says, indicating where Henry is
mopping up half-melted blue cheese from his plate with a couple of fries. "This is where
reality lives."

"If anyone enters this room without express permission, I will take them out at the knees,"
Henry says seriously, before popping the fries in his mouth and wiping his hands on a paper
napkin. Alex rolls his eyes and leans over to rescue an errant mushroom from Henry's plate.

"Yeah, you're a big tough guy with a blackbelt and biceps people don't realise are huge until
you take your shirt off," he says breezily. "We know. We know, okay? I included it on your
application. 'Gay, but really buff and likes to beat people up as a form of exercise'."

"I don't beat people up," Henry says, offended. He runs martial arts classes for kids at the
weekend, so this is an especially horrifying thought.
"I'm just saying," Alex says calmly, "that you probably don't need to be, like, macho around
me. This is a safe space."

"Last week I cried on you because I'd forgotten how 'The Good Place' ended," Henry says,
barely resisting the urge to throw his hands in the air. "Last month I saw a puppy and you had
to rip me away from my dog Pinterest board because I got too emotional about it. The fact
that I can also take people out at the knees has nothing to do with anything, and I'm perfectly
happy with both my feminine and masculine sides, thank you."

Alex looks at him for a minute, then nods. "That was a really cute puppy."

"It was the ears," Henry says bitterly. God, he wants a dog.

They split a bottle of red wine between them and it's a mistake from the first sip to the last;
drinking with Alex always is. It ends with them brushing their teeth together in the stupidly
nice bathroom, Alex leaning into Henry's side for support even though he's barely tipsy.

"Tired," he manages to say around his toothbrush, and Henry feels so fucking fond right now,
he's surprised the word isn't spontaneously tattooing itself onto his forehead as he looks down
at Alex's curls. Alex has toothpaste on his face and he's listing into Henry like he's a port in a
storm, and Henry's so fucking in love that this whole thing could never be anything less than
a catastrophic mistake.

Alex insists on throwing his legs over Henry's in bed, and Henry stares at the vague outline of
their recently-delivered suitcases in the darkness until Alex's breathing evens out and he can
finally disentangle their limbs.

Henry turns away from the sleeping form of his best friend and closes his eyes.

Truly catastrophic.

Day One

The next day they get woken up by the shriek of a foreign alarm, and Henry scrambles
immediately away from where his traitorous body had managed to wrap itself back around
Alex's in the night.

"What the fuck is that noise?" Alex asks groggily, pulling the duvet up over his head as
though it will help; it won't, because Henry has no idea where the noise is coming from, and
is therefore incapable of shutting it off. The duvet will be no help at all in this fight.

Henry does eventually locate the source of the shrieking - which turns out to be a buzzer by
the door that has a number of functions Henry cannot wait to never use - and the noise only
stops when he presses one of the buttons by accident.

"Good morning," Shaan's disembodied voice says through the speaker. "Henry, I assume?"
"I see you have the measure of Alex already," Henry says drily, scrubbing a hand through his
hair and sighing while Alex makes a token noise of protest from the bed. Given that he's still
in bed, he doesn't have a leg to bloody stand on. "Good morning, Shaan."

"This is your twenty minute warning that hair and makeup will be knocking on your door,"
the voice continues, and Alex swears from somewhere behind Henry; this exclamation is
followed by the distinct sound of someone falling out of bed. "I would advise that you both
be dressed."

"Won't they just dress us all over again?" Henry asks.

"If you're happy to do it all in your underwear, that's up to you," Shaan says pointedly, and
then the line goes dead. Henry looks back over at the bed, where Alex has now managed to
get to his feet, and is looking adorably mussed in a short-sleeved t-shirt and boxer shorts.
Henry doesn't let himself look for too long, because he has some very vague and apparently
useless self-preservation instincts; instead, he looks over at the bathroom and nods towards it.

"Would you like to go first?"

"Thanks," Alex says, performing a truly jaw-cracking yawn before making his way to the
bathroom.

Once Henry's alone, he quickly makes the bed and tidies up their plates from last night, and
when Alex is done showering and brushing his teeth, he slips into the shower to clean himself
up too.

He does precisely nothing else while he's in there, because if he were to do anything else, he'd
feel bad about it; he therefore does not think about the heat of Alex's body against his, and he
especially doesn't think about the way Alex's hair had been sticking up in every direction
when he'd got out of bed.

Like someone had been running their fingers through it.

Alex is wearing nothing but a clean pair of boxers when Henry comes out of the bathroom,
towel wrapped firmly around his waist; while this isn't something he's new to seeing, exactly,
it feels a little bit like it is, so he keeps his gaze averted. There's something different about the
backdrop of bed sheets that have seen both of their bodies; something wholly unsettling about
the aircon whirring overhead and tugging gently at the gauzy fabric of the curtains.

It feels like a holiday; a honeymoon, even. It's not something Henry had thought to prepare
for.

Hair and makeup is, fortunately, pretty painless. Someone called Monica tells them both very
seriously that she would kill an endangered animal for their bone structures, and then
proceeds to do very little to their faces at all; Henry's grateful, if a little alarmed.

"No," Alex says flatly when someone advances on him with some kind of hair product. "You
leave my hair out of this. It's never done a damn thing to you."
 Alex only wins this argument because Henry backs him up; Henry only backs him up
because he's not sure he could watch someone running their hands through Alex's hair
without wanting to take over. Or break something.

Their clothes are, thankfully, also deemed suitable - though no further endangered species are
threatened as a result - and then Shaan is knocking on their door and replacing the whirlwind
of primpers and preeners with calm professionalism of a different sort.

"Time to go, boys," he says, nodding towards the doorway with a small smile. Henry looks at
Alex and, before he can overthink it, holds out his hand. Alex grins and takes it in his, and
the warm weight of their interlaced fingers settles into Henry's bones; he's so supremely
fucked, and he doesn't stand a chance of getting out of this with his heart intact. He's not sure
that was ever an option.

They descend the staircase with Shaan, and are led to another section of the villa; it leads out
onto a veranda that's decked out in greenery, vibrant and warm already under the early
morning sun. The cameras are rolling - they've been warned that their privacy ends as of right
now - and Henry can feel his heart in his throat as they step through the glass doors, Shaan
melting away behind them.

Then—

"Nora?" Alex says incredulously, and one of the other contestants whips around to stare at
him, followed by the person Henry must assume is her partner. "Bug?"

Henry starts. Staring back at them with equal looks of bewilderment from the other side of
the veranda are Nora Holleran and June Claremont-Diaz.

They're holding hands.

Chapter End Notes

Oop.
 Chapter 2
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Week One: the beginning

"Alex?" June says wonderingly, eyes sliding from him to Henry. "Henry! Fuck, oh my—"

"You'd better be glad we don't do any of the first fucking episode live, or I'd be drowning you
in the pool right now," someone says sharply from over by the cameras. "How do you two
fucking nightmares know each other? Say you had an illicit fumble in the back of a cab
before the show started or something, for the love of fucking God."

"Gross," Alex and June say in unison, grimacing as they turn towards the source of the voice.
Zahra Bankston, the lead producer and just about the most terrifying person Henry's ever read
about - everyone who's ever worked on the show seems to view her with an awed, horrified
respect - is storming out from behind the cameras and marching towards the two siblings.

"You'd better not fucking say something like—"

"He's my brother," June says loudly, and Zahra stops marching, turning smartly and
immediately on the spot to point at someone behind the cameras.

"Hunter, you piece of shit," she growls, and the man at whom she's pointing makes a decent
attempt at melting into nothing beneath her glare. "I'm going to rip out your lungs and use
them as travel pillows, you absolute cretin."

Henry is reasonably alarmed by this statement, but everyone else on the crew seems to be
taking it in their stride.

Zahra continues. "I am also legally obligated to tell you that this threat was a metaphor for
me ruining your life, and you will leave here with your internal organs intact. However, I will
fire you and put you in a very small boat without a paddle if you can't adequately explain to
me why I have a pair of goddamn siblings on my fucking set right now."

Hunter's face suggests that he does not have an adequate explanation.

"Claremont-Diaz is hardly a common surname," Henry murmurs to Alex, pulse jumping a

little when Alex leans into him with hum, still looking amusedly over at where Hunter is
currently being ripped to shreds.

"Hey, Bug, you put a different name on the paperwork or some shit?"

"No," June says slowly, eyes sliding away from where Zahra is throwing out phrases like,
"fucking useless," and, "completely unem-fucking-ployable." June's now looking at where
Alex is leaning into Henry's body, and Henry realises abruptly that they're going to have to lie
to Alex's sister; they're going to have to lie to June and Nora, or they're absolutely fucked, and
any possibility they have of winning goes out the window.

"Thank fuck you two finally got together," Nora comments, sliding up behind June and
putting a hand on her waist. "The tension was suffocating. You kept that pretty close to your
fucking chest though, Alejandro.”

Or... That. That's also an option. Henry tries not to tense up, because he's 98% certain that
Nora's referring to Henry's very obvious and debilitating crush; it is, to be fair to her, visible
from space. Newborn babies can see it; people with impaired vision; literally everyone on
this godforsaken planet except, it would seem, Alex himself.

"Whaddya mean, 'finally'?" Alex bites back, narrowing his eyes. "Also, totally didn't realise
you two were actually a thing. I thought you were fucking with me."

"For a whole year?" June asks incredulously, and Henry has to admit, the apparent love of his
life isn't always the smartest when it comes to interpersonal relationships. The fact that he
hasn't noticed that Henry's head-over-heels in love with him, or that his sister has been dating
his ex-girlfriend for over twelve months, are two prime examples of this.

"I mean, you could be faking it," Alex drawls, regaining his mental equilibrium and leaning a
little further into Henry's body. "That's the whole fucking point, I guess."

"How on earth are you going to survive with half of your vocabulary taken away from you?"
Henry asks.

"Fuck you," Alex says brightly, tilting his head up so he can shoot Henry a shit-eating grin. It
does unfortunate things to Henry's stomach - primarily because it sounds like a fun and
intriguing coping mechanism - and June makes a disgusted noise from just opposite them.

"I didn't realise you two were gonna get worse after," she says, sounding horrified, but
Henry's saved from having to respond by Zahra's voice booming out across the space again.

"Alright, everyone - my nightmares have been fucking realised and we have to write this into
the show because someone didn't read the application paperwork properly," she says with a
hiss, eyes darting over to where Hunter looks terrified for his very life. "So, we're using the
footage where June sees her brother and is shaken to her fucking core, and we'll edit out the
swearing, and this is going to add drama I didn't ask for or fucking want for this season,
okay? You guys play it up like this is your goddamn day job, and remember your fucking
contracts. Got it?"

Alex grins at her. "Sure thing, Zee."

"Christ," she mutters, then turns on her heel and starts to march back to the other side of the
wall of cameras. "Right, let's go from the top."

And then they're rolling again, and Alex is acting surprised and confused, and Henry's doing
the same, and honestly it's mostly not acting. They're introduced to all the other contestants -
who seem mostly fine, even if one or two of them look like they might have some issues with
not being the centre of attention - and after an hour or so of filming, they're allowed to relax
again.

Not that the cameras are turned off, exactly.

"Do what you want, but remember that we're probably filming you doing it," Zahra reminds
them, and Henry's not sure how long she's had a glass of wine in her hand, but he's suddenly
quite desperately wishing he had one too. "Go. Be free. Make TV-appropriate choices. Or,
like, don't, but don't come crying to me when your mom sees your ass."

"My mom's gonna disown me when she sees I'm on this show," someone - Niamh, Henry
recalls vaguely - says with a slightly mournful tone. "She thinks reality TV promotes
unhealthy relationships and Satanism."

Nora cocks her head to the side as they all pile towards a buffet table. "That's a leap. The
second one, I mean — obviously reality television promotes unhealthy relationships."

"Speak for yourself," Alex snorts, grabbing a couple of drinks and bypassing the food
entirely to shove one at Henry. When Henry takes it, eyebrows raised, Alex rolls his eyes.
"Don't look at me like that, sweetheart; you've been doing your stressed-out palm massage
thing for like twenty minutes minimum. You need a drink more than you need a slice of
subpar vegetarian pizza."

Henry swallows his protests and takes the bottle Alex is holding out to him; lets Alex curl a
hand around his hip and sees the change in stance before he really registers it. His body
knows what's coming though, the knowledge sitting somewhere in his muscle memory -
where it has no right to be - and when Alex pushes up onto his tiptoes, Henry meets him
halfway. It's a short kiss, and relatively chaste, but it still makes him feel a little weak and
boneless.

"You guys are disgustingly cute," Nora comments, and Henry rolls his eyes and takes a swig
of his beer so he doesn't have to respond. Alex, however, has no such compunctions.

"What d'you think our Twitter hashtag is gonna be?" he says, grinning; his hand is still on
Henry's hip and he can feel it resting there like a white-hot brand even through his shirt.
"Halex has kind of a nice ring to it."

"Do shut up, love," Henry murmurs, and June makes a noise of agreement.

After a couple of hours of mingling - the entire process of which is overshadowed by the
knowledge that they're almost definitely being filmed - Henry's no closer to figuring out who
the other fakes are. Everyone is, on the surface, very much in love.

This is going to be tough.

The hardest part, however, continues to be Alex. The touching; the looks; the constant
reminders that Alex knows Henry better than anyone, and still can't see how much every
single one of those touches - every single one of those looks - adds another gram of pressure
to the straining weight he's carrying on his shoulders.

The first night's official meal - rather than the buffet that they've been allowed access to
throughout the morning and early afternoon - is recorded in full, and Henry struggles to keep
up. He's fine with people - he is in fact, rather good with people, though not in the bold and
charismatic way that Alex is - but it's still a lot.

Alex always says he's too empathetic; that he sees people down to their bones too quickly and
sharply, and tries to take on whatever it is that's weighing them down. Henry says that's
bollocks, and when he looks at Alex's bones, all he sees is coffee, cinnamon, and petulance.

(What he actually sees is fierce loyalty, precision, and an unwavering sense of justice and
morality; but if he were to say that out loud, Alex would probably see down to his bones in
return. Friends don't say that shit to each other.)

"So, you work in publishing?" someone called Astin is asking Henry over dessert, while his
partner - Gaia - diligently builds some kind of diorama out of napkins behind him in order to
illustrate to another contestant the basic principles of commercial architecture. It's actually
quite impressive, but Henry knows hyperfocus when he sees it, and wonders vaguely if she
and Alex would get on.

"Primarily," Henry confirms, "although I'm also working on my PhD and doing lecturing
part-time. My focus is on queer voices in history and literature, so—"

"Hang on," Astin interrupts him, frowning. "Are we allowed to say that now? Queer?
Thought it was a slur."

Henry's entire body sighs. "As long as you're not yelling it at someone out of a car window,
it's a perfectly respectable umbrella term," he explains calmly.

"Ooh," Alex says from behind Henry where he's twisted slightly in his seat, and then Alex's
head is appearing over his shoulder somehow; presumably he's standing up. "Are we getting
onto queer discourse? We haven't even finished dessert yet. I've got, like, half a crème brulee
to go, and someone said something about a fruit platter. With papaya."

"What is your obsession with papaya?" Henry asks, heart jumping in his chest when he
realises Alex has curled an arm around him.

"Pez said they're in season," he says, like that's an explanation, and Astin looks just about
done with this entire conversation. Henry mentally wishes him luck for the rest of his time
here; if he can't handle Alex at his two-beers-and-half-a-bottle-of-merlot, he's not gonna like
Alex at his bottomless-prosecco-brunch.

And there is, according to the very vague itinerary in their coffee table dossier, a bottomless
prosecco brunch at some point. Henry's already wondering how many pieces of bacon Alex is
going to try and hide away for later in the day; he always does it, for some reason, like he's
some kind of street urchin who doesn't know where their next meal is coming from. He's
absurd and Henry loves him, for his sins.
The drama of the evening ("Dinner and a show," Alex murmurs gleefully in Henry's ear,
close enough that it makes him shiver) comes when one of the contestants - Priah - accuses
her partner of flirting with someone else.

"You could at least pretend like you're not going for anything with a pulse while we're on
television," she hisses, and every eye and camera in the room is on them now, the hum of
chatter dying down in the dining room as she clutches her wine glass by the stem like it's an
offensive weapon. "You already have a girlfriend, Jay."

"And she's so lovely to be around," Jason says sarcastically, which has Alex gasping
dramatically in Henry's ear and clutching a little tighter where his hand is around his wrist.

"Oh my god." He sounds delighted.

"Alex," Henry hisses reproachfully, twisting out of Alex's grip and tugging him back into his
seat by the hand from where he's risen to his feet to get a better look. Alex sighs dramatically,
but picks up his glass of wine with his free hand anyway, leaving the fingers of the other
tangled with Henry's. This hadn't really been what Henry had intended; it's possible he had, in
fact, miscalculated. Alex is just sitting here holding his hand now, which is terrible and
lovely.

The arguing keeps happening, but eventually - Priah almost in tears, Henry's horrified to see -
their handler steps in and everyone is kind of ushered off to bed.

"Okay, those guys definitely aren't faking it," Alex comments as they make their way up to
their room not long later. He is, regrettably, no longer holding Henry's hand.

"A very public argument does not a relationship make. Also, Priah probably deserves better,"
Henry points out, because the poor girl had been close to tears by the time their handler -
Ginnifer - had come over to gently intervene. Jason had seemed fairly unrepentant, and
Henry's also quite sure he'd been doing precisely what he'd been accused of doing; namely,
flirting with someone who wasn't his girlfriend.

If they're not a real couple, Jason's doing rather a poor job of keeping up the pretence.

"We argue all the time," Alex says - well, argues - as they enter their room, Henry kicking the
door shut behind them.

"Me telling you not to drink from the carton and you saying 'no' isn't the same thing," Henry
says drily. "Also - and this is a very important point - we're not actually in a relationship.
Your arbitrary argument rules do not apply to our friendship."

Alex grins at him. "I think they do."

"They do not," Henry says hotly, before stopping himself with a sharp sigh and giving Alex a
look. "I can't believe I almost fell for that. You're such a wanker."

Alex flops backwards onto the bed with a bright laugh. "Almost had you there, sweetheart."
Henry swallows and goes for the dossier on the coffee table, just for something to do with
himself that isn't clambering on top of Alex on the bed and shutting him up with his mouth.
He's managed perfectly fine not doing that for the last several years of living with Alex; he's
not sure why this whole situation has him feeling so wildly out of control.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he now knows what Alex's mouth feels like
under his. It's certainly not helping.

He opens the dossier to the contestants' page.

Couples:

Alex & Henry

Priah & Jason
Kathleen & Mike
Minnie & Justin
Nora & June
Jessica & Marc
Florence & Niamh
Hugh & Dean
Gaia & Astin
Maria & Trenton

Henry frowns. "Do you think there's a reason they've got two sets of male same-sex couples
and two sets of female?" He'd noticed it earlier but it's only seeing it in black and white that
he realises it's very specific.

Henry looks up in time to see Alex shrugging from where he's now sitting up on the bed. "I
don't see why there would be. Any idea who's faking it yet, babycakes?"

"Don't call me that," Henry says, rolling his eyes. "I have my limits."

"How about sweetcheeks?"

"Absolutely not."

"Baby?"

Henry's stomach swoops. "...No."

"You hesitated," Alex says immediately, sounding delighted. Henry's going to jump out the
bloody window in a minute, and they're not far enough up that he'd break anything, but it's
possible he might be able to get to the beach and swim home.

"I'm trying to consider your original question," Henry lies, staring resolutely at the list of
couples in front of him. "Unfortunately, you keep talking, which means I haven't come to any
conclusions yet."

"But we agree Priah and Jason are the real deal, right? Even though he's terrible and she
should obviously leave him."
"It's the logical conclusion," Henry admits, "unless they're both very good actors."

"And Nora and June are... a thing?" Alex says, sounding a little less sure of this
pronouncement; this is deeply ironic, given who they're talking about.

"I'm almost certain they had sex on our pull-out sofa when they visited after Christmas, if that
helps," Henry says breezily, and Alex makes a wounded noise and slithers dramatically to the
floor.

"It fucking doesn't," he says faintly. "Why would you tell me that? I need to bleach my brain
now."

"Because I had to hear it and I was traumatised, and I'm a little annoyed that you managed to
sleep through it, frankly."

"I want a divorce," Alex says flatly.

"But, darling," Henry says, eyebrows raised as he finally allows his gaze to stray back to
Alex, who has remained on the floor at the foot of the bed, "how will we explain it to the
children?"

"I fucking hate you."

Henry hums in response, smiling as he goes back to the dossier. He finds a pen on the coffee
table and puts an asterisk next to 'Priah & Jason' and 'Nora & June'. He puts a little cross next
to himself and Alex, since they already know that one, and tries not to be too depressed about
it.

Alex throws his legs over Henry's again when they go to bed a little while later, and this time
Henry doesn't bother to disentangle himself. There isn't a lot of point.

On day two, they're pulled away for individual interviews - live, so that the other couples can
watch in the waiting room - and Henry has to remind himself that they planned for this; they
sorted out their backstory and got it down to a fine art, making sure it didn't stray far enough
from the truth to make it unbelievable or hard for them to remember.

For Henry, it's possible it doesn't stray far enough from the truth.

"So," the interviewer - Oliver - says, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back in his
chair. "Henry, right? Ever watched the show before?"

"I have, on occasion, been forced to endure it, yes," he says honestly, and Oliver laughs like
he's made a very funny joke, eyes crinkling up at the corners. The problem with being
English while surrounded by Americans is that they often assume you're being drily
humorous, just to err on the side of caution; Henry is not being drily humorous.

"Okay, well - that's a start! You're here with your boyfriend, Alex, making you a huge part of
the biggest step forward for equality and diversity in this industry in recent years. How does
that feel?"
Mostly Henry feels a bit sick. "Well, I suppose I never really saw a lot of people like me on
television growing up - gay men, I mean. Representation in media is important, of course, but
I hadn't really thought about it. Now that I am, it's... Well, I suppose it's an honour? I hope it
helps someone out there, at least, to see someone like them in love." He pauses. "Even if their
boyfriend sounds like a cowboy when he's had too many tequila shots."

Oliver laughs again. "There are worse things that tequila's brought out in the general public -
Annika from series three is a prime example. I think we almost moved locations after that."

Henry has not seen series three and he doesn't want to.

"Speaking of Alex," Oliver says, and Henry tries not to tense up, "I suppose the next question
is how did you get together? How did you know he was the one for you?"

Henry rolls his shoulders and lets himself smile; really, it's not that hard when he's thinking
about Alex. "We were friends at university - sorry, college - and when it came time to
graduate, we realised we didn't want to live with anyone else, so we moved in together. One
night we'd had a few beers and I realised it wasn't just that I didn't want to live with anyone
else - I couldn't even see myself being with anyone else. Alex has this way of lighting up a
room... It's a bit like standing in sunlight. He's all heat and vibrancy, and even though you
know it could so easily burn you up if you got too close, you can't stop yourself from
reaching out. I think he was going on some rant about Empire Strikes Back being
misunderstood again, and I kissed him just to shut him up - except then I realised I never
wanted to stop."

Henry takes a breath. He thinks this might be getting way too close to reality - minus the
kissing and mutual adoration, unfortunately - so he tries to reign it in; Oliver looks
captivated. "Anyway, I suppose I didn't stop. We've been together for a few years now and
it's just... Very easy to love him. In spite of everything."

"'Everything' here meaning the post-tequila cowboy issue," Oliver clarifies with a smile, and
Henry lets out a huff of laughter.

"He also drinks out the juice carton."

"Utterly depraved."

The rest of the interview goes fine, and when it's over, Henry finds himself very, very glad
that the couples aren't allowed to see their other half’s interview. No doubt Alex will
consume every piece of 'Fake It' media he can get his hands on once they get out of here, but
by then Henry will have come up with an excuse for why his hands are shaking; why he feels
so drained and like he just threw up a lung.

"Breathe, sweetheart," Alex says when Henry exits the - thankfully soundproofed - room. He
takes Henry's face in his hands and grins at him. "With that accent, nobody's gonna be
listening to the words."

"And yet, I don't think parroting back an entire Shakespeare soliloquy would have gone down
very well," Henry says drily, trying not to think about how quickly Alex's touch is already
calming him down.

"To fuck Alex, or not to fuck Alex," Alex himself intones, his hands still on Henry's face.
"That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to-"

"I'm going to stop you there before you embarrass both of us," Henry says firmly, and he's
sure his face must be heating up horribly beneath Alex's palms as he pulls himself out of his
grip. "And I do, in fact, have a very noble mind. I'm only ever thinking about Grand Designs,
British waterways, and train timetables."

Alex snorts and is clearly about to say something lewd - probably about Henry's search
history, which he has absolutely no idea about, because Henry's not an idiot - when Shaan
comes out to save him.

"Your turn, Alex," Shaan says, gesturing towards the now open doorway to the interview
room. Alex shoots him a double thumbs-up, which doesn't seem to impress him, before
leaning up to give Henry a swift kiss on the cheek.

"For luck," he explains with a grin, before he starts walking away. "The sweet cheeks of my
sweetcheeks have gotta be lucky."

"I told you not to call me that," Henry reminds him, and then Alex is gone, swallowed up by
the finality of a closed door. Henry takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out through his
nose. "Bollocks."

He's even more frustrated with himself later when - after a day of being filmed on the beach
and forced to integrate more with the other couples - June manages to pull him to one side, in
clear violation of every good idea anyone has ever had.

"Saw your interview," she says, without any preamble. "I have some questions, but my main
one is just the words, 'the', 'fuck', and 'what'. You may rearrange them in the way you think
makes the most sense."

Henry pulls his arm out of her grip and looks around wildly to check there are no cameras.

"June, you can't ask me about this," he says quickly, keeping his voice low; Shaan had said
the walls have ears, and while there are no walls out here, there are instead a dozen producers
and every single other person involved with the show. He's surprised the beach is big enough.
"Can we talk about this later?"

"Nora's trying to drag Alex off," she says, ignoring him entirely, "but I just wanted to... God,
Henry, I wanted to ask you what you're doing to yourself?"

That brings him up short. He looks at June then - really looks at her - and sees nothing but
genuine concern in her eyes; he absolutely hates how immediately a lump begins to form in
his throat to see it there.

"I'm fine," he says, only half meaning it. "I knew what I was doing going in."
 "Did you?" June asks, and Henry sighs deeply.

"I rather thought I did, yes. Now can you please stop Nora from doing anything I'll regret,
and we'll speak to you both later? In our room. I hear sneaking out in the middle of the night
is encouraged for the drama of it all, though it's probably in our best interests not to get
caught in this instance."

June narrows her eyes for a moment before straightening her shoulders and nodding once.
"Fine. But if you keep glancing sadly at your cereal when Alex touches you, someone's
gonna notice."

"I will take that under advisement."

Then June's gone in a haze of sunscreen and perfume, and Henry is left to wonder how on
earth he's managed to get into this mess.

Chapter End Notes

Henry, what are you doing to yourself?

 Chapter 3
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Week One: etc.

"It's two in the morning," Alex says groggily, which is... wow, actually pretty accurate, Henry
realises as he looks over at the clock on the bedside table. He's not sure how Alex knows it's
2am, given that he's still under the covers and refusing to come out, but his sense of timing
apparently extends precisely as far as his annoyance with it.

"I'm aware," Henry murmurs, and then there's a quiet knock at the door; the second such
knock, the first of which woke Henry up and immediately knotted his stomach into
something resembling an Angler's loop. His other internal organs appear to be using this as a
bungee-jumping opportunity.

"Who the fuck," Alex says, which is very nearly a question. He emerges from underneath the
covers looking rumpled and annoyed, and Henry's heart does an elegant double backflip and
lands directly in his throat; it's a ten from the judges.

"June and Nora," he explains, climbing out of bed and walking quickly over to the door to
unlock and open it. The aforementioned women slip immediately inside and he closes the
door behind them, sliding the bolt back across so that they don't have to worry about anybody
else following their example and making this a free-for-all; not that anybody should be
wandering the halls with a skeleton key, but Henry's nothing if not cautious.

He glances over to where Alex is dragging himself into a sitting position in bed, chest bare
and his hair in complete disarray. Well, Henry amends; cautious in all but this. In all but the
one place he might actually get hurt.

"Are we turning a light on or are we doing this in the romantic light of a full moon?" Nora
asks, and Henry sighs before moving through to the seating area and turning on a lamp. It
illuminates Nora's expression as she follows him with her gaze, and he really could have
gone his whole life without seeing that amount of concern on her features; it doesn't suit her.

"Give a guy some fucking warning," Alex complains, shielding his eyes like Henry's turned
on the bloody sun or something, rather than a standing lamp.

"I'm turning on a light now," Henry says drily. "You may wish to cover your eyes."

"This is abuse," Alex says, moving his hand away from his face so he can glare more
effectively. "I can't believe I let you take my virginity."

"Please stop talking," Henry says conversationally, while June makes a noise like a beached
whale in the background.
"Okay, we should probably start by confirming that we know you guys are faking it," Nora
says, grinning. "Unless there's something you need to tell us, Alejandro? Because if you're
dreaming about it—"

"Don't turn my own, hilarious joke against me," Alex bites back, slipping out of bed and
grabbing his shirt from where it's draped over the arm of a chair. He pulls it on and Henry
briefly laments the loss of one of his favourite views, before he forces himself to look away,
sitting down in one of the chairs in the seating area. June and Nora follow suit, curling up on
the sofa, followed by Alex, who stomps over and immediately crawls into Henry's lap.

"Alex," Henry says softly, trying to keep his voice level, "there are other chairs."

"You woke me up at two in the fucking morning," Alex says as he shoves his face into
Henry's collar bone. "'M not there yet. Everyone be quiet."

"You're fucking kidding me," Nora says flatly, and Henry sends her a pleading look. She rolls
her eyes but doesn't say anything else, leaning back into the sofa cushions with a harsh sigh
and letting June lean more fully against her. "Okay, so, you guys definitely haven't been
together for years, which means you lied in your interviews. Which means you're not together
at all, just grossly co-dependent besties who Skype every night when Henry has to visit his
family. Have I got that right?"

"Yeah," Alex says from where his face is still pressed against Henry. "'Bout right. Gonna rat
us out?"

"No," June scoffs, "we're going to team up, moron."

Henry looks sharply over at where Nora is now grinning, the expression one that looks much
more at home on her face than the one she'd briefly worn earlier; he feels Alex turn his face
so that his cheek is smushed against Henry's chest, eyes on June, and Henry tries to feel less
about the fact that Alex is still touching him everywhere.

"Team up?" Henry echoes, and Nora nods.

"We already know you're one of the fake couples, so that means there are only two to figure
out. The other gay couple have to be together, because there's no way the show's PR would be
able to deal with the backlash otherwise. We're assuming you have some opinions already
too, and if even one lot of us manages to win this, that's like... a reasonable amount of money
between the four of us."

"Plus," June says, shrugging, "this is basically like... the first holiday we've had with you
guys in a couple of years. It's kind of nice."

Henry swallows and fights back the wave of emotion that crashes over him at that. While he
manages not to miss his family too much on a day-to-day basis, Bea and his mother being in
a different time zone to him is something that's never exactly grown any easier to deal with
over the years; he even misses Philip occasionally, now that he's stopped being such a wanker
all the time. The reminder that he has family here, too, is a little overwhelming for 2am.
"I am a delight to be around," Alex says slowly, and Henry sighs and gives in, sliding an arm
around Alex's waist to drag him in closer. Alex makes a pleased sound in his throat and turns
his face back into Henry's shirt, which means that Nora and June now have free reign to send
him pitying looks; you win some, you lose some.

"You're something," Henry confirms, and Alex snorts inelegantly against his chest.

So, they plan. Alex doesn't move from Henry's lap, but he does wake up a little more and
start to contribute to their conversation, and by 3am, the contestants' page of Henry and
Alex's dossier is scrawled with notes, statistics, and observations. June and Nora agree that
Priah and Jason are a real couple, although Nora argues that's not relevant.

"They'll be going home before week three," she says matter-of-factly. "I'm pretty sure this
was a last-ditch attempt by Priah to make her relationship work, and being around a bunch of
people who're obviously having a better time with their S.O. is going to be the final nail in
Jason's sad little coffin. I hope he cries when he leaves."

"A-fucking-men," Alex says from Henry's lap. Henry concurs.

June and Nora leave shortly afterwards, Alex sleepily humming the Mission Impossible
theme while they slip out into the dimly-lit hallway, which has June stifling a slightly
hysterical laugh as Nora tugs her along and out of sight.

"Bed," Alex says the moment the door has been closed on his sister and her girlfriend. "Bed,
now. I'm so tired, H. So, so tired. Please. Bed."

"I heard you the first time," Henry says patiently, trying not to smile as he goes to turn off the
lamp in the seating area. "You can go to bed whenever you like - I'm not stopping you."

"See, you are though," Alex says from where he's now sitting on top of the duvet and
frowning at Henry in the darkness; the moon is still bright enough to see by, so Henry can
track the creases between his eyebrows and the way Alex is fiddling absently with the hem of
his sleep shirt.

"How so?" Henry asks as he slips underneath the duvet and watches as Alex scrambles to do
the same a moment later.

"Because reasons," Alex says nonsensically, before shuffling closer and shoving his face
back into Henry's chest. "There. Better. As you were."

"You're ridiculous," Henry says, heart suddenly over-full and too big for his ribcage.

"Sh," Alex mutters. "Sleep now."

Henry doesn't argue, even though he'd dearly like to; how on earth is he meant to sleep when
Alex is wrapped around him like a particularly amorous koala?

(He falls asleep in thirty seconds flat, and the next thing he hears is the shriek of the door
alarm the next morning. Alex's presence is, it would appear, a powerful sleep aid.)
The rest of the first week goes by fairly quickly, with most of the events limited to getting to
know each other, which Henry is absolutely not letting lull him into a false sense of security.
This is a competition, at the end of the piece, and at the end of the first week, they all have to
put forward their votes; one of the couples will be leaving the island, and that could very well
be him and Alex if they're not careful.

Well, not leaving the island, exactly; because the show is broadcast in compact episode slots
three times a week, with only a day's delay, there's an almost live element that means couples
can't leave the island until it's over. But the couples - fake or otherwise - that get voted off
have to go somewhere they can't be around everyone else, so they're put up in a nice hotel on
the other side of the island.

Still. Henry's oddly committed now; if he's going to have his heart broken by increments on
an almost daily basis, he should at least receive financial recompense.

The day before the first week’s votes are due, two things happen.

The first is the arrangement of a beach volleyball tournament.

The second is Nora being very right, and very, very smug about it.

"I don't know how to play volleyball, and I resent being forced to learn," Henry says flatly as
he pulls a shirt on and grabs a beach towel from his luggage. "It's a perfectly respectable
sport, but not one in which I am proficient."

"How do you know unless you've tried it?" Alex points out with a grin, throwing a towel over
his own shoulder and leaning over to poke Henry in the side. He is apparently not bothering
with a shirt. "Did you pack sunscreen?"

"No," Henry says drily. "I thought that I - someone who has been described as 'pale as the
moon', ‘possibly a ghost’, and 'paper white' - would venture out to a tropical island without
bringing adequate protection. You caught me."

"I called you all three of those," Alex says, proud and unrepentant; his fond smile makes
Henry's stomach flip.

"You are incredibly good at compliments," Henry confirms with a nod, returning Alex's smile
before busying himself with something else so that he doesn't have to look at him for too
long. Alex is very soft, very close, and very shirtless, and it's a combination he has had to
deal with one too many times recently; he'd rather like a break.

When they get to the beach, Henry is apparently allowed his break; Alex hurries forward to
where June and Nora are watching something unfold a little way ahead, and it quickly
becomes apparent that they've missed the start of something.

"What on earth—"

"Sh," Nora says with wide eyes, hitting him on the arm as they draw level with her and June.
"Just... fucking watch."
“And it's not as though you're particularly good in bed either," Priah is yelling at Jason not far
from them, apparently uncaring of the cameras. "You have basically no redeeming features,
Jay, and I'm fucking tired of it. I can't believe we're on a beautiful, romantic tropical island
getaway, and you're staring at other women's asses? Newsflash, Jay - they're too good for
you! And so am I!"

"Oh my God," Alex murmurs, sounding oddly choked up. "Fucking good for her."

"You missed a monologue about his treatment of waitstaff," June whispers, not taking her
eyes off the scene before them. "I almost cried. It was beautiful."

“Priah—” Jason starts to say, voice pleading and looking a bit like he’s been hit with a truck,
but she interrupts him; Henry has to fight back a cheer. He's never been more invested in a
public break-up in his life.

"You don't get to talk to me," she says sharply. Alex makes a delighted noise next to Henry
and grabs his hand.

Right; that was a very short break from shirtless intimacy then. Henry breathes through it.

"I'm done, Jason. Get in the goddamn ocean," Priah finishes, throwing her (ex-) boyfriend
one final look of disgust before she turns on her heel and heads back towards the villa.

"Well, that solves the problem of teams," Shaan says from somewhere behind them, smooth
voice sounding mildly amused and unsurprised. Henry turns from where Jason has flopped
down in the sand to stare morosely at his own flip-flops, and raises his eyebrows in question;
he hadn't known Shaan was still there, but he seems to be fairly good at shadowing them
without getting in the way of the cameras. Henry suspects he is, in fact, incredibly good at his
job.

"Teams?"

"Twenty isn't divisible by three," Shaan says with a shrug. "I think Ms Bankston was
planning on having non-standard teams, but this makes things a lot neater."

That is, Henry supposes, one way to look at things.

"Fucking excellent," Zahra says, appearing beside Shaan a moment later and grinning
gleefully. Jason, meanwhile, has his face in his hands; Henry thinks he might have started
crying. "This is way better. Eighteen is divisible by three."

The corner of Shaan's mouth twitches.

"Not concerned about the fact that this means two couples going out in the first week then?"
he asks casually, and Zahra shoots him a look that would no doubt fell a lesser man. Shaan
seems, if possible, more amused.

"Are you kidding me? You couldn't plan this sort of drama. Fuck. I'm delighted."
"I really like her," Alex says seriously as she breezes off to bark instructions at some of the
people behind the cameras.

"Don't say that within earshot of her," Shaan advises, starting to guide them a little further
down the beach, where some nets have been set up. "She's unlikely to openly return the
sentiment."

"I am a delight," Alex says, for the second time in less than twelve hours.

"You are, love," Henry says, instead of echoing the sentiment he’d expressed at 2am. Alex
squeezes his hand reflexively, like he hadn't been expecting the term of endearment, and
when Henry looks over at him he looks quietly pleased.

Then they're all being introduced to Rafael Luna, who even Henry knows is a—

"—two time gold medal winning volleyball champion," Luna finishes, not sounding boastful
at all; he's just stating the facts, and the fact is that he's a retired Olympian with a fairly
successful track record. Henry glances over at where Alex is staring rapturously at Luna; he's
kind of obsessed with the Olympics, and while he says it's because he's, "a total perv, alright,"
Henry knows he loves the athleticism.

Not that he isn't also a perv; he just - presumably - restricts himself to the Olympians with
breasts.

"I'm here to teach you how to play volleyball without injuring yourself and others." Luna's
gaze falls on a particularly excited looking woman that Henry seems to recall is named
Jessica. "If you get too enthusiastic, you could break someone's nose."

"And Jason's not playing, so that wouldn't be any fun," Alex says, perhaps a touch too loudly.
Nora snorts and someone Henry can't see says, "hear, hear," and Henry finds himself biting
back a smile.

"I cannot condone violence in sport, mijo," Luna says with a grin, and Alex rolls his eyes.

"No seas aguafiestas," he says, and Luna throws his head back with a laugh, which has Alex
practically flushing down to his toes. He's always loved attention, but it's rare that he gets it
for this part of him, Henry knows. Henry squeezes his hand and Alex doesn't look at him, but
he squeezes back all the same.

He has to let go eventually - which is both terrible and necessary - and by the time Luna's
taught them all the basics, the sun is high and hot overhead and Henry can feel the skin on the
back of his neck threatening to burn. Before he can do anything about it, he sees Alex
ducking away to where their bag and towels have been stashed in the shade of a nearby
umbrella. Henry follows the motion with curious eyes, and feels himself go a little bit wobbly
when he realises Alex is making his way over with a bottle of sunscreen in his hands.

Fuck. This is terrible on at least two levels.

"Shirt off, sweetheart," Alex says when he reaches Henry. "I don't wanna end up dating a
lobster."

"Nobody's making you," Henry points out, but he pulls his shirt off obediently, throwing it
down onto the sand. "Also, your crustacean fetish is well-known. There really is no need to
try and hide it among friends."

"Shut up," Alex says brightly, and reaches out to smear sunscreen down Henry's nose. He
follows it up with some on his cheeks and forehead, before instructing him to close his eyes
so he can rub it in. Henry does so, letting Alex carefully work the sunscreen into his skin,
over his jaw and down his neck.

Then Alex's lips are on his - brief and soft - and Henry has to remind himself that stumbling
backwards would be both embarrassing and obvious.

"Cheeky shit," he murmurs, and Alex snorts as he pulls away. Henry opens his eyes and Alex
is grinning at him; his internal organs are getting quite the workout at the moment, with all
these impromptu acrobatics.

"Turn around," Alex says firmly. "Or do I need to break out the Bonnie Tyler?"

"I beg of you not to," Henry says, turning and letting Alex do his back and neck as well.
When he feels the brush of Alex's fingertips on the waistband of his shorts, he can't quite
repress a shiver; he just has to hope Alex hasn't noticed it, or has chalked it up to a hitherto
undiscovered ticklishness.

“Ready to get totally destroyed by me, sweetheart?” Alex says with a smirk when Henry’s
finally allowed to turn around again. Henry was, in fact, destroyed by Alex a very long time
ago; this isn’t exactly something that can happen more than once.

He’s aware that Alex is talking about volleyball. He’s also aware that it doesn’t matter that
he’s talking about volleyball.

In a moment of madness, Henry steps a little further into Alex’s space, pressing two fingers
beneath his chin to angle his face up. He probably imagines the way Alex’s breath catches
slightly, pupils dilating in the sun as he stares up at Henry with a smirk that’s slipping just a
little in the wake of Henry’s hands on him. He looks a bit off-balance, which makes a bloody
change.

“Let’s see whether having played polo or lacrosse is more beneficial in this scenario, shall
we?” he murmurs, and Alex looks flushed and annoyed, and maybe a little bit something else.
Before Henry can read too much into it though, Luna’s yelling at them to, “get a room,
mijos,” and Henry drops his hand automatically from where it had been resting beneath
Alex’s chin.

“Bring it on, Fox,” Alex says, perhaps a little breathlessly, and then he’s marching away and
over to the other side of the net like they weren’t just seconds from kissing when they had
absolutely no need to.
Henry shakes out his hands; the fingers that were just on Alex’s skin tingle a little.

Predictably, June and Nora are not at the same net as Alex and Henry; while this would
doubtless cause a lot of drama, with how competitive the Claremont-Diaz siblings get, most
of the footage would probably be unusable anyway. And, although it's always incredibly
entertaining to see them trash-talking each other in Spanish, the show is actually broadcast in
several Spanish-speaking countries, so there would be a lot of careful 'bleeping' required.

Most of the things Alex says would need to be censored, for example — although June's not
much better, once she gets going.

Henry ends up on a team with Niamh and Justin, with their partners - Florence and Minnie -
on the opposite team with Alex. Niamh is bouncing up and down like she's seen Dodgeball
enough times that she's anticipating bloodshed, and Justin looks a little bit out of his depth.

"Fine, fine. I just don't really do sports," he says nervously, when Henry very gently asks him
how he's doing.

"Well, if it helps, I'm sure the general public will find that very endearing," Henry says,
smiling warmly at him.

"Thanks," Justin says with a wan, lopsided smile of his own, looking over at where
volleyballs are being handed out with an expression that suggests they've done him a personal
wrong; as though every single ball is out to get him, and will then go after his family too.

Although, with the way Alex's team are already banding together and talking with fairly
violent-looking enthusiasm on the other side of the net, it's possible that at least one of the
balls is about to cause Justin some serious damage.

"If it comes down to it, protect your face," Henry says levelly, setting his feet a shoulders'
width apart in the warm sand and rolling his shoulders. "Also, any other places you'd like to
guard. You only have two hands, so choose wisely."

Henry sees the look of absolute horror Justin shoots his own crotch out of the corner of his
eye, and tries not to laugh.

The game is, in the end, pretty fucking dirty. There are rules, and they've all had said rules
explained to them, but Niamh plays like she's out for blood, and Alex seems pretty intent on
forcing Henry to play hard enough for two people; Justin isn't a whole lot of help, frankly.

He and Niamh, however, make quite a good team, and by the time the game's over, they've
managed to win three sets of five. Henry feels exhilarated and thoroughly sweaty, and when
Alex tackles him into the sand, he laughs and lets himself enjoy it, if only for a moment.

"You're the fucking worst," Alex says, hovering over him, covered in sand and sweat and
looking like an inadvisable, beach-based wet dream.

"Alright," Henry concedes, and lets Alex drag him to his feet and towards the ocean.
Everyone else seems to be making their way there to cool off as well, and the moment Henry
gets his toes in the water, he finds every muscle in his body starting to relax.

"How are you so good at everything?" Alex whines, dragging him in further until they're both
almost chest deep in the warm, gentle waves. "It's the worst."

"I thought I was already, in general terms, the worst?" Henry enquires, and Alex snorts and
then, without any warning, throws his arms around Henry's neck and hoists himself into his
arms. Henry immediately steadies him with firm hands on his thighs, and then regrets it just
as quickly.

"What are you doing?" he asks, trying to keep his voice and face neutral.

"We're in love, remember," Alex says quietly, wrapping his legs around Henry's waist and
tightening his arms where they're linked behind Henry's head. "Right?"

"Right," Henry says, mouth dry and his pulse thudding almost painfully in his throat.

"Cool," Alex says, grinning. "So, we're kissing now. Five second warning."

Alex actually gives him three.

Henry keeps thinking he's going to get used to Alex's mouth on his; like it's going to become
somehow less intense. It hasn't happened yet and - while there's still time - he's beginning to
get the idea that he's a lost cause; Alex is always going to undo him, and he just needs to get
used to that concept instead.

Alex kisses him like he's all-in, and that's probably the worst part. Henry briefly imagines
him kissing someone else like this, then stops, because if he thinks about that for more than a
handful of seconds he's going to swim away from the shore and not stop until he loses all
feeling in his arms.

"Nice," Alex murmurs as he pulls away, sliding his nose alongside Henry's in a painfully
intimate gesture. "We're getting pretty good at that."

He makes the mistake of loosening his grip around Henry's neck.

"Yeah," he agrees.

Then he drops Alex into the water.

After they've finished squabbling and laughing, making half-hearted attempts to drown each
other, Alex and Henry drag themselves out of the water and back towards their belongings to
dry off.

"You both did a decent job there." Henry straightens up, towel in hand, and turns to where
Rafael Luna has detached himself from a group of producers and crew members. He's
holding a water bottle and grinning, and Henry's hit with the sudden realisation of just how
young he is, really; he's probably in his early 40s, at most. He knows athletes don't tend to
have long careers, but Luna doesn't even have crow's feet yet.
"You're a good teacher," Alex says, looking a little blindsided by this sudden interaction.
Henry's trying very hard not to think of his starstruck adoration as 'cute', but it's becoming
increasingly difficult.

"And you're vicious, mijo," Luna says with a laugh, which has Alex flushing with pleasure at
what he clearly perceives as high praise. "You too though, Henry. You've got more
coordination than a lot of the white boys here, if I'm allowed to say that these days."

"Many, many years of polo," Henry says with a smile. "I think, therefore, that you're allowed
to make whatever comments you like about white people. I'm hardly shaking off the
stereotypes."

Luna laughs uproariously. "At least he's got a sense of humour about it, eh?" he says to Alex,
who seems delighted to be addressed directly.

"He's not so bad," he says with a cool shrug, but he's clearly biting his lip to stop from
grinning when he glances over to meet Henry's eyes.

"I've gotta say, it's great to see some representation on a show like this. As a kid, the only
thing I did besides train was watch telenovelas and truly irredeemable reality television.
Seeing a couple like you on something like that? It really would've meant something to a
young Raf. Just know that you're doing that for someone else out there right now, mijos."

Christ. Henry has a lump in his throat.

"Thank you," he says softly. "I'm beginning to see the importance."

He really is, unfortunately; he's not sure if he should feel bad about that. It's not as though
he's pretending to be gay, however, and Alex certainly isn't pretending not to be white. In the
end, he hopes that's what matters.

"Hey," Luna says with a grin, this time looking directly at Alex. "Este es de los buenos.
Quédate con él."

Alex snorts and kicks the sand like a toddler being told his trainers are cool by one of the big
kids. Henry doesn't speak Spanish - besides some of the rude words that Alex keeps trying to
teach him whenever they're drunk - but he knows enough to suspect that they're talking about
him.

"Yeah. I know."

Luna gets called away then, and Henry turns to Alex with his eyebrows raised. "Care to
enlighten me?"

"He said you're pretty fly, for a white guy," Alex says, completely deadpan, and Henry has to
resist the urge to shove him down into the sand; not least because it would be incredibly
tempting to follow him.

"You're a plague," Henry says, and Alex grins and waggles his eyebrows.
 "One of the sexy ones, right?"

"I am on tenterhooks, Alex. Please, tell me which of the plagues was meant to be sexy; the
locusts or the infanticide?"

"How dare you take my words at face value."

Chapter End Notes

Alex, you're such a paragon of heterosexuality. Good job, pal.

 Chapter 4
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Week One: wrapped up

Alex is having a nightmare.

It happens sometimes; his imagination is too bright, his brain too fast, and this translates into
night terrors that tend to have him knocking on Henry's door at 3am at least once a week.
They usually sit on the sofa, blankets around their shoulders, mugs of tea in their hands that
they don't often get around to drinking. He doesn't always remember them, but sometimes
they're vivid enough that he does; Henry listens, and they try to make sense of the chaos, and
by the time they both trudge back to their rooms, their faces hurt from snorting their way
through a dream dictionary.

("You, apparently, want to fuck your mother," Henry says, grimacing. Alex makes a horrified
noise and spills some of his tea on the sofa, snatching the book out of his hands and looking
for the entry Henry's been poring over.

"Freud is a dirty skank who needs to stop projecting his mommy issues onto people many
years later," Alex says darkly, after reading the entry three times. "I'm gonna be sick. I'd
actually rather go back to sleep and literally fall immediately back into the nightmare. What
the fuck, Sigmund?"

"He loved his mother," Henry says drily, and Alex makes another horrified noise and spills
some more tea - this time on his leg. He's a mess, and Henry wants to comfort him with his
entire body.)

Henry isn't usually, of course, in bed with Alex. He is right now, however, and it's impossible
to ignore the pained noises Alex is making in his sleep; he's curling into himself and
whimpering, and it's absolutely intolerable.

"Alex," Henry murmurs, pressing a palm to his shoulder and trying to shake him as gently as
possible. "Alex. Come on, wake up. Wake up."

Alex does wake up, but there's nothing graceful about it. He unfurls his limbs like a drunk
spider and flails a bit, eyes wild and tear tracks glittering on his cheeks where he's been
crying in his sleep.

"What the fuck?" he hisses, voice thick with sleep. "What?"

"Nightmare," Henry says.

Alex's eyes light up with recognition and he sags against the mattress, going a little boneless
beneath Henry's hands.

"Fuck. Fuck." He sounds - and looks - a little broken, and Henry doesn't mean to, but he leans
down and brushes his lips very briefly over Alex's forehead; it's meant to be a soothing
gesture, but Alex stiffens immediately beneath him and Henry's stomach drops to his knees.

"Sorry," Henry says tightly, pulling back. "I shouldn't have—"

Alex stops him. There's a hand curling firmly around his bicep, holding him in place, and
Alex's face is completely unreadable. His face is still a little wet with tears, and his mouth is
slightly open, and he's so beautiful Henry wants to cry; he also wants to run, however, to get
away from the emotions in Alex's eyes he cannot parse. He has no idea what might have put
them there, or what they mean.

"Henry," Alex whispers, and Henry can't— he cannot do this. He can't be this close to Alex,
not if he's going to say his name like that; he's not strong enough, and he shouldn't fucking
have to be.

He tries to pull away again, but Alex doesn't let him; just grabs his other arm and pulls him
down, and then—

Then Alex's mouth is on his.

It's everything and nothing like Henry imagined it - and he has imagined it extensively. Alex's
mouth is soft and slow, and slightly stale with sleep; he's finding it hard to concentrate on
that, however, because Alex is - as previously noted - kissing him. He'd endure worse for that.

There are no cameras here; there's nobody to pretend for. It's just them, and when Henry
unfreezes enough to kiss back - because he's going to take every second of this in until he's
drunk with it - Alex makes a desperate, broken little noise against his mouth and clings to
him a little more tightly. Henry blankets Alex with his body and Alex moves his arms to wrap
around Henry's neck, and it's so good that he feels dizzy with it.

Then Alex slings a leg over Henry's waist and drags him closer, and Henry can't help the
rasping groan that escapes him because Alex is hard. He's hard, and so is Henry, and the way
Alex starts immediately rolling his hips as he moans into Henry's mouth is an entirely new
and welcome experience. Henry doesn't know what to do with all of this. He's feeling so
much, so quickly, that his body feels unequal to the task of containing it all.

"Alex," he murmurs, pulling back slightly and trying to engage his brain a little. It's arse
o'clock in the morning, and Alex needs comfort, and Henry just happens to be here—

"Stop thinking," Alex says, sounding fucked-out and a little slurred already, pulling Henry's
mouth back to his. "Shut up. Just— please, sweetheart. I fucking need you."

Henry can't say anything to that; there's not a single part of him that isn't ready and willing to
give Alex anything he needs at any given time. He'd surrender his internal organs, if
necessary; would kill or be killed if Alex even hinted at needing that from him. Pushing
down into the welcome heat of Alex's body while they're both in their underwear isn't exactly
a hardship.

"Christ," he mutters, sounding a little more fractured than he'd like, and lets Alex swallow the
blasphemy with the press of his mouth.

They move together with increasingly jerky movements, both of them breathing out harsh,
stuttering breaths as their fingers dig into shoulders; teeth graze Henry's lower lip and he
groans, and Alex's hips do something erratic and wonderful on a sharp outward exhalation.

"Please," Alex says, and Henry doesn't know what he's asking for— except that he does. He
knows exactly what Alex wants, and his blood is too hot in his veins for this, but he forces
his shaking hands to do what Alex needs from them.

The slide of Alex's cock beside his own when he pushes their underwear down to their thighs
is the best thing he's ever felt. He can't breathe.

Alex helps steady him; takes Henry's hand and guides it to where he wants it. The guttural
moan it drags out of Alex when they start to move together again - now with the added
pressure of Henry's hand wrapped around them both - makes Henry want to fucking ascend;
he could die happy right now, without ever reaching the end of this, because the sounds Alex
is making are so good he can taste them.

"C'mon," Alex says, nose sliding alongside Henry's, lips barely ghosting across his cheek.
"Fuck. Close. Come on."

Henry kisses him again to shut him up, because the way he's talking is too much for right
now; too much for the minimal space between their bodies, and the fact that this isn't even
their bed. It feels too real for what this is - for what they are - and it's making Henry's chest
feel tight, even as his body responds to every single cue and curve of Alex's beneath him.

"Henry," Alex gasps into his mouth, and Henry's hand is slick with the way Alex is leaking so
enthusiastically between them; he can't stop thinking about it. He's going to be thinking about
it every day until he dies, probably. "Henry. Sweetheart - baby—"

"Oh," Henry breathes, completely incapable of stopping the way his lungs get rid of
everything they'd been holding back hearing that word on Alex's tongue. He shudders as the
heat in his gut coils too tightly to be contained, and he spills over his own fist, working his
hand a little faster over both of them as he gasps his way through his orgasm.

"Fuck," Alex hisses, and then he's following suit, adding to the mess on Henry's hand and
their stomachs. Henry makes himself watch; keeps his eyes open in the moonlit darkness so
he can see every last second of Alex's pleasure written across his face. He broadcasts, and
Henry can't help leaning down to kiss the last few waves of it from Alex's mouth as he shakes
and shakes underneath Henry's body.

It's white noise and nothing else for a while. Henry tries to wrap his head around what's just
happened, but Alex won't stop kissing him for long enough that he can scrape together any
semblance of logical thought. His mind is like a badly tuned television; there's noise and
sound, but it's distorted, and he can't change it because Alex is holding the remote at bay with
the slide of his tongue against Henry's.

Eventually he can put together a few pieces of information. It's enough,

They just came together. Henry just had his hand on Alex's dick. They just had sex.

"Your brain is always so fucking loud," Alex says fondly, pulling back from Henry and
smiling up at him like he's so fucking happy to be here. They're both a mess, and they're not
even dating, and Henry just had Alex's dick in his hand—

He might be a little stuck on that part. It's a very nice dick. He's maybe thought about what it
might feel like in his hand more than once; it's nice to know it's even better than he'd
imagined.

Bigger, too. He's trying not to think too hard about what it might feel like inside him, because
he's definitely going to hurt himself if he does that.

"This is a slight deviation from our usual dynamic," Henry says curtly, and Alex snorts and
shoves him off to the side before, absurdly, climbing on top of him. They're both sticky and
half-dressed, and Alex is straddling him like this is normal for them; like they usually wake
up at gone 3am and kiss and pretend to be a couple in private.

It's just now dawning on Henry that this was a truly awful idea.

"Mutually beneficial orgasms aren't exactly forbidden," Alex says offhandedly, like that's
where Henry had been going with this. It hadn't been. "We're not breaking the rules or
anything."

Henry realises, a sinking feeling in his stomach, that it's not the rules he's worried are going
to be broken.

The contracts they signed only stated that they needed to inform their handler if their
relationship became real at any point during the show; it said absolutely nothing about them
having sex. Which is all this is, clearly. That's... fine. It is.

Henry swallows and immediately shuts down the part of himself that's responsible for the
lurch in his stomach every time Alex smiles at him; the part of him that hurts to see Alex in
the mornings when he's all wild hair and square frames, holding a coffee between his palms
like it's a lifeline. He closes it all off and locks it up tight.

He lets Alex kiss him and drag him to the bathroom to clean up.

He lets Alex curl around him in bed again, and it doesn't hurt because he's not going to let it.

"We should probably talk," Alex says from the bathroom doorway, and Henry manages not to
shriek or something equally embarrassing, but only just.
"Alex," he hisses, resisting the urge to cover himself up where he's trying to fucking shower.
He hadn't bothered locking the door because it's early and Alex had still been sleeping; this
had apparently been an error.

"Chill," Alex drawls, even though he's now looking Henry up and down like this is just how
they interact now. It's not. It's not going to be. "You literally jerked me off like four hours
ago. I think we're there."

"Alex, please get out and let me shower," Henry says firmly, trying to keep his voice steady.
"We can talk when I'm not completely naked."

"Fucking shame," Alex says with a grin and a shrug, before - thankfully - leaving the
bathroom and closing the door behind him. Henry immediately leans back into the tiles and
smacks his head back against them a little harder than is probably necessary; perhaps they'll
send him home if he gets a concussion. It's either that or drown himself in here. Both options
are, at present, incredibly appealing.

He finishes showering and dries off, then walks out of the bathroom with a towel around his
waist and a great deal of trepidation in his heart. Alex is sitting on the edge of the bed in his
underwear - which Henry tries not to look at too closely, just in case there's evidence to spiral
over - and he makes a soft noise in his throat when he sees Henry.

"Hey - morning. Again."

"Morning," Henry says carefully, grabbing some clothes from his luggage and then just sort
of... standing there. Even after the events of the last few hours, he's not sure how to go about
changing in front of Alex.

Alex rolls his eyes, clearly sensing Henry's concern. "D'you want me to close my eyes? Or do
you need reminding that we literally came together last night?"

"It was 3am and you were distressed," Henry says automatically. "It's not the same thing."

"You're right," Alex says brightly. "That was way more intense. I literally got your jizz on my
—"

"Okay, I get the point," Henry says quickly, screwing up the scrappy, torn-up remnants of his
courage and quickly dropping the towel so he can pull a clean pair of underwear on. Alex
makes an approving noise and Henry only manages to stop himself from flushing through
sheer force of will. He drags his jeans on immediately afterwards, then straightens up and
folds his arms over his bare chest; it seems too weird for him to be fully-clothed while Alex
is sitting there in his boxers.

"Better?" Alex asks, eyebrows raised.

"Marginally," Henry replies drily. "Anyway - you wanted to talk?"

"Yeah, so— I should probably explain a few things." Henry just nods slowly and Alex
continues. "Right. I'm bisexual, apparently. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and it’s…
Yeah, it’s definitely a whole thing. You're hot, like, objectively. We're friends. It kind of felt
like a good idea at the time, and it made me feel better? But I didn't really think about it past
that."

"Okay," Henry says, voice calm; he's done a reasonably good job of keeping that lid shut.
"Congratulations on the sexuality."

As predicted, this makes Alex laugh; warmth starts to bloom in Henry's chest and he forces it
back immediately. "Fuck - stop being funny for twenty seconds. This is the weirdest coming-
out ever."

"I'm not sure you can blame me for that," Henry points out, and Alex concedes the point with
a grin.

"Okay, fair. Obviously I don't want things to be weird between us, but last night was pretty
fucking good, basically. Do you wanna keep doing it? Like I said, it's not against the rules.
We can still win this, and let off a little steam in the meantime. Thoughts?"

Henry has many, many thoughts on this; the main one being 'no'. This is, without a doubt, the
worst idea anyone has ever had. He'd have to be a complete idiot to go along with this, no
matter how good a handle he may have on his feelings at the moment.

"Sure," his mouth says, without any input from his brain. He regrets it immediately, the word
turning to ash in his mouth, but Alex looks so fucking pleased that he can't find it in himself
to take it back.

"Awesome," he says brightly, and then he's off the bed and in Henry's space, and this is truly
the worst decision Henry has ever made. Alex's hands are firm on his neck and in his hair,
and his mouth is soft, and Henry's going to have to reinforce the walls around his heart with
steel if this is what he has to deal with now; Alex kissing him with intent.

Eventually Henry pushes him away, gentle but insistent, and tells him to go and shower.

"Am I gross?" Alex asks, grimacing. "I'm probably gross."

Henry doesn't know how to tell Alex that he's actually twenty seconds from dropping to his
knees, and that they don't have time for that right now; doesn't quite know how to say that the
fact that Alex still smells a bit like both of them is getting Henry well on the way to hard
already, even though all they've done is kiss.

So he doesn't say anything like that. He just agrees.

"Extremely," he says flatly, and Alex punches him in the arm, but his expression is still soft.
Henry shores up his defences and pushes Alex towards the bathroom, and when the door
closes behind him he puts his face in his hands, just for a moment.

He wonders, very briefly, if he can vote himself off the show.

Jessica and Marc get voted off, which - along with the dramatic departure of Priah and Jason
from the show - leaves them with eight remaining couples. Alex grabs his hand and grins at
him when the results come in, and Henry smiles weakly back; no reprieve, then. Again.

The look Nora gives him when Alex kisses him after dinner that night makes him want to
follow Jason into the ocean.

Henry proceeds to forget just how bad of an idea this is when Alex slides down the bed that
night and sucks bruises into his thighs until he's shaking and practically sobbing with need.

"New to this, obviously," Alex murmurs, pulling Henry out of his boxers and leaning a little
closer to press a kiss to the crease of his thigh. "So, like, tell me if I'm doing anything
wrong."

Alex doesn't do a single thing wrong.

He sucks Henry down like he's done this before, even though he's meant to be a total novice;
uses his tongue in all the right places and uses his hand to work up and down the length of
Henry's cock where he can't quite take it all into his mouth. It's sloppy and perfect and Henry
has his hands in Alex's hair before he even realises he's doing it; it's too good and he wants to
shove him away and pull him closer by the roots at the same time. He just wants.

"Alex— Alex, I'm going to—"

"Fucking do it," Alex says hoarsely, pulling off Henry's dick for long enough to give him
permission before he takes him back down again. Henry can't not take that invitation; he's
only human. He comes with a breathless laugh a second or two later, toes curling as Alex
swallows as much as he can, pulling back to work him through the final moments of it with
his hand.

"So, so hot," Alex breathes, taking his hand away and wiping his mouth on his arm before
crawling back up Henry's body. "Seriously, that was—"

Henry cuts him off with his mouth, and then shoves him onto his back to return the favour.
He's gratified when Alex lasts less than five minutes, coming down Henry's throat with a
groan while his thighs shake under Henry’s hands.

"Jesus fuck," Alex says when Henry - feeling quite smug, in spite of everything - flops onto
the bed beside him again, breathing heavily. "You're like... really fucking good at that."

"Thank you," Henry says. "You were also above average."

"Don't ruin my fucking afterglow," Alex says, but then rolls over to kiss Henry again, so
clearly he's not too cut-up about his feedback.

Henry wakes up with Alex's hair in his face, a distinct patch of drool on his chest where
Alex's face is resting. He aches.
 @cmurraysparkles

find someone that looks at you the way Henry looks at Alex when he thinks no one is looking
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@fyeahcheesestraws

Lmfao Jason’s face as Priah went full queen mode on him was gold standard - tell him how it
is babes. You deserve better. #queenpriah #FakeItTillYouMakeIt

@pumpedupkicks

#getintheseajason

@santiagopher

the moment when Henry just fucking LIFTS Alex up when they’re standing in the water. I AM
NOT OKAY #FakeItTillYouMakeIt

@hbimtim

uh oh, does Alex have heart eyes for Raf? #fakeittillyoumakeit

@imthealfalfa

was so ready to just hate watch #FakeItTillYouMakeIt like always but here I am crying over
Rafael Luna having such a sweet mentor moment with my fave Alex?? also the way Henry
looked all SOFT and PROUD, SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE GIFS I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED

@matthewgrant1

kinda mad we didn’t get the C-D sibs tearing each other apart for that volleyball match, I
know this is a show about love but their dynamic gives me life #fakeittillyoumakeit

@ryan0567

anyone else notice the extra ✨ glow ✨ that #halex have in today’s episode? 😏😏
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@muttonchops

How is it that Henry both looks at Alex like he’s hung the moon but also looks like someone
kicked his puppy? #FakeItTillYouMakeIt

Chapter End Notes

Well then. Here we go. Special thanks to the HGA for providing me with some Tweets,
because this was just... the most fun thing I've ever, essentially, crowdsourced.

(Nearly typed "time for this horny rascal to start earning her rating" at the start of this,
but I thought it would give the game away.)
 Chapter 5
Chapter Notes

Hmmmm

Week Two: the rise

They’re a few days into the second week - which has been a lot less intense than week one, in
some ways - when it becomes apparent that Alex is actually kind of… insatiable. Henry
hadn’t been expecting it, somehow; primarily because Alex hasn’t had a lot of relationships
or one night stands in the last year or so, which means he must either have been masturbating
a lot or is just particularly excited about this new facet of self-knowledge.

That facet being that he likes dick.

(This is the part of week two that has been more intense. This should be fairly obvious.)

“Alex,” Henry murmurs, voice thick with sleep, as Alex wiggles back against him in bed. It’s
barely light outside and their alarm hasn’t gone off yet, and it’s far too warm right now for
them to be cuddling like this - even with the aircon humming in the background - but Henry
can’t exactly say ‘no’. He’s never been able to deny Alex anything, and he hadn’t realised
until now just how far that weakness extended.

“Henry,” Alex says back, voice sleep-rough and teasing. He pushes back a little harder, which
is about when Henry realises he’s angling for something Henry is absolutely not going to
give him; it must be four in the morning, and he’s not going to make a habit of this. He’s not.

“Go back to sleep,” Henry says, sliding his arm around the curve of Alex’s waist and pulling
him back firmly in a way that makes any further wriggling and writhing a little difficult to
achieve. Alex huffs out an annoyed breath and tries to turn in Henry’s arms, which is also
more difficult with his newly tightened grip.

“No,” Alex says petulantly, turning his head to - presumably - glare at Henry. “I had a good
dream and now I want it not to be a dream. Help me out here.”

That does a reasonable job of waking Henry up all the way.

“Did someone finally gift you that raccoon you wanted?”

“No—”
“Did I let you out of dish duty for the rest of time?”

“No, Henry—”

“Were you allowed an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep? Because that’s my dream these
days,” Henry continues, ignoring Alex’s noises of frustration and leaning forward to press a
gentle kiss to the back of his neck. He shouldn’t be doing it really, but he’ll blame it on the
fact that Alex’s neck is right there, and also Alex is being a shit — so.

“Urgh,” Alex says, somehow managing to slide out of Henry’s grip like a lithe, sexy Houdini,
before turning and pushing Henry onto his back; predictably, Alex climbs on top of him
immediately.

Also predictably, Henry’s already half-hard. His body is not to blame for its immediate
reaction to this kind of thing; he has, after all, conditioned it to react to the image of Alex
doing just this while Henry has his hand wrapped around his own cock. The thing is, Alex
isn’t usually there. Not in reality.

“If I don’t get enough sleep, I will die,” Henry says firmly, even though his hands are on
Alex’s hips already, because he’s weak and tired and stupid. “You will kill me. There will be
an inquest, and your dick will go to prison, even if the rest of you is released on bail.”

Alex snorts and leans down to press his nose to Henry’s pulse point; how he’s managed to
figure out just how much that immediately wrecks him is anybody’s guess, but Henry’s not
sure Alex should have this amount of power over anyone. It’s like handing the TV remote to
a toddler.

“When life gives you lemons,” Alex says nonsensically against the warm skin of Henry’s
throat, and Henry says, “Sorry?” before he’s being kissed in a way that suggests the words
themselves were largely irrelevant in the first place.

“Okay, so,” Alex says after he’s pulled back, smiling widely as he grinds down just a little bit
where they’re pressed together through their pyjama bottoms. Henry makes a wounded noise
and clutches a little tighter at Alex’s hips. “My dream, right — you wanna hear it?”

“There’s nothing I’d like more,” he says gravely, voice a little hoarse. “Unless, of course, you
happen to have a pristine copy of Pride and Prejudice hiding inside your underwear.”

“I’m not wearing underwear,” Alex says, waving a hand in the air like this is a thing he can
just say to Henry now. Henry supposes he can; it’s not as though he hasn’t had Alex’s cock in
his mouth. That’s probably a little more salacious than a lack of undergarments.

“Then by all means, proceed.”

“Thanks,” Alex says drily, then shuffles a little way down Henry’s body so he’s bracketing
his knees, hands firm on his thighs. “So I was dreaming about polo. You playing polo, more
specifically.”
“You saw me playing polo once,” Henry points out, swallowing down everything else he’s
feeling at the moment and trying to keep his voice level. “As I recall, you told me I looked
like an idiot, then spent the rest of the day trying to get me to fall off my horse with
increasingly ridiculous schemes.”

“To be fair, you did almost fall off your horse at one point,” Alex points out, hooking his
fingers in the waistband of Henry’s pyjama bottoms and letting his hands rest there for a
moment. He frowns. “Although I don’t think I had anything to do with that, because I wasn’t
actually looking when it happened.”

Alex had had everything to do with that. He’d turned around and bent over to pass something
to somebody - Henry can’t recall who or what now - and Henry had been so distracted by the
way the fabric of his trousers had stretched across Alex’s arse that he’d nearly been unseated
from Thunder a moment later. It had not been his finest moment.

“I don’t really understand where you’re going with this,” Henry admits, shifting a little under
Alex’s fingers and trying not to look as though he’s completely desperate for things to
progress. “Unless, of course, you’re trying to remind me of all those times I’ve made a twat
of myself, in which case we might be here a while. Incidentally, not my favoured method of
foreplay, if you’re taking notes.”

“I’ll just get my fucking Filofax out, Hen.”

“Off you pop then,” Henry says pleasantly, and Alex digs his fingers in just a little in
retaliation. Henry does pretty well not to hiss in response — especially since he’s not sure
whether or not it would be a good hiss.

He hadn’t even known such a thing existed before a few days ago, but Alex is teaching him
rather a lot about himself these days.

“Okay, so — this dream,” Alex continues, apparently opting to pretend Henry hasn’t spoken
at all. “You were playing polo, obviously, but then you rode towards me looking all
windswept or whatever, and I realised you were only wearing pants.”

“Most unwise,” Henry says gravely. Alex ignores him.

“Then you slid off the horse—”

“Dismounted.”

"—and suddenly you had me pressed against a wall or something. I think we were in an
equipment room?”

“Tack room.”

“Shut up.”

“If your dream isn’t factually correct, I don’t know how you’re expecting me to look it up
properly in the dream dictionary,” Henry says seriously, and Alex makes a noise of disgust
before leaning up very briefly to kiss him hard on the mouth.
“You’re an asshole,” he says firmly, and Henry hums thoughtfully.

“Maybe so.”

“In my dream,” Alex continues loudly, while Henry tries very hard not to laugh at him, “you
just bent over or whatever and suddenly I was—”

“This doesn’t sound sanitary,” Henry interrupts again, and Alex makes a wounded noise and
crawls back up his body to shove a hand over his mouth.

“Rearrange these words to form a popular phrase or idiom,” Alex says brightly. “Fuck, the,
shut, and up.”

Henry raises his eyebrows and waves a hand at his covered mouth. Alex rolls his eyes and
takes his hand away so he can speak.

“Up the shut fuck,” Henry says sombrely, then uses the second of Alex’s confused annoyance
to flip him so he’s pressed into the mattress. “Alright, let’s summarise—”

“You’re the fucking worst,” Alex says, not for the first time. It’s probably not even the first
time since they got here; Henry can’t entirely recall.

“Naturally. But to recap, you had a dream about me riding a horse in improper attire, before
one of us whisked the other off to a tack room, at which point I bent over and allowed you to
do unspeakable things to my thighs. How am I doing?”

Alex stares at him, mouth slightly open. “Um,” he says eventually, “yeah. That’s pretty much
it. Did I say anything about your thighs?”

“No,” Henry says breezily, “but you’re not all that difficult to read, love.”

Alex immediately hauls him down into a kiss, which Henry can only assume is because he’s
pissed Alex off enough that he’s gone all the way around to horny again. He has a feeling this
is going to happen a lot; the line between those two feelings appears to be paper thin.

“Okay, so — can I?” Alex says eventually, pulling back from Henry’s mouth to stare at him
with the kind of intensity he usually saves for learning about fiscal policy. Henry stares back,
then swallows, suddenly realising he’s taken this game as far as it will go without him losing
another part of himself.

The problem is, Alex already owns him; the parts for which he hasn’t yet obtained the title
deeds are still under his thumb somehow as well, and it’s only a matter of time before he
sweeps the board. Henry suspects foul play.

“Alright,” he says easily. Alex’s gaze turns very quickly into something altogether more
heated.

The moment he gets Alex behind him, curled around Henry’s body with the familiarity of an
old winter coat, he realises he’s made a mistake. Somehow, this is more intimate than what
they’ve already done; he can’t even see Alex’s expression, but he’s burying his face in
Henry’s neck and kissing the skin there, and the slick slide of his cock where he’s pressed
between Henry’s thighs is already achingly perfect. It shouldn’t do anything to him, really,
but the soft, wet gasps Alex makes as he slowly fucks the tight space between Henry’s legs is
almost too much for him to take.

“Alex,” he says desperately, and Alex moans, scraping his teeth over Henry’s pulse point and
wrapping a hand around Henry's cock without him even having to ask.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, and Henry falls into it without another thought.

They come like that, Alex spilling hot and sticky between Henry’s thighs with a gasp, a
couple more passes of his fist over Henry’s cock all that’s needed for him to follow Alex over
the edge. It’s messy and slightly ridiculous — and it’s also one of the worst things Henry’s
ever let himself do. He doesn’t know why he keeps thinking he’s going to be okay; Alex isn’t
going to let him leave here unchanged.

This needs to stop.

On day three of the second week, Shaan corners Henry in hair and makeup while Alex is in
the loo, fixing him with a searching look that Henry feels down to his core. It’s incredibly
disconcerting, especially from someone he's known for less than two weeks.

“How’re you holding up?” Shaan asks, and Henry blinks at him, concern flooding every
corner of him like unset jelly filling up a mould. He can’t know, surely? He would have said
something by now. Shaan is a subtle man, but he’s also here to do a job, at the end of the day;
if he knows—

“I’m fine?” Henry says, voice rising at the end of the statement and making it sound
inadvertently like a question. He coughs. “I rather miss some of my family members, but
most of them live back in England anyway, so it’s not too different to—”

“Henry,” Shaan says softly, and Henry sags like a paper bag in a rainstorm.

“I’m fine,” he says quietly, people buzzing around him in a way that suggests he’s a project,
and not one to which they’re paying any more attention than is strictly required. “Alex is
incredibly intelligent, but he’s sometimes as dumb as a brick.” He pauses, then amends his
statement. “Several bricks. Possibly an entire structure of some kind.”

Shaan laughs and the sound warms something inside Henry he hadn’t known was cold.
“People are complicated. Just make sure you’re protecting yourself.”

The look he gives Henry leaves him in no doubt as to the double-entendre there.

“I—”

Henry doesn’t get a chance to answer - or indeed to refute any of Shaan’s implications, as
accurate as they are - because a second later, Alex is flopping back into the chair next to him
with a scowl.
“Someone tried to come in while I was taking a leak,” he says sourly, and Henry raises his
eyebrows.

“Wow,” he says drily, “I wonder what that’s like.”

He pretends his heart isn't beating like a jackhammer inside his ribcage.

On day four, they all get to put in a request for a luxury item, and Alex is being so weirdly
secretive about his that Henry finds himself incapable of leaving it alone. It’s possible Alex is
rubbing off on him (which Henry will never say aloud to him; he knows exactly what it
sounds like), but there’s something about the way Alex won’t even joke about this that has
him slightly on edge.

“Is it something embarrassing?” he asks curiously, while Alex frowns down at his notebook
and, lower lip between his teeth, crosses something out so hard that he almost tears through
the page.

“I’m not telling you,” he says stubbornly — not for the first time. He looks up from his
notebook and scowls at Henry, which shouldn’t make his heart beat faster in his chest, but
Henry’s well past the point of being surprised by his body’s responses to Alex; he barely
notices most of them.

“Are you asking for some kind of erotic massage?” Henry asks, eyebrows raised. “A
Nebuchadnezzar of champagne with a built-in straw? Every episode of ‘Dallas’ on DVD,
including special features?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Alex says seriously, and Henry only just stops himself from saying
something about the lack of need he has in that area at the moment. Alex is doing quite
enough.

Henry’s already put his request in. Knowing that it will be shared with the general public
through the delightful medium of television, he wonders what it’s going to say about him that
he’s asked for nothing more than an orthopaedic pillow, but he’s almost beyond caring at this
point. Millions of people are watching him have his heart broken in real time, whether they
know it or not; this is, by comparison, nothing to write home about.

The problem is not, as it turns out, Henry making himself seen.

It’s Alex.

“So, Alex,” Oliver says, holding a relatively small package in his hands, wrapped up like it’s
a Christmas gift, even though the sun is hot and bright overhead. Henry’s already sweating
through his thin t-shirt; this has been a theme of their time on the island so far. “It’s luxury
item week! How are you feeling about your choice?”
Alex is looking, if Henry’s not very much mistaken, a little uncomfortable with the attention.
This is, frankly, an entirely new thing to be witnessing; there are few things Alex likes more
than attention, usually.

“Yeah, I’m pretty happy with it,” he says, voice as chill as anything, but Henry can see the
tension in his shoulders as he shrugs. “I have everything I need here, honestly — I’m not a
complicated guy.”

“Tell that to your coffee order,” Henry says under his breath, and Alex elbows him in the
side.

“Good thing you learned it early on,” Alex says breezily, and Henry smiles at him, because
that’s just how he’s feeling today; he feels like Alex might need it.

“Well, here it is,” Oliver says grandly, handing over the neatly wrapped package and grinning
at the two of them. Henry’s already received his orthopaedic pillow - no regrets - but given
that he’s been very open with Alex about that choice, he’s more than a little curious about
what’s got Alex in such an uncharacteristically secretive mood.

“Thanks,” Alex says softly, then turns and hands the item - still wrapped - to Henry.

“What?” Henry says dumbly, looking down at where Alex has firmly shoved the oblong of
brown paper and pristinely folded edges into his hands. “Alex—”

“I got it for you,” Alex says, jaw set in something like defiance. “So, like, you should
probably open it?”

The couples around them are watching and whispering, and Henry doesn’t blame them; there
are only two sets of them to go after Alex and Henry - Gaia and Astin, and Florence and
Niamh - and not a single other person has used their luxury item request for their partner.
This is… This is something. Alex is playing this game disgustingly well.

Henry swallows and nods, fingers shaking a little as he peels away the sticky tape and
carefully pulls back the paper.

He lets out a slightly broken breath, tears springing to his eyes like that’s a reasonable
response to this; he feels undone already and it’s just… God, it’s just a bloody book; Henry
needs to be stronger than this. He needs to be less himself if he’s going to survive this intact.

“Alex,” he breathes, paper falling to the floor as he pulls out a truly exquisite copy of ‘Pride
and Prejudice’. It’s clothbound, and illustrated, and everything Henry could possibly want
from a book, and Alex got this for him. He used up his luxury item request on a book, and
Henry has never loved him more fiercely than he does in this moment.

“I didn’t need anything,” Alex says, but Henry’s already moving because he’s stupid and
weak, and this is television; this is what people are expecting to see. They’re meant to be in
love, so the fact that Henry drags Alex immediately into a borderline filthy kiss is probably
okay. It’s fine.
Alex kisses him back, briefly, and then Henry pulls away. He pulls away, and he looks down
at the book in his hands, and he knows he has to put an end to this. This doesn’t mean the
same thing to Alex as it does to Henry; it can’t.

“Well, that’s a first on this show,” Oliver’s saying somewhere in the background, but Alex is
just staring at Henry like nobody else is here, and Henry has to end this.

It’s probably going to hurt.

“So, who d’you think is gonna go at the end of the week?” Alex asks when they’re getting
ready for bed that night; like it’s just another day, and not the end of a period of time in which
he reached forward with grasping fingers and did a reasonable job of wrapping his entire
hand around Henry’s heart.

“Well, given that Gaia asked for a series of guided meditation DVDs and Astin asked for an
espresso machine - even though coffee is not only plentiful, but good quality on set - I would
say they’re reasonable contenders.”

Alex nods and then pulls his shirt off, throwing it on the chair by his side of the—

No. Alex throws the shirt onto a chair, on one side of the bed. They don’t have sides. They
don’t have anything that suggests any kind of permanency; any kind of couples-based
intimacy. They’re just going through the motions, and neither a nice book nor Alex’s naked
chest in Henry’s direct view make any difference to that fact.

He swallows.

“Alex, can we talk?”

Alex freezes, and Henry remembers too late that, in spite of everything, Alex knows him
better than anyone. There’s no way he doesn’t know a little of what he’s about to say before
he’s even formed the thought in his mind; there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Alex
isn’t already running through all the possibilities, based solely on Henry’s tone of voice and
his specific word choice. It’s just in his nature.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, uncertainty in every syllable. “Sure. We can always talk.”

“We need to stop doing this,” Henry says, before he’s even really thought through what he
wants to say. He closes his eyes and clears his throat, then hurries to provide addendums; a
rationale for what he’s proposing here. “It’s just— I think it’s better if we just stick to our
original plan. I don’t think we should keep confusing this with sex. Not if we want to win —
and I know you want to win. You always want to win.”

Alex stares at him for a moment, then visibly swallows.

“Right. Yeah, that makes sense actually.”

“It does,” Henry says, and it’s a question but it doesn’t come out like one. That’s… good. It’s
really good; they’re on the same page here. Henry couldn’t ask for anything more. “This isn’t
a reflection on you, Alex. It’s not a reflection on anything, I just think we should probably
focus a little more on what we came here to do.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Alex says, nodding and looking incredibly sombre. The wine they had
with dinner - joking with the other contestants and holding hands underneath the table -
seems to have left his system in a rush. Henry feels equally sober; equally present.

“Great,” Henry says, hoping his voice sounds less hollow than he feels. This is the right thing
to do, after all.

"Hey," Alex says abruptly, looking suddenly vulnerable and concerned. “We’re still—”

“Alex,” Henry interrupts him, heart in his throat. “You’re my best friend. You’ll always be
my best friend. Alright?”

“Okay,” Alex says, looking oddly relieved now. Henry’s heart hurts in his chest. “Cool, that’s
— Yeah. That’s the main thing. Y’alright if I use the bathroom first?”

“Have at it,” Henry says, smiling weakly at him, and it’s only once Alex leaves the bedroom
that he allows himself to close his eyes and think. Ruminate.

The pristine, beautifully-illustrated copy of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ sits on his side table—

No. It sits on a side table.

Henry takes a deep breath and reminds himself that this is fake; this is temporary.

@cantbelieveitsnotsocialism

every shot of henry and alex looking at each other is a direct hit of serotonin right into my
veins #fakeittillyoumakeit

@dodonnahedron

there’s no way Henry and Alex are the fakes, the way Alex is always touching Henry? It’s like
he can’t survive more than 2cm away from him #fakeittillyoumakeit #couplegoals

@mhammond94

Anyone else think that #halex are actually faking it, but Henry is totally in love with him???
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@lucille025938

@mhammond94 Who the fuck would do that to themselves? They're definitely dating. Jfc.

@dontatme
@mhammond94 @lucille025938 look at the way Alex moves around Henry, he just knows
him. There’s no way that’s fake #halexisreal
 Chapter 6
Chapter Notes

People have told me hydration is important and I just don't know what to believe
anymore.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Week Two: the plateau

Sometimes, Henry wonders what he did in a previous life to deserve some of the things that
have happened to him recently. Of course, he’s made a few errors in judgement, but he’s still
not entirely sure he deserves the way his heart feels at the moment; like it’s been beaten with
a meat grinder into something paper thin, liable at any moment to get carried away on the
slightest breeze.

Having sex with Alex, for example, had been a terrible mistake, but so had stopping it. Now,
he has to sleep next to Alex without touching him, and it’s agonising enough fighting against
his own desire to reach out; what’s worse is the fact that Alex turns into a bloody octopus
when he sleeps.

“Alex,” Henry murmurs, every inch of his body tight with tension as Alex wraps around him
like a piece of seaweed on an incoming tide. “Alex. Ale—”

Alex jerks awake and scrambles away from Henry so immediately that he gets tangled up in
the covers and falls off the bed.

“Jesus Christ,” Henry hisses, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and getting to his
feet, moving immediately around to drag Alex up off the floor. “God, you’re an absolute
disaster.”

“You woke me up,” Alex hisses, pulling himself out of Henry’s grip and shoving the bedding
back onto the mattress with a scowl. He scrubs his hands over his face and groans, all the
breath seeming to go out of his body; Henry stands in front of him, arms folded across his
chest, and wonders if he should have just suffered in silence.

Then Alex sighs even more deeply and takes his hands away from his face. He looks contrite,
which makes something in Henry’s stomach drop like a stone; he hadn’t been trying to make
Alex feel bad about his sleeping habits. He’d just wanted to stop being on the receiving end
of them.
“Sorry. I know I’m… clingy in my sleep. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or
whatever.”

Henry blinks at him. “It’s fine,” he says slowly. “I wasn’t uncomfortable. Just incredibly
warm.”

This is a lie. Yes, Henry had been slightly warmer than he’d like, but up until recently he’d
have suffered much worse than a little night-time sweating just to have Alex close to him like
that. Now, of course, it’s out of the question; it’s too much for him to handle.

Alex doesn’t look as though he necessarily believes him, but he seems tired and disoriented
enough to let it go. For now.

“Sorry,” Alex says again, then rolls his shoulders like there’s a weight on them he can’t
shake. “You wanna turn the aircon up?”

Henry does so with a nod, padding over to the console by the door and turning the
temperature in the room down a little further. By the time he turns around, Alex is back in
bed and underneath the covers, facing away from the side of the bed that Henry will shortly
be sliding back into.

Henry wants to cry, but instead he tells himself this too is temporary; they’re best friends, and
nothing’s going to change that. They promised each other a long time ago that, no matter
what happened, their friendship would survive any obstacle.

When Henry wakes up to Alex’s warm body tangled with his again in the morning, he does
have to wonder at the reality of that promise.

“Today’s challenge,” Oliver says to the assembled contestants, “is not so much a challenge as
an opportunity.”

“Those are different words,” Alex mutters under his breath, and Henry squeezes his hand a
little tighter and tries not to laugh.

“Behave,” he murmurs, and Alex snorts derisively, but doesn’t say anything else. Oliver
continues, blissfully unaware of this conversation.

“The entire day will be spent in various activities with a partner who is… not your own,” he
says, putting his hands in his pockets and rocking forward on his feet like he’s delivering
them some exciting news. Henry supposes it’s not that bad, all things considered; he doesn’t
particularly mind getting to know people, as a rule, and nobody here is completely awful —
although he supposes his opinion on that might change after today.

It does mean that the two lots of gay and lesbian couples make, broadly, a little more sense;
Henry had been initially suspicious at it being so neat. He also wonders what on earth the
producers would have done if one of the sets of queer couples had been voted off before now,
because he seriously doubts the producers took anyone’s potential bisexuality into
consideration. They quite clearly looked at the couples’ gender presentation and went, “one
giant leap for mankind,” before signing off on it.

(He knows he shouldn’t complain, but for all that he tries to be positive in most situations, he
struggles on occasion with his faith in humanity.)

While Henry is mulling over this ethical dilemma - that has absolutely no bearing on his life
at all - Alex has gone rigid beside him.

“Are you alright?” Henry murmurs, but Alex doesn’t answer him; he just squeezes Henry’s
hand tighter and shuffles almost imperceptibly closer. Henry tries not to stare at him too
obviously, but he watches Alex out of the corner of his eye as Oliver continues to explain the
task, trying to parse out what the problem is.

By the time the explanation of the day has drawn to a close, however, Henry’s no closer to
figuring out what’s going on inside Alex’s head — and Alex seems disinclined to tell him, if
the fake smile plastered over the lines of concern on his face is anything to go by.

“Henry,” Oliver says eventually, and Henry drops Alex’s hand reflexively, as though he’s
been caught snogging his paramour in the halls of the school on prom night.

“Present,” he says, one eyebrow raised, and the stupid joke gets a few snorts of laughter, so
he thinks he gets away with his odd reaction passably well. He can feel Alex’s eyes boring
into the side of his skull though, so obviously somebody noticed.

“Henry, you’ll be spending the day with Dean,” Oliver continues, and Hugh’s partner - a tall,
well-built black man with a sunny smile - waves at him from somewhere off to the side.
Henry smiles back and raises his hand and he can almost feel Alex’s gaze on him
intensifying. Hugh - just as pale as the day they arrived, in spite of the constant sun - is
standing comfortably next to Dean, looking completely unfazed by this entire process; he’s
half a head shorter than his boyfriend, and leaning comfortably into Dean’s space like he’s
confident in his place there.

Henry wonders if he’s ready to deal with Alex, before remembering that very few people are.
He’s probably going to look a lot less relaxed by the end of today.

“Which means that you, Alex, will be matched up with Hugh. Now that you’re all partnered
up, what does the day ahead of you hold? You might well ask, since this will be a little
different to what we’ve done so far. For starters, we have Latin dance classes,” Oliver says,
“which are, of course, communal. Then there’s a break for you all to have lunch with your
new partner, before couples yoga and individual activities.”

“Individual activities,” Alex drawls, sounding unimpressed. “What, like jigsaws? Trust falls?
The Washington Post’s cryptic crossword?”

“Don’t give away all our relationship secrets, Alex,” Henry says mildly, and there’s some
general laughter from the people around them, even if a couple of the contestants are
probably rolling their eyes.
Oliver, ever the professional, just smiles in a way that is decidedly mysterious, then claps his
hands together authoritatively.

“Shall we?”

Apparently, they shall.

Henry drifts over to Dean, who meets him halfway and shakes Henry’s proffered hand in a
firm, warm grip.

“We haven’t had a chance to speak much so far, have we?” Dean says genially, and Henry’s
delighted to realise he’s Australian; finally, someone else here who knows how to spell
aluminium.

“Not as yet,” Henry says, smiling. “But if you promise to let me lead, I solemnly swear to tell
you all about the time my grandmother made me take ballroom dancing classes, in the hopes
that I would find a suitable match there.”

Dean grins. “Didn’t happen, I take it?”

“Not exactly,” Henry says, trying not to smile too widely when he feels Alex’s gaze on the
back of his neck. “While Katie was a lovely girl - not to mention very good at the quickstep -
I ended up having a fumble with the instructor instead. He was decidedly male.”

“I’ve got some stories about Church Camp that’ll give you a run for your money, mate,”
Dean says conspiratorially, and Henry lets himself relax a little further. This day’s probably
going to be alright, actually.

Dean can’t dance for shit, but Henry’s competent enough that they manage to get through the
morning without any injuries; Henry’s stomach muscles hurt from laughing too hard, and
Dean takes every stumble and botched step like a champ. He’s honestly one of the most
likeable people Henry’s got to know so far - not even just on the island - and the time flies by
so quickly he almost doesn’t believe the clock.

He’s been able to feel Alex staring at him on and off throughout the dance session, but Henry
hasn’t allowed himself to look back even once; he’s leaning into this. He’s doing what he’s
meant to be doing, and actually taking part. Isn’t that what they’re here for?

“The Rumba looks a lot easier when they do it on Strictly,” Dean whispers to Henry as
they’re dismissed for lunch. “I now feel even worse about the way I treat Hugh when he’s
watching rugby.”

“Likes to play the game from the sofa, does he?” Henry asks, grinning, and Dean laughs and
nods. Dean’s very open and expressive with his joy, and while Alex is very similar in the free
reign he allows his emotions, it’s rather nice to be around someone who makes him laugh that
he’s not attracted to; it’s certainly less exhausting.
“Oh, he used to play,” Dean says as they make their way across the courtyard towards the
main dining room. “But it’s much better to rip the All Blacks to shreds from your living room
than get dirty yourself, apparently. I do miss him in his rugby shorts though.”

“I wish Alex had never stopped playing lacrosse for a very similar reason,” Henry says
sombrely. “But on a more important note, you mentioned rugby? Do let’s talk more about
ripping the All Blacks to shreds. Don’t suppose Hugh made you watch the 2019 World Cup?”

“He did, and if you’d like to wax lyrical about England’s score—”

“Nineteen to seven, Dean. Nineteen to seven. We’ll be dining out on that game for the rest of
our lives.”

“Well, England hasn’t done much else really, has it?”

“Our women’s football team is excellent.”

“The men’s, however—”

“Oh, God— don’t even get me started.”

Lunch continues in much the same manner, the two of them discussing everything from
politics to sport to musical theatre over increasingly cold plates of food. Henry’s pasta is
excellent, but he keeps getting distracted; Dean’s a great conversationalist, and the way he
talks about Hugh is… Well, it’s the way Henry talks about Alex, really, when he gets going
(and only when he’s absolutely sure Alex can’t hear him). The similarities are impossible to
ignore.

There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Dean and Hugh are one of the fake couples,
unless Dean’s stupid enough to do what Henry’s done, which… seems unlikely. It looks like
Nora was right, and they’re the real deal. Henry makes a mental note to update their dossier.

They’re allowed to go up to their rooms to change, but they have to do it in shifts; apparently,
they’re not allowed to be alone with their own partners until the day is over. Henry’s not
entirely sure why, but when he passes Alex in the lobby as they switch over, he thinks it’s
probably a good thing.

Henry hadn’t even known Alex owned leggings.

The yoga itself should be easy. Henry’s bendy enough that it’s not too much of a strain on his
athletic abilities, and Dean is similarly capable, if a little wobbly when they start. There are a
lot of poses they have to do together - hence couples yoga - and Henry only laughs twice,
which he thinks is something to be proud of.

He does get distracted quite a few times though, and Dean teases him mercilessly for it under
his breath.

“You know you get to go back to your room with him later,” he whispers as they attempt to
do some kind of dual dancer pose. He’s smirking and Henry recognises distantly that he’s
very handsome, but his eyes keep drifting towards Alex; more specifically, Alex’s arse. He’s
going to have to burn those leggings. It’s the only way he’s going to stay sane.

“As if you’ve managed to keep your eyes off Hugh since he stepped in here,” Henry
counters, and Dean grins unapologetically at him.

“Yeah, but I know for a fact he never wears underwear with those shorts, so—”

“Way too much information,” Henry says firmly, then almost falls over when Alex bends at
the waist like some kind of lithe, lycra-clad menace.

“Put your tongue back in your mouth,” Dean advises, sounding amused. Henry’s not sure he
can.

They’re allowed to do another clothing switch after yoga, but now that all of their activities
are becoming less group focused, they’ve each been given guidelines.

“Smart casual,” Henry mutters, going through his clothes where they’re hung up in the
wardrobe; it had seemed sensible to unpack, once they got past the hurdles presented by week
one, and it became apparent they might be here for more than a few days. “Bugger. What the
hell is that supposed to entail?”

He knows, generally, what ‘smart casual’ means. It just so happens that it’s vague enough
that he also has no idea what he’s meant to be wearing. He knows where he is with casual; he
knows precisely where he stands at a black tie event. ‘Smart casual’ is the kind of mash-up
he’s never quite got to grips with, and he really would have preferred more specific
guidelines. Maybe some examples. A diagram of some kind.

Given that he has been provided with none of these things, he opts for his nicest pair of jeans,
a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a black waistcoat. At the very least he isn’t going
to look as though he walked in off the street.

“Very nice,” Shaan says when he steps out into the hallway, and Henry nearly jumps out of
his skin.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters, hand pressed to his chest over his rabbiting heart. “You scared the
life out of me.”

“Sorry,” Shaan says, not sounding even slightly like he means it. “I’m just here to escort you
to your activity. You ready to go?”

“Now that I’m done having a heart attack before I even glimpse middle age, yes,” Henry
says, steadying his breathing and trying not to smile automatically at the look of amusement
on Shaan’s face. Inclining his head, Shaan starts off down the corridor and Henry follows,
wondering the whole while what it is that Alex is going to be doing.

He hopes it doesn’t involve any more lycra.

Henry ends up in a bar just off from the main dining area, cameras strategically placed so that
both the bar itself and the seating area are completely covered; there isn’t anywhere for
Henry to hide his reactions here, and he needs to remember that. Especially if alcohol is
going to be in any way involved in this activity, which would seem to be implied by the
locale.

“Fancy,” Dean comments from behind the bar, leaning forward on his elbows and smiling.
“Decent interpretation of the ‘smart casual’ brief. Always a tough one.”

“My least favourite dress code,” Henry says firmly, Shaan leaving him with a nod and closing
the door as he goes. “So, what’s the activity then? Getting blind drunk, I hope. I need it after
what Alex was wearing in that yoga class.”

Dean laughs and holds up a laminated set of instructions. “Cocktails.”

Henry blinks at him. “Hold on, are you saying I’m right? I wasn’t actually being serious.”

“Well, unless they want us to make them and then feed the plant life with them… Yeah, I
guess so.”

“Right,” Henry says, stepping forward and leaning across the bar to look at the list in Dean’s
hand. He raises his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

Dean’s grin widens. “Which do you want to start with, English? A Screaming Orgasm or a
Long, Slow Screw?”

Henry leans back and considers this for a moment, before looking Dean dead in the eyes.
“Let’s not skip the foreplay, Oz. Slippery Nipples and Leg Spreaders to start with, I think, or
this will be over before it’s even started.”

“How much of this footage is going to be cut, do you think?”

“Oh, a generous half.”

“Bonza.”

Making cocktails with Dean continues to be a hilarious, mostly unsafe-for-TV experience,

but given that some of these clips end up on late-night ‘cutting room floor’ episodes, he
doesn’t suppose anybody will mind too much. Dean can hold his drink just fine, but for some
reason struggles with the cocktail shaker, and this fact has Henry laughing so hard he almost
falls over behind the bar once or twice.

“You’re drunk,” Dean says accusingly, handing the shaker to Henry, who happened to tend
bar for several semesters in university, and is therefore quite good at this part.

“And your Nipples have barely been Slippery at all this afternoon,” Henry says, even though
it’s probably creeping into evening already. He’s not sure when they’re meant to be stopping,
but neither of them seems inclined to find out. “You need to up your game, I’m afraid, or I’ll
have to try and vote you off on principle.”
Dean elbows him in the side, but it’s gentle - friendly - so Henry just grins at him and shakes
up their next cocktail the way it’s supposed to be shaken.

“Show off,” Dean says, and Henry shrugs.

"I’m terrible at many things, but I can make a rather good Dirty Shirley, when the occasion
calls for it.”

Dean tries the aforementioned cocktail once Henry’s strained the liquid into two glasses, and
hums approvingly. “Alright, fair play. Where’d you learn? Was it before or after your
incredibly heterosexual ballroom dancing classes?”

They make fewer and fewer cocktails as the day wears on, taking their last few cumulative
glasses over to the seating area when they realise they’ve been standing for what must be a
couple of hours already. They talk, and Henry finds himself loosening up far past the point of
reason or safety; he’s almost certain that nobody else in the building has been given a task
this simultaneously easy and mentally taxing.

“And that’s when I knew I loved him,” Dean says softly, smiling down at his drink and
shrugging. “Everything made a lot of sense after that. I’d never really understood my own
sexuality, but Hugh made me realise that the reason my relationships had always failed before
was because I was trying to make it work with women, when I just didn’t love them the way I
should.”

Henry nods, throat feeling a little tight. “Alex has always felt right for me too — although
I… Well, I never thought I was attracted to women. I never even tried to be.”

“Good,” Dean says fiercely, looking up at him with something firm and pleased in his eyes.
“I’m glad you knew who you were. For some of us, the path isn’t as straight as that, but—”

Henry starts laughing, because he’s getting a little drunk and Dean’s word choice there was
poor, but Dean only stares at him for a moment before shoving him familiarly in the arm and
dissolving into helpless laughter himself, so he doesn’t feel too bad about it.

It’s so comfortable - so easy - that Henry finds himself opening his mouth, prepared to tell
Dean everything about how he came to find himself here; how he’s so in love with Alex he
can barely breathe sometimes, and what a huge mistake it’s been allowing himself to get this
close to what he’s wanted for years, without a single gram of it being real.

It would feel so good to just talk to someone about it—

“Day’s over,” someone says sharply from behind him, interrupting their merriment so
suddenly it feels as though a line’s been drawn under it in red ink. Henry tips his head back to
look at Alex, who’s standing there looking pissed off and oddly… damp.

“But, darling,” Henry says with a grin, the haze of whiskey and schnapps making him feel a
little as though he’s moving through treacle. “I haven’t finished my Cocksucking Cowboy
shot.”
Alex scowls at him, but puts on a slightly nicer expression when he looks at Dean. “He can’t
hold his liquor.”

Dean laughs; it’s a nice sound. Henry tells him so, face still tipped back to stare at Alex, and
Dean laughs again, even as Alex’s lips thin out into a firm, pissy little line.

“So Hugh tells me,” Dean says fondly, and Alex steps forward to sweep the hair off Henry’s
forehead, still looking annoyed.

“You’re drunk.”

“Very nearly,” Henry admits, leaning into the touch and letting his eyes drift closed. “If you’d
give me five more minutes, I’d be well on my way to rat-arsed.”

“What have you been drinking?” Alex asks, and Henry laughs.

“What haven’t I been drinking?”

“Water,” Dean says sagely, and Henry laughs again. He’s absolutely right; Henry has seen
neither hide nor hair of H2O in the past few hours, and he has no doubt that he’s going to pay
for that later. Right now, however, he’s feeling pleasantly buzzed, and Alex’s cool hand on
his forehead is making him feel a lot of things he’s going to try very hard to ignore. He has,
after all, had rather a lot of practice.

“Okay, we’re going,” Alex says, and Henry opens his eyes and frowns up at him; he sounds
even angrier now, which is ridiculous. Henry’s done absolutely nothing wrong — besides
agreeing to this stupid idea in the first place.

“But we still have a couple of Slippery Nipples to—”

“Henry,” Alex says firmly, and then his hand is gone from Henry’s forehead and he’s
marching around the sofa to drag Henry up and off it.

“We’re going now, apparently,” Henry says to Dean, who’s shaking with laughter again. “It’s
been lovely making Screaming Orgasms with you.”

“Likewise,” Dean says, grinning widely, and then Henry is being dragged off by his best
friend, who’s managing to keep up a surprisingly good speed, given his relatively short legs.

“Did you have a nice time with Hugh?” Henry asks politely. Alex scoffs and, if possible,
walks a little faster.

“We went canoeing and we capsized several times,” he says sourly, and Henry laughs,
because it’s funny. It explains why Alex is so wet, at least, and there are a lot of things he
could say about that - he’s thinking all of them very loudly - but he keeps his mouth shut; he
doesn’t think Alex should hear them.

“Still not sure if that means—”

“It was fine,” Alex interrupts him, and how the fuck he’s managed to get them to their room
this quickly is beyond Henry; he watches as Alex angrily swipes a keycard, and then he’s
being dragged inside, the door slamming shut behind them both.

@dodonnahedron

#halex separated? This is going to be ✨interesting ✨ Have we ever seen Alex further than an
arm’s length from Henry? #fakeittillyoumakeit

@ouchcharlie91

anyone else see Alex’s reaction to not spending the day with Henry? Our boy is IN LOVE 😍
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@gerard-onimo

oh dear alex is j e a l o u s! If looks could kill, poor Dean would be in the ocean with Jason
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@fyeahcheesestraws

@gerard-onimo Priah telling Jason to get in the ocean is still the best thing I’ve seen on this
show #queenpriah I hope she’s sitting somewhere sipping cocktails

@whaledicks

Henry and Dean are so cute and in love with their boyfriends 😍😍 #fakeittillyoumakeit

@fyeahcheesestraws

@whaledicks hi hello yes, I have a question???????????

@claceshipper1000

surely both gay couples aren’t real though? 🧐

one of them has to be faking it and my money
is on Dean & Hugh #halexsupremacy #fakeittillyoumakeit

@mindymarple120

omg omg Henry is so tipsy and about to spill the tea! #fakeittillyoumakeit #spilltheteahon

@santiagopher

hdjdjdjjdkd alex!! Go get your man!! Oh my god he’s so HOT all wet from canoeing
#fakeittillyoumakeit #yesimthirsty #acdcouldgetit
🥵
@jessicabones1
 look at the way Henry’s sweet face lights up when he sees Alex #halexisreal
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@saltyseadog

did anyone else notice a weird vibe between #halex at the start of this ep?
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@muttonchops

@saltyseadog Alex was the one looking like his puppy had been kicked which makes NO
SENSE after he got that book for Henry?!

@cheapaschips

Alex dragging Henry off like that

#fakeittillyoumakeit
🥵 is there fanfic for this show? Asking for a friend
@santiagopher

@cheapaschips Right??? Please, god - i don’t ask for much

@cheapaschips

@santiagopher I don’t believe in God, but I believe in #halex

@santiagopher

@cheapaschips URGH, PREACH

Chapter End Notes

I'm actually very good with a cocktail shaker. The more you know.

Thanks to RMD for the majority of these tweets, Lola for some very specific inspiration,
and the HGA for continuing to be the tits. Also my bb child, who needs to learn to sleep
at a reasonable hour. Tell your friends.
 Chapter 7
Chapter Notes

TW: panic attacks described from an outsider's perspective in this chapter. As always,
take care of yourselves.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Week Two: the fall

"I hated it, okay?" Alex hisses, pushing Henry back into the closed door and pressing his
wrists against it; as though Henry's going anywhere when Alex has that look in his eyes,
especially when he's kind of... soaking wet.. Henry's pretty sure he's starting to get a
Pavlovian reaction from Alex gritting his teeth and scowling. They’re not meant to be doing
this anymore, but Henry’s finding it very difficult to care at the present moment.

"I didn't exactly have a whale of a time either," Henry points out, which for some reason
makes Alex shove him a little harder against the door. Also, it’s a lie; Dean is funny and
charming, and just as in love with Hugh as Henry is with Alex. They’d got along
frighteningly well.

"You let him touch you," he says accusingly, and a lightbulb goes off in Henry's head. Choirs
of angels burst into song and everything slots into place through the haze of alcohol that has
been slowly clearing since Alex dragged him back to their room.

Alex isn't blowing off steam from a task he hated; he's jealous.

"Do you mean when we danced?" Henry asks, trying not to grin. "Or the couples yoga,
perhaps? Otherwise, it was probably so brief, I'd be surprised if the cameras caught it.
Apparently you did though."

"Yeah, well — I was watching," Alex says dangerously, then he leans up to meet Henry's
mouth where he's already moving to respond, and the pressure around his wrists is going
slack. Henry moves immediately, slipping out of Alex's grip and sliding his hands beneath
Alex's thighs to lift him up; Alex goes easily, letting himself be turned and pressed against
the door as Henry kisses him, licking into his mouth with a soft noise of desperation.

God; how did he think he could do without this once he’d had it once? Tasting Alex’s mouth
had been such a cosmically stupid mistake, but right now all he wants is to never stop tasting
it; for the feel of Alex’s body to never leave his hands, the whorls of his fingertips. He’s on
fire with it, and there’s something devastatingly familiar and yet entirely new about the way
Alex keens and pushes into his touch.
“Alex,” Henry says, not entirely sure why he’s saying his name, other than it being yet
another thing he wants for the sake of it. “Alex, Christ, you’re—”

Henry’s not sure what changes. He’s not sure it’s anything he’s done per se; every atom of
him has been trying to crawl inside Alex from the moment their lips touched, so he’s pretty
sure he’s done absolutely nothing to dissuade Alex from continuing.

But something does change, so suddenly and without warning that it makes Henry’s head
spin. One moment Alex is licking into his mouth with a desperate little groan, and the next
he’s pulling away so fast his head hits the door with more force than seems either normal or
safe.

“Fuck,” Alex hisses, staring at Henry with wild eyes, and Henry has no idea what’s going on,
but the look on Alex’s face makes something unpleasant and altogether sour curl in his gut.

“Alex, what’s happening?” Henry asks immediately, hands loosening where they’d been
digging into Alex’s thighs.

“Put me down,” Alex says urgently. “Henry — Henry, put me down.”

Henry complies without a thought, even as the sour something in his stomach grows larger,
clawing at him and making a valiant attempt to thread ice through his veins. What the fuck is
going on?

The second Alex’s feet hit the floor he’s springing away, ducking out of Henry’s space and
stumbling towards the bathroom. Henry goes to follow him, body working on autopilot, but
he’s brought up short by Alex’s hissed, “Don’t.”

He swallows and lets his hands fall to his sides, watching with confusion and deep, gnawing
concern as Alex enters the bathroom and shuts the door firmly behind him. Henry hears the
bolt sliding home and he can’t do anything but stare at the place where Alex had been, utterly
incapable of comprehending the last thirty seconds as anything more than a fever dream.

Eventually, Henry moves. He steps up to the bathroom door and presses one palm against it,
as though he might somehow be able to feel Alex through the plywood. He closes his eyes
and concentrates; Alex is running the tap on full blast, and Henry’s stomach jolts when he
realises what all of this means. He’s seen this before, more times than he can say.

Alex is having a panic attack.

“Alex,” Henry says, trying to balance his voice so that the urgency is almost entirely replaced
by soothing concern. “Whatever’s happening right now, I just need you to know it’s going to
be okay. Alright? I know you can hear me, so I’m going to sit down and I’m going to keep
talking — I might do some breathing exercises, if you need something to focus on. Okay?”

Henry doesn’t wait for a response, turning so that he can sink to the floor, sliding down the
door until his knees are pressed against his chest and the warm wood is at his back.
“Alex, I’m going to breathe in for five seconds, and then out for five seconds. I’ll be counting
the whole time, so if you need to join in, just follow me, love.” He closes his eyes. “In
through the nose — one—”

He can’t count and breathe at the same time, but he does his best, and by the time he’s done
ten rounds of each, the tap has been turned off and there’s the distinct thunk of someone
leaning against the other side of the door. Henry squeezes his eyes together a little more
tightly and keeps breathing; keeps counting. He has less than no idea what’s going on right
now - or what’s prompted this - but he’ll always try to be exactly what Alex needs. He’s not
sure he could stop if he tried.

It takes twenty minutes of steady, meticulously-counted breaths before Alex deigns to speak
to him through the door, and Henry’s eyes fly open the moment he hears a wavering voice
through the wood at his back.

“Sorry,” Alex says, voice sounding hoarse and muffled. “I just—”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Henry says quickly. “Nothing at all. You don’t need to
apologise.”

“Yes I fucking do,” Alex says, loud and frustated. “You said we had to stop doing this and
you were right, probably. Then I saw you with Dean and I just got… fuck, I hated it, and I just
wanted to get my hands on you. I don’t know why, but that’s how I felt, and then I—” Alex
stops, and Henry can almost see him; fingers curled into fists on the tiles, damp eyelashes
brushing the delicate skin beneath his eyes as he squeezes them shut.

“I let you,” Henry points out. “I participated. This isn’t on you.”

“You’ve been drinking,” Alex spits out, and suddenly Henry gets it. Alex thinks he’s drunk;
thinks he’s coerced Henry into this, somehow. He thinks he’s taken advantage of someone
who doesn’t have all their faculties, and it’s sent him spiralling off in a direction he
absolutely does not need to be travelling in.

“Alex, I appreciate your dedication to enthusiastic and informed consent, but— Sorry, do you
feel up to having this conversation face to face? It feels a little odd doing it through a closed
door.”

There’s silence for a moment, and then the sounds of shuffling and the bolt sliding open
again. Henry clambers to his feet and turns, stepping back just in time for Alex to slowly
open the door and step out into the main living area. He looks wary and his eyes are red, but
he’s still as frustratingly beautiful as ever. At this point, Henry’s stopped being annoyed by it;
it’s not Alex’s fault, after all.

“Hi,” Henry says softly, and Alex’s eyes slide away from him before he forces his gaze back.

“Hey.”

“As I was saying,” Henry continues, suddenly and acutely aware of the way his own clothes
have been made a mess of underneath Alex’s questing hands, “I am in possession of all my
faculties. I’m a grown man, capable of making my own decisions, and while I appreciate
your concern, I was… very much into that. Wholeheartedly.”

Alex stares at him for a beat longer before stepping forward again and closing the bathroom
door behind him with a click. He moves so that he can lean against the wall, arms crossed
over his chest, and sucks his lower lip between his teeth.

After a few seconds of silence he speaks again. “Okay. I know you mean that, but it
doesn’t… It’s not enough. You’ve had more cocktails in a night than you’d usually have in a
month, and I don’t think you would have responded to me like that if you’d been sober. Tell
me I’m wrong.”

Henry does Alex the courtesy of thinking about it, inclining his head and taking a few
breaths. He checks in with himself; how drunk is he? He’s still thinking and speaking in full
sentences, he supposes, but he did have rather an extraordinary amount of alcohol throughout
the course of the afternoon. He’s by no means a lightweight, but there’s every possibility that
he had - prior to the sobering effect of Alex’s recent panic attack - moved well past tipsy and
into something a little hazier.

Also, he had told Alex they weren’t doing this anymore; he’s not wrong.

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Henry says, then stops — primarily because he's
not entirely sure where the sentence is going. He knows he shouldn't be okay with what just
happened, and he also knows that he's just as desperate for Alex as he always is; knows
beyond a doubt that this is unlikely to change. Maybe he'd been foolish when he'd thought
things could go back to how they were before they started this.

"Okay?" Alex prompts, still sounding wrung-out and wary, and Henry forces himself to put
what he's feeling into words.

"I miss it," he says honestly, then folds his arms like they'll protect him from the inevitable
backlash. "I miss you; what we were doing, even though I’m the one who put a stop to it.
I'm… sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but I think it's best if I'm honest with you about
that."

Well — mostly honest. He thinks he'll continue to leave out the part where he's desperately in
love with Alex; it doesn't seem relevant right at this moment.

Alex looks at him for a few seconds then swallows, his eyes sliding away like he can't quite
bear to look at Henry for longer than that. Henry feels a bit sick.

"Right," Alex says, and he doesn't sound much better, but he pulls himself up a little
straighter, looking less weary and broken. "Yeah, that's fair. Thanks for… telling me. I'm just
— do you mind if I go for a shower? I always feel a bit gross after."

The subject change has Henry blinking like a startled deer as he tries to keep up, but he nods
immediately, waving a hand at the door behind Alex as though he needs directions.

"Of course. I'll go after you, I suppose?"

Alex nods firmly, then pushes off the wall and goes back into the bathroom, closing the door
behind him without a backward glance.

Henry is… lost; entirely and absolutely. Instead of trying to parse out the meaning of the last
half an hour, however, he decides there are more imminent concerns.

He orders room service for Alex, figuring that he probably hasn’t eaten as much as he should,
and knowing that the panic attack will have burned through whatever food he has eaten won’t
be helping matters. He gets himself something too, but when the arrival of the food coincides
with Alex coming out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist and a wary
expression on his face, Henry just waves at the food and says, “You go ahead,” heart in his
throat.

He spends his time in the shower with his eyes shut tight against the water and the
combination of intrusive light and thoughts, wondering how he’s going to feel in the
morning; how Alex is going to feel in the morning. He absolutely refuses to cry — partly
because he’s feeling like enough of a gay cliche as it is, but mostly because he’s not sure
what there really is to cry about. He’d have to understand what just happened, and how he’s
meant to feel about it; he’s not sure he really has a right to shed tears, so he doesn’t.

He also knows - distantly, as vaguely as it’s possible to think something - that the idea of
Alex regretting him would likely destroy him. As always, it’s better that his own feelings take
a back seat.

He dries and dresses in his pyjamas in the bathroom, trying not to make eye contact with
himself in the mirror. He’s terrified of what he’ll see there — and what he won’t. Remorse,
maybe? He’s not sure whether it would be worse to notice it on his face, or to note its absence
from his features.

When he exits the bathroom, fragrant steam following him through the door, Alex has eaten
the burger and fries Henry had ordered for him, but Henry’s sandwich remains untouched;
whether this is because Alex is horrified by the random selection of fillings Henry had
chosen on a whim, or if he knows that Henry might need it, it’s impossible to say.

Alex is curled up in a chair with a book - one of Henry’s, by the looks of it - and is
concentrating so hard on it that he looks almost like a caricature of someone reading. It’s as
though he’s been given very specific instructions on how one should casually read a book,
and is following them so perfectly to the letter that the result is borderline unnatural. Henry
tries not to tense up at the implications of Alex feigning interest in a copy of Cemetery Boys,
and fails miserably.

He eats half of his sandwich before abandoning it as a bad job, and by the time he’s cleaned
up the plates and left them outside the door in the hallway, Alex has clearly whirled in and
out of the bathroom to do his teeth and face. He now lies in the bed that they’re still going to
have to share, curls only just visible above the duvet, facing away from the rest of the room.
Henry swallows every instinctive response - vocal and otherwise - that the scene invokes in
him, and goes to the bathroom to brush his own teeth instead.
He turns the lights off and then pauses by the bed, with absolutely no bloody idea of how to
proceed. He was less confused when they were actually fucking, frankly.

"Alex," he says eventually, voice as soft and hesitant as he can make it, and Alex hums in
response; he sounds both wary and weary, and Henry closes his eyes for a moment, wanting
quite desperately to reach out. He doesn't. "Is it alright if I get in?"

"Don't be fucking stupid," Alex says immediately, though he doesn't turn over. "It's your bed
too."

"Right," Henry says, and climbs under the covers, the ends of his hair still a little damp where
they got caught under the spray; he’s far too mentally exhausted to do more than he already
has to dry off. Alex doesn't move, and neither does Henry, and there's silence between them
for a couple of minutes. It stretches out like something bright and alive, and Henry can feel it
pressing at his closed eyelids, making his ears ring and his throat feel tight.

Alex does speak eventually, which does something to relieve the pressure — although not in
the way Henry would have preferred.

"I just want to pretend that today didn't fucking happen," Alex says firmly, and Henry's
stomach drops.

"Which part?" he asks quietly, and Alex lets out a humourless laugh.

"All of it? The part where I acted like I was fucking possessed, the panic attack, the— Look,
I just… None of that was fair. I don't even know who it was unfair to, but I'm done with the
entire twenty-four hour period, honestly. Is that okay?"

Henry curls his hands into fists against his thighs and swallows hard. "Yes," he says levelly.
"Yes, of course. Anything you want, Alex."

Because Henry will, at the end of the day, always give Alex that; give Alex whatever he
wants, whenever it’s in his power to do so.

This is very much within his power.

When Henry wakes up, Alex isn’t wrapped around him the way he’s become accustomed to.
Instead, he’s already up and dressed, reading that book again in the living area and drinking a
very large mug of coffee. He looks up when Henry moves and smiles at him, and it feels…
well, not natural, but at least better.

Even if the rest of it feels so much worse.

Henry ignores the feeling though, pushing through the sheer weirdness of waking up at the
correct temperature and without drool on his shoulder and Alex’s hair in his mouth. It should
be a relief, but it doesn’t really feel like it.

“Morning,” he says, climbing out of bed and running a hand through his hair, grimacing. He
hadn’t bothered washing it last night, which means he’s only delayed the inevitable; there’s
no way he’s leaving these rooms with it feeling like this.

“Morning,” Alex says, brittle brightness in his voice as he peers at Henry over his book and
coffee mug. “You’re up late.”

“You’re up early,” Henry counters, because it’s week two’s results day and their buzzer hasn’t
gone off yet, which means it’s not even 8am. Alex shrugs and tucks his feet underneath him,
taking a huge mouthful of his coffee and swallowing in a way that is, somehow, nonchalant.
Henry’s never seen anyone swallowing nonchalantly before, but he supposes there’s a first
time for everything.

“Got too warm,” Alex says, and he’s… well, he’s lying, is the thing. Henry knows what that
looks like; he just doesn’t know why Alex is doing it.

“Right,” he says slowly, then decides he doesn’t have the energy or the brain power for this
right now; he needs a shower and a truly astounding amount of caffeine, and then perhaps he
can ask Alex why he’s not leaving yesterday in the past when he’s the one who wanted to
strap it down there in the first place. “Mind if I use the bathroom?”

“Have at it.”

“Thanks.”

And with that, Henry closes the door on what will turn out to be, in fact, only the beginning
of the day’s weirdness.

Alex spends the day being completely normal, except for how he’s barely touching Henry.
For the two of them, the distance Alex is putting between them is laughable; would have
been so even before this absolute hellscape of a competition, and its associated attempts on
Henry’s sanity. Nothing in Alex’s expressions or the way he speaks to Henry changes - at
least in front of the cameras - but he keeps him at arm’s length like that’s something that they
do with each other.

It isn’t — not usually.

It must be noticeable to other people - if not for the act itself, then for Henry’s adverse
reaction to it - but to June and Nora it’s blindingly so. Henry feels their combined gaze on
him throughout the day like something physical, pressing at his chest and taxing his lungs.
He feels their heavy stares through breakfast, where Alex gets his own breakfast before
Henry can do it for him - for the first time since they got to the island - and all the way
through the explanation of the morning’s task.

Which is, as it turns out, a portraiture class.

“I don’t draw,” Alex says flatly, and when Henry huffs out a laugh he can’t hold back, Alex
glares at him. “What?”

“You once drew a very involved Nativity scene for our fridge,” Henry points out, “which
starred you as the baby Jesus, me as a donkey with a terrifying human visage, and Beyonce
and Jay-Z as Mary and Joseph.”

“And I stand by that decision,” Alex says immediately.

“In which case, you’ll be fine with this,” Henry says firmly, and Alex scowls at him. Funnily
enough, things almost feel normal for a moment; just the two of them digging at each other
with something fond and warm underneath every interaction.

Then it’s explained that they’re going to be sitting opposite each other for two hours and
attempting to paint one another, and Alex suddenly looks horrified.

“You want me to do what?”

The thing is, to everyone around them, this is going to look like Alex being a ‘character’. It’s
going to look like he’s either terrible at art - technically not an incorrect assumption - and
doesn’t want anyone to see it, or he’s protesting too much for effect, and will produce
something worthy of Van Gogh when the day’s over.

Henry, on the other hand, knows the truth: Alex doesn’t want to have to stare at Henry for
two hours, even though they’re best friends, and they’d been intending to leave yesterday
where it fucking belongs. The knowledge sits heavy in his stomach, and he wonders if maybe
this is too much; if this might be the week they leave. They all casted their votes this
morning, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t noticed the cracks. Henry feels like a poorly
designed dam, the fissured concrete barely holding back the tide of Alex’s back, facing away
from him; the way Alex won’t meet his eyes; the lack of his touch that makes his core ache
and his heart feel sore.

“Don’t worry,” Henry says breezily, shoving his hands in his pockets and mustering up a
facade of bravado he categorically does not feel. “Nobody ever gets my nose right. I know
you’re worried about that.”

It gets a laugh - Alex reaching out to flick the aforementioned nose - and the tension around
them dissolves like sugar in hot water.

Henry still feels it in his gut though, hot and unrelenting.

He spends two hours trading barbs with Alex, focussing on the fall of curls over the other
man’s forehead, and the way his mouth pulls up at one corner in an almost-sneer when he’s
amused but doesn’t want to be. Henry is a master of Alex’s face already, of course - could
recall it in full, high-definition technicolour at a moment’s notice - but there’s something very
gratifying about being able to watch it without anyone tempering him; without having to pull
back, or worry that someone might notice; that Alex might notice. He’s meant to be looking,
and that’s what he’s doing. Just… looking.

Even though he has, like an absolute fool, allowed himself to get used to so much more than
that.

The two hours pass more quickly than Henry had been expecting them to, and Oliver soon
sweeps back into the room - empty but for Alex, Henry, and a couple of cameramen - with
his trademark cheeky grin and sporting a beret. Henry thinks that both of these things would
probably be very annoying on someone else, but Oliver is relentlessly charming.

“Henry. Alex. Your time is up. Would you like to turn your easels around so that your partner
can see your vision of them?”

“Not really,” Alex mutters, grimacing, and Henry feels something tighten in his stomach. He
can’t say for sure if it’s good or bad, but he imagines it’ll resolve itself into one or the other
feeling before too long.

“I hope I have a human body this time,” he says drily, and Alex snorts out a laugh that does a
surprisingly good job of clearing any lingering doubt from his expression.

“Sweetheart, you were an amazing ass.”

“That’s not usually how that sentence is meant to go.”

“I’m very good at compliments — you told me that.”

“Was I drunk?”

“Alright,” Oliver interrupts them, looking amused and - if Henry’s not very much mistaken -
a little fond. “No more stalling, you two. Turn your easels in three, two, one—”

Henry turns his canvas around on its easel as Alex does the same, and he’s been far too
worried about his own ridiculous painting to have prepared himself properly for Alex’s. This
turns out to be an error.

“Oh,” he breathes, staring at where he’s picked out in lilac gestures, Alex having apparently
refused to use anything like a realistic colour palette. He can see his own hand there - the curl
of it around his jaw and the furrow of his brow when he’s concentrating - as well as the flop
of hair he can almost imagine is blond, if he lets himself. Henry can see himself in the lines
of a sharp cheekbone and the angle of broad shoulders; in the way Alex has only managed to
complete one of his eyes because he’s spent so much time getting the shape of them just
right.

It’s not, as a whole, Henry; Alex is not an artist. However, the individual features are so him
that it feels as though he’s staring at an impression of himself; a too-bright afterimage on
surprised retinas, or a photograph of him taken on a reel of film that’s already been exposed
to a landscape or a skyscraper. He’s there, on the canvas, and he feels like he should say
more, but the words get stuck in his throat.

Alex, to be fair, appears to be struggling to a similar degree with full sentences.

“Wow,” he says softly, sounding as though it takes all the breath he has left in him to say, and
Henry is reminded very suddenly of how much of himself he has likely allowed to leak into
his own canvas.

He’s not an artist either, but he’s— Well, he’s not bad, is the thing, and he had enough lessons
growing up (forced upon him, Bea, and Pip by their grandmother) that he has at least the
vaguest notion of what he’s doing. He thinks he’s managed to get Alex’s curls down fairly
well, but his jawline leaves much to be desired; likewise his cupid’s bow, which Henry was
obsessed with long before he’d felt it pressed against his own lips. It’s all fine, but he’s not
sure it warrants the look of borderline reverence and stripped-back shock that Alex is
projecting right now.

Then again, Alex’s painting has left him feeling like someone’s peeled back his skin and
pressed a livewire to his nerve endings, so perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised that being seen
can evoke such a powerful reaction in Alex too.

“These are really something,” Oliver says, and there’s a hum of agreement from the
cameramen, which is… odd, to say the least. Henry’s not sure he’s ever heard them speak
before. “We’ll leave you two with your artworks for about twenty minutes, before we head
off for lunch and trivia. Great job, guys.”

Then Oliver is gone, and it’s nothing but Alex, Henry, and the camera operators again.

“I didn’t know you could paint,” Alex says eventually, voice thin and a little hoarse. Henry
shrugs and swallows, eyes still fixed on Alex’s painting, like maybe he can understand the
impetus behind each brushstroke if he just looks at it for long enough.

“You know my grandmother,” he says, as though that explains it all. Alex snorts, which
suggests he agrees that it does, and Henry is hit with such a familiar, warm wave of longing
that his face splits into a grin that he knows must look hopelessly besotted. He tries not to
mind too much; that’s the narrative they’re selling here, after all.

“You did a good job of my mouth,” Alex says, zeroing on the one area of his face that
Henry’s pretty sure he could never do justice.

“I’m fairly sure I didn’t, actually,” he says drily, and Alex levels him with an incredibly
unimpressed look.

“You did. What, did you do it from memory or something?” He waggles his eyebrows, and
Henry’s so relieved by the brief foray into normalcy that he lets out a surprised laugh.

“You do pull that face a lot,” he says, and Alex rolls his eyes.

“Not what I meant, sweetheart.”

“I know,” Henry says, and then finds he really cannot look at Alex any longer.

Silence descends on the room, but Henry cannot stop looking at the image of himself on the
canvas opposite. He’s glad when Oliver arrives again to shepherd them off to lunch, when it
comes down to it — not because he’s hungry or because it’s awkward, but because he’s spent
so long analysing the lines of his own face and what they could mean coming from a brush
held in Alex’s hand, that he’s no longer sure what his expression is doing.

Lunch is… fine. Some of the casual intimacy and easy friendship from earlier has been lost
in the rawness of seeing each other like that, but it’s okay. June spends a lot of time sending
him worried glances over her salmon, but then there’s dessert and laughter and probably
more wine than is advisable for an afternoon in still-climbing heat, and it doesn’t seem all
that important.

Not that Henry drinks anything. After last night, he’s not sure he can trust himself, and the
last thing he wants to do is stretch the tight silence between himself and Alex any further;
he’s not sure there’s much more give left in the elastic holding them together, and it’s liable to
snap under further pressure.

Dean, on the other hand, clearly has no such compunctions.

“Martini?” he offers, two such cocktails in his hands and a grin on his face where he’s forced
himself into Henry’s trivia group (which previously consisted solely of himself and Alex).
This is the first group event where they’ve been able to divide into their own teams, and
Henry’s grateful for it; he feels a little less like a primary school student being provided with
a seating plan.

“Please ignore him,” Hugh says firmly from behind Dean, appearing with a glass of red wine
and looking at his partner with an expression that’s equal parts adoration and exasperation.
“This is not his first round of cocktails. I think yesterday’s task might have awakened
something in him.”

“It very nearly awakened a hangover in me,” Henry says, leaning forward confidentially, and
Hugh smiles at him. There’s something about how calm he is when compared with Dean’s
big personality that settles something in Henry immediately; he has a feeling he’s going to
like Hugh just as much as his boyfriend.

"Is that a no to the martini then?” Dean asks, eyebrows raised. “Because that’s absolutely
fine, but I will then be drinking two martinis.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Alex drawls, appearing from behind Henry and wrapping
an arm around his waist. The touch is such a surprise that Henry almost jumps, though he
manages to soften into it enough that he doesn’t think the move is noticeable to anyone else;
this is the first time Alex has touched him all day — unless you count flicking Henry’s nose,
which Henry doesn’t.

“That depends on how much you like Fun Dean,” Hugh says bitterly, but he’s clearly
fighting off a grin, and when Dean turns to smile at him, he melts immediately into a helpless
smile of his own.

“You love Fun Dean,” Dean says, and Hugh shrugs and turns back to Henry and Alex.

“You heard it here first,” he says. “I love Fun Dean.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Dean says, before downing one of the martinis like it’s water. No
bloody wonder Henry was a bit pissed yesterday; he’d clearly been trying to keep up with
someone whose alcohol tolerance rivals that of Andre the Giant’s.
Alex squeezes Henry’s waist a little tighter, and Henry tries to forget where this baseless
jealousy had sent them before; what road they’d ended up taking, before the way had been
blocked by a bloody avalanche. There’s no use thinking on it any more than he already has.

“Are we ready to be absolutely destroyed by whichever team contains Nora, who has for
some reason abandoned us?” Alex says brightly, and Hugh raises his eyebrows.

“Kind of a defeatist attitude you’ve got there,” he says, and Henry stifles a laugh.

“How many digits of pi do you know?” Alex asks accusingly. “Do you know every country
and capital city in the world, as well as every state and its capital in the US? How about
computer code? Take it from someone who tries very hard never to give that woman a
compliment — we’re gonna get destroyed. And don’t get me started on my sister’s
encyclopaedic knowledge of literature, photographers, and journalists. And, weirdly, star
signs.”

Hugh blinks at him for a moment, Dean shaking with silent laughter beside him. “Well,” he
says eventually, “I know pi to two decimal places. How’s that?”

“Jesus Christ,” Alex says, sitting down heavily on one of the sofas that have been arranged
for the four groups and putting his head in his hands. Henry feels the loss of the arm around
his waist far more strongly than he should, but he forces himself to shake off the feeling of
desperation he gets when he thinks about getting Alex’s hands back on him. “We’re gonna
get absolutely creamed.”

“Objection,” Dean says firmly, sitting down with his remaining martini, Hugh and Henry
following suit a moment later. “Can we literally never use the word ‘creamed’ again here? No
reason in particular, it just feels bad in my ears.”

“What’s wrong with the word ‘creamed’?” Alex says immediately, which has Dean groaning
and downing his second martini.

“Please,” Hugh says, an edge of desperation in his voice. “You’re not the one who has to
share a bed with him tonight. The snoring is honestly foundation-shaking when he’s had a
few drinks.”

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Henry asks curiously, and Hugh shakes his head solemnly.

“I’ve never been this tired in my life.”

Henry can, he thinks, relate; the heat of Alex’s thigh next to his isn’t really helping his
strange state of mind today, and he can only imagine it will carry him through the night.

They get slaughtered by Nora and June’s team, of course - Gaia and Astin are playing with
them, though Henry’s not sure how much they help - but they at least come second overall,
which is something. Alex looks oddly proud of the fact that his sister’s team kicked their ass,
which is just so classically him that Henry’s heart aches all over again.
“Motherfuckers,” Alex says quietly, and Zahra appears out of absolutely nowhere and flicks
him in the back of the head.

“Watch your fucking language, kid,” she says darkly, before marching off again while Alex
looks around wildly for his attacker.

Dean, who has been fairly focussed for the duration of the trivia quiz, ends up laughing so
hard that he chokes, Hugh slapping him on the back and eyeing his boyfriend’s empty martini
glasses with weary suspicion. Henry decides that, in spite of everything, he’s really not
having the worst day.

“So,” Alex says when they arrive back at their room later that night, both of them a little high
with the realisation that they’ve survived another week. “Gaia and Astin, huh? What does the
dossier say about them?”

Henry knows without looking that Gaia and Astin - the couple who were voted off the show
less than an hour ago - have nothing but a big, fat question mark next to their names, along
with the words, ‘kinda boring,’ in Nora’s messy scrawl.

“Not much,” he says with a sigh, pulling his shirt over his head and heading for the bathroom
to brush his teeth. “Nora thought they were boring though.”

“They were,” Alex agrees, raising his voice to be heard over the rush of water as Henry turns
on the tap. “Are we voting off boring people now? Because I vote for—”

Alex is cut off by a knock on the door, and Henry - who has a toothbrush in his mouth and is
shirtless - leans back to shoot an expectant look at Alex through the open bathroom door.
Alex, who is often a petulant toddler in the body of an adult man, pulls a face but dutifully
makes his way over to the door to answer it.

Perhaps predictably, June and Nora spill inside a second later, and Alex makes an aggrieved
noise as he closes the door behind them.

“Invaders!”

Henry spits into the sink and sticks his head around the door again. “Are we being raided? I
have nothing of value.”

“I’m here for your virtue and your collection of sexy ankle socks,” June says, flopping into a
chair while Nora grabs the dossier and a pen.

“And I am here for the food,” she says, and Alex snorts.

“We don’t have any food. Or virtue, actually, though Henry does have a lot of ankle socks.”

“That’s why we’re ordering room service,” Nora says firmly, like they didn’t eat a huge meal
just a couple of hours ago. “Also, can you grab me another pen? This one’s absolute shit.”
“I literally don’t know why we’re friends,” Alex says flatly, but wanders over to his side of
the bed, where Henry knows he has a ludicrously large selection of stationery. Henry emerges
from the bathroom and feels a hand close around his wrist immediately. June is eyeballing
him while Alex rummages around for a pen, and she looks intense.

“Can I help you?” Henry asks mildly, very aware that he’s still shirtless, and feeling all the
more vulnerable for it. Nora reaches over to hit him, which is both painful and - in his view -
unnecessary.

“What the hell happened with you guys?” June asks quickly, voice so low that Alex would
struggle to hear them, even if he strained his ears. “You’re doing a shitty job of faking it right
now, and I don’t wanna see you guys leaving just because you’ve had a dumb fight or
something.”

Henry so very much does not want to tell Alex’s sister that the reason his and Alex’s
interactions have been stilted is because they were having sex, and then they stopped having
sex. On the list of things he’d like to do, it’s pretty close to the bottom — right below,
‘marrying a woman,’ and, ‘skydiving without a parachute.’

Instead, he goes with as much of the truth as it seems necessary to provide.

“We’re handling it, I promise,” he says. “Thank you for your concern.” He smiles
reassuringly at both of them in a way that he hopes conveys warmth and a positive mental
attitude, rather than the panicked claustrophobia currently forcing its way to the front of his
mind.

“Fucking found one,” Alex says triumphantly from over by the bed, and June lets go of
Henry’s wrist immediately, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair. Alex comes
towards them brandishing a pen like it’s an offensive weapon, and Nora takes it with a nod of
thanks, opening the dossier at the page for room service before she goes any further.

They discuss the other contestants over fries and popcorn shrimp - eaten by everyone except
Henry, who is of the opinion that three hot meals a day is quite enough - and by the time
they’ve made minimal updates to the list of couples, it’s almost one in the morning. Henry’s
so tired he can barely keep his eyes open, and even Alex looks about ready to drop.

When June and Nora are about to leave, Alex goes to the bathroom, which is—

Well. It’s less than ideal. Now, Henry is alone with two people who want information from
him, and he hasn’t a gram of wakefulness or self-restraint left to his name.

“Just tell us,” June says quickly. “Something’s off between you two, okay, and I want to
know what’s—”

“We slept together,” Henry says flatly. “Several times, in fact. And then I put a stop to it
because it doesn’t mean anything to him, and now things are a little weird. We are, however,
handling it, as I said — I promise you. I know you mean well, but rehashing this right now
makes me want to crawl under a rock to live out the rest of my days in celibacy and solitude,
so can we please leave it at that?”
June stares at him for a moment, facial expression moving from disgust at any discussion of
her brother’s sex life, to clear and powerful concern for Henry’s wellbeing. It would be quite
sweet, really, if having to say those words out loud to someone else hadn’t made him so
thoroughly aware of how pathetic he is.

“Henry,” June breathes, before tugging him into a brief, surprisingly welcome hug. Nora
squeezes his shoulder, and Henry takes a few deep breaths before stepping past the two girls
and opening the door to check the corridor outside.

“It’s clear,” he says quietly. “Goodnight, June. Nora.”

They don’t linger, and Henry’s grateful for it. By the time Alex is done in the bathroom, most
of the lights are out and he’s under the duvet, sitting up against the headboard and holding a
book he has absolutely no intention of reading. Alex doesn’t hesitate when he climbs into bed
alongside him, but the moment he’s comfortable, Henry puts his book down on the side table
and moves to turn out the light.

Henry’s used to Alex’s body near his now, in a number of ways; the solid warmth of him,
even though they’re not touching, has an oddly soporific effect usually. He is, however,
struggling to translate the bone-deep fatigue in him with anything vaguely equating to sleep,
even half an hour after they’ve been plunged into darkness.

Then, as though Alex is having the same problem, he speaks up in the gloom.

“We’re okay, right?” Alex says softly, his hand finding Henry’s underneath the covers and
tangling their fingers together. Henry’s heart lifts and falls at the same time, and he squeezes
his eyes shut against the damp well of emotion there; he is too utterly unmade at the moment
for this to be anything even close to manageable, but he can already feel the way that the
simple touch is trying to stitch closed the fissures in him.

“Yeah,” he whispers, regardless of whether or not it’s true. “Yeah, we’re okay.” He will, he
decides, make sure it’s true.

“Cool,” Alex says, and continues to hold Henry’s hand until his breathing evens out and he
has drifted off to sleep.

Henry can’t find it in himself to let go, even after that.

@cheapaschips

Okay, I’m a huge fan of #halex obvs, but the way Junora absolutely DESTROYED everyone
at trivia kind of got me hot #fakeittillyoumakeit

@santiagopher

@cheapaschips god yeah I’m so bisexual it’s unreal. Literally any of those four could have
me, in basically any iteration (besides the obvious, pls do not flood my tl with anything super
cursed, I’m a simple woman)
 @cheapaschips

@santiagopher HARD SAME. Also, unrelated - is that you in your pfp? You look like a young
Debbie Reynolds and I’m feeling it

@santiagopher

@cheapaschips oegijwroihjeroihj do not even with me, I cannot believe you just compared
me to that absolute queen???

@jessepreece89

@cheapaschips @santiagopher get a ROOM

@dodonnahedron

Okay not sure if anyone else caught it but there was defo a moment at trivia where Nora
referenced being with acd??? What happened in this friendship group and can I get an all-
access pass #fakeittillyoumakeit

@multifaceTED

@dodonnahedron fucking right? can’t believe no one is talking about the fact that Nora has
banged both Claremont-Diaz siblings, she’s the luckiest person in that house #queen

@saltyseadog

Weird vibes AGAIN this ep - what is happening with my babies #halex #fakeittillyoumakeit

@whaledicks

Nora could step on me, send tweet #fakeittillyoumakeit

@pezdispenser

Buckle up buttercups, Auntie Pezza is about to watch his beloved Haz and his strumpet on
#fakeittillyoumakeit because he’s been on a wellness retreat without any phone reception and
this is BRAND NEW INFORMATION

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser episode one, here we go…

Chapter End Notes

Sorry about all of this.

 Chapter 8
Chapter Notes

Posting schedule? Never heard of her. Can I offer you some kind of sexy chaos instead?
It's all we've got in at the moment, as I haven't been shopping.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Weeks Three & Four: Good Vibrations

Things go almost back to normal after that; Henry doesn’t forget what Alex’s body feels like
next to his, but it’s easier to fall back into their normal routine than it had been before. Their
normal routine is, he will admit, a lot more relationship-y than he’d realised prior to coming
here, but that does generally work in their favour.

Week three involves various physical activities - from rock climbing to some kind of canoe
relay race - and at the end of it all, Maria and Trenton are voted off by the couples remaining
on the island.

Week four is, unfortunately, where things get weird again.

Firstly, Zahra announces that voting will open up to the public a week ahead of schedule, due
to Priah and Jason leaving in week one; this means the viewers will be able to vote for the
fakes as of week five, rather than beginning in week six, as originally planned.

“So, basically,” Zahra says, downing a glass of champagne like it’s water and shoving the
empty glass at Hunter, “you need to be on your best fucking behaviour. There are gonna be a
lot more people analysing you and getting a say in whether or not your relationship is
realistic enough to pass muster. This is your final warning, kiddos — and please note that any
footage you ruin with your filthy fucking mouths will be taken into consideration when this
show finally drives me nuts and I start throwing people into the ocean.”

Shaan coughs pointedly from somewhere behind Henry, and Zahra grimaces. “I am legally
obligated to remind you that I don’t mean that.”

Secondly, Henry runs into some difficulties in relation to his sex drive. The problem is, while
he’d had everything fairly locked up when it came to his feelings for Alex prior to this trip,
he’d also had some personal space. What this means in more general terms is that he’d had
somewhere to get off without feeling too guilty or weird about it, and now he only has places
to feel guilty and weird about it.
The bed? Absolutely not; they both sleep there, and even when Alex isn’t there - a rarity - the
idea feels odd and invasive.

The shower? A little more appropriate, but he’s also very much aware that his usual shower
time increases in an exceedingly obvious way when he’s got a hand around his cock.

Literally anywhere else? Well, the thing is, there isn’t anywhere else. Henry has limited time
to himself, there are cameras just about everywhere, and things all come to a head when he
gets so distracted by Alex’s fingers during dinner that he knocks over a wine glass and soaks
his chicken in red wine.

“Fuck,” he says, far too loudly. While this causes Alex some amusement at least, Henry quite
purposefully does not look for Zahra. “Oh — Christ.”

“Huh,” Alex says, peering at Henry’s plate and grinning. “Coq au vin.”

Henry puts his head in his hands and debates the merits of sliding underneath the table.

The next day, he decides there’s nothing for it; he needs to get his vibrator out. He brought it
with him for a reason, and it generally gets him off much more quickly and thoroughly than
the hands-only method of masturbation; if he’s strategic about things, he won’t even be in the
shower for much longer than normal. He’s fairly certain Alex won’t make any lewd
comments, but even that is a risk Henry’s willing to take at this point.

This turns out to be more difficult than anticipated, but for all the wrong reasons.

"God," Henry mutters, breath coming a little short as he goes through his luggage for what
must be the twentieth time. He's unfolded and folded everything, searched through every zip
pocket and hidden crevice of the bloody thing, and there's still something very important
missing.

"What's up?" Alex asks, emerging from the bathroom and frowning at Henry where he's
carefully refolding a chambray shirt. "Lost something? It's like... the fourth week or
whatever. How the fuck did you manage that?"

"I didn't notice," Henry says, frustration bleeding into his tone, "because I haven't had cause
to notice. I only noticed now because I thought to check." He doesn’t add that the reason he’s
checking is because he’s too on-edge and horny to function, and he needs help.

"Check for what?” Alex asks, and Henry closes his eyes and rubs a hand over his face.

"It's... It's nothing. I forgot they were checking for electronics when we came here. It
probably got confiscated."

Alex blinks at him. "What got confiscated? A phone? Did you try to sneak a phone into the
villa?"

"Alex," Henry says exasperatedly, deciding enough is enough; he’s horny and annoyed and
someone appears to have taken the one thing that might have helped alleviate at least fifty
percent of those problems. "I'm talking about a vibrator. I cannot believe you're making me
say that aloud."

Alex stares at him. Henry's ears are hot and he'd rather like for a hole to open up and swallow
him entirely, but he refuses to be ashamed of this; people own sex toys. It's fine. It's not
bloody illegal, alright.

"You—” Alex stops and swallows, still blinking at him like some kind of startled deer.
"Sorry, you brought a vibrator with you?"

"I assumed," Henry says drily, still crouched down by his luggage, "that I wouldn't be getting
any for a ten week period. It's hardly a crime."

“Well, no, but—”

“And I’m trying to stick to the new - very sensible - arrangement we have, where it doesn’t
go any further than what we have to do in front of the cameras,” Henry interrupts him,
finding it difficult to stop talking now he’s started. “And part of that is ensuring I respect our
shared space, which means opportunities to get off have been thin on the ground. Frankly,
right now a stiff breeze would probably get me going, and I—”

Alex stops him from rambling any further by stepping forward and falling to the floor in front
of him, gripping the front of Henry's shirt with oddly desperate fingers.

"Henry. Sweetheart. Shut up for a second.”

Henry shuts up — mostly because Alex is just incredibly close to him right now, and his
presence in Henry’s personal space is far more arousing than it has any right to be. He hadn’t
been kidding about the ‘stiff breeze’ thing.

“Okay,” Alex breathes, then fixes Henry with a serious look. “So. I’ve been thinking about
how you missed… y’know, us. Like, together. And now the stakes are higher, and we’re
obviously both pretty on edge—” (Henry does not need to know that Alex is as horny as he is
right now) "—so maybe we should… Go back to doing that. Unless you just want space so
you can get off? Which is also fine, and I’ll give you that, but we were definitely at our most
believable when we were getting off together, right?”

Henry nods wordlessly, because he’s still not sure he’s heard the rest of what Alex said quite
right, but he agrees with that sentiment at least.

“Right. So, we should go and reclaim your lost property. Your stolen goods. This is a gross
miscarriage of justice and it needs to be rectified."

"Alex—”

"No fucking arguments," Alex says firmly, fingers still clutched in the front of Henry's shirt.
"This is the crime, okay?"

"You're ridiculous," Henry says flatly, even though he's actually struggling not to read too
much into this, for fear that he'll be too turned-on to function. "I'm fairly certain it's not best
practice to go to the head of production and ask for your vibrator back."

"First of all," Alex says, "I'm not ridiculous. I'm passionate — both about justice and you
having the opportunity to put something in your ass whenever the mood takes you. Secondly,
they didn't inform you of the seizing of your property, so it's technically theft; there was
nothing in our contracts about bringing something with batteries. It's not fucking wifi
capable."

"It's mains rechargeable," Henry says on autopilot; the words between 'justice' and 'ass' are
sticking in his mind just a little.

“Right,” Alex says, then lets go of Henry’s shirt and sits back on his heels. “Yeah, that’s…
sensible? Probably better for the environment, when you think about how many people don’t
properly recycle batteries—”

“Alex — do shut up,” Henry interjects, though the delivery is wobbly and Alex simply
sweeps it aside with a wave of his hand, as though the words are an insect getting too far into
his personal space.

“You’re right. Sorry. Anyway, it’s your choice, but I promise I’ll respect whichever way you
go with this, and I won’t… freak out again. It’s just that you’re tense, I’m tense, and we were
so much better at this when we were—”

“Sleeping together,” Henry finishes for him, because he’s been thinking it, but he wasn’t ever
going to actually say it out loud. However, if the way Alex is now nodding frantically is
anything to go by, he’s been thinking the exact same thing. Henry wonders for how long.

“Yeah,” Alex says, “and I know we’ve been back and forth on this a bit, but I just… Yeah, I
miss it too. I didn’t say it before, but I do.”

Henry looks at Alex’s expression - somewhere between pleading and determined - and feels
his resolve crumble. Right now, there’s nothing he wants more than to let Alex do whatever
the hell he wants to Henry; especially if it means he can start functioning like a normal
human being again.

“I wouldn’t be… averse,” Henry says, mouth dry.

"That's hot," Alex says sarcastically, before leaning forward slightly and sliding one hand up
to Henry’s jaw. “So, are we all-in?”

Henry swallows. At least this time, he thinks, he knows a little bit better what he’s getting
into.

“Yeah. We’re all-in,” he murmurs, putting his hand over Alex’s and leaning forward to close
the distance between them.

They eventually decide that Shaan is their best bet for this; there's every likelihood he'll stare
them down and then leave without saying a word to them, but it's certainly better than finding
Zahra and asking her. Henry gets the distinct feeling that, regardless of which one of them
was asking, she'd find a way to remove Alex's testicles anyway; it's almost like she's waiting
for the opportunity.

"I wish I could say this was the first time this has happened," Shaan says, completely
unperturbed by the request. "Yes, it's likely it was removed from your luggage. I'll speak to
Ms Bankston about having the property returned to you."

"Thank you," Alex says seriously, and Henry covers his face with his hands until Shaan
leaves their room.

"I might actually die," Henry comments, only slightly muffled by his fingers. "Ascend.
Shuffle off this mortal coil. Become one with nature and reassign myself a non-corporeal
form."

"Or," Alex suggests, wrapping his fingers around Henry's wrists to pull his hands away from
his face, "you could keep a corporeal form so that I can watch you fucking yourself later. Just
a thought."

Henry's mouth goes dry and his knees almost give out. That idea, unfortunately, has merit.

He goes, in the end, with option two; retain corporeal form so that Alex can do whatever the
hell he wants with him. It's becoming a theme, and one he's only slightly embarrassed to say
rather does it for him.

"Ms Bankston sends her apologies for the mix-up," Shaan says later, smooth and unassuming
where he's handing Henry a discreet tote bag through the open doorway of their room.
Henry's face is on fire, but he takes it with a polite, "thank you," while Alex snorts in the
background.

"Does she?" he asks. "Does she actually send her apologies? Or did she in fact swear a whole
bunch and blame me for something I didn't do?"

Shaan raises his eyebrows, a small smile playing about his lips. "I can neither confirm nor
deny."

"I fucking knew it," Alex says, oddly victorious, and then Shaan's excusing himself and
closing the door, and—

Well. They're alone. It's just Alex, Henry, and a tote bag that doesn't belong to him,
containing something that most certainly does. Alex's eyes are flicking between Henry's face
and the bag, and Henry can almost see the cogs turning; knows he's imagining all of one
hundred different ways this could go now. It shouldn't make him so hot under the collar - so
immediately ready to go along with any of those one hundred ideas - but it absolutely does.

He’s embarrassingly prepared to be ruined again.

"It's an editing day, right?" Alex asks, licking his lips and looking contemplative. "So, we
have the whole day."
"We do," Henry says, trying to keep his voice level. "I was thinking we could maybe do a
mountain walk — perhaps see some of the local wildlife."

Alex looks him dead in the eye and says, hard and biting, "Fuck that."

Which is how Henry finds himself on his back, slicking up his own fingers and pushing them
inside himself while Alex watches.

"Okay, yeah," Alex says, sounding hazy and out of focus already, as Henry opens himself up
with two fingers. "This was... the best fucking idea ever."

Henry grits his teeth and lets his eyes flutter closed, trying to forget that Alex is watching him
do this. It's not that he's embarrassed or anything; that isn't the problem here. The problem is
that it's too good; too hot a concept for him to deal with right now, without the distinct and
material danger of him going off before he's even got the vibrator inside him. He knows, even
without looking, that Alex's lips are slightly parted, and that he's hard in his underwear; he
knows that he's watching avidly, eyes trained on where Henry's stretching himself open.

So, yes — it's almost too much, even with closed eyes. Especially after so long without
anything at all.

"Toy," Henry says tightly a few minutes later, having worked himself up enough that he
already knows he's making a bit of a mess of his stomach. It's never been this good by
himself before, but he should probably have predicted that this way would be more intense.

"Fuck, okay, yeah," Alex says breathlessly, and Henry opens his eyes to watch as Alex
scrambles for the slim, curving black vibrator just out of Henry's reach on the bed. He starts
to pass it over, then pauses, tongue darting out to wet his lips again. "Can— fuck, can I put it
in? I really wanna do that."

Henry stares at him for a moment, then swallows. Nods. It's possible he's not going to last
very long, but if it's what Alex wants, he honestly can't think of anything better.

Alex crawls a little closer on the bed and settles between Henry's legs as he slides his fingers
free; Alex pushes his legs a little further apart and slicks up the toy with hands that look a
little shaky, before pressing just the tip of it against Henry's rim.

"Okay?" he asks, and Henry just makes a quiet, desperate noise in response.

Then Alex is pushing the toy inside him and Henry reaches a hand out to clutch a little feebly
at Alex's arm, steadying himself as it slides home and rests - as intended - snugly against his
prostate. He groans and tries not to move, because it's already a lot; it's not big, but it's
exactly where he needs it, and it's Alex's hands doing that to him. There are a number of
contributing factors.

"There?" Alex says softly, as though it isn't obvious from Henry's expression; the way his
entire body's gone taut.
Instead of answering, Henry reaches down to gently push Alex's hand away, then grips the
base of the toy with his own fingers. Alex watches with dilated pupils, chest rising and falling
quickly and sharply, as Henry allows the toy to shift very gently inside him, before switching
it onto the lowest setting.

"Ah," Henry says, then swears quietly, the curse pulled out of him as the toy shifts again and
sends a wave of sparks ricocheting up his spine like the aura around hot, hammered metal.

"Fuck," Alex says as Henry moves the vibrator inside himself again, starting to roll his hips
back against the pressure as heat builds like a forest fire in his gut. It's definitely more than
usual; just... more. "Henry, you look—”

Alex, apparently incapable of finishing this sentence, settles instead for shoving down his
boxers and getting a hand around his cock, starting to jerk himself off as he watches what
Henry's doing to himself. It's hands-down the most intensely dirty-feeling thing Henry's ever
done with someone; nobody's ever seen him like this, and Alex is so into it, it makes him feel
a little wild. He wants Alex's hands on him again, but he doesn't know how to ask for it, so he
settles for turning the vibrator up a notch and pressing his head back into the pillows with a
groan that feels ripped out of him.

"Fuck — oh my God," Alex says desperately, and the sounds of him stroking himself are wet
and obscene now. Henry's so close it's almost unbearable.

He presses the toy in a little further, the new angle making him whine, and Alex swears
again. "Can you come just from this? I wanna see that, baby. Wanna see you come all over
yourself, please, c'mon—”

Henry squeezes his eyes shut and, one hand clenched in the sheets, the other clutching the
base of the toy, comes with the force of a derailed freight train hitting a concrete wall. He
tenses up and makes a noise that could probably be categorised as a wail, making a mess of
his stomach as he works back against the pressure of the toy inside him. He feels
simultaneously light as air and heavy with the weight of it all; he wants to sink into the
mattress, even as he's buoyed up by the sharp, biting sparks at the base of his spine.

Before he's even managed to come down from it, Alex is on him, fingers closing over his
where he's still touching the base of the toy, twitching around the aftershocks that keep on
flaring up and ripping through him.

"Can you go again?" Alex asks urgently, pressing his face to Henry's neck and setting his
teeth there for just a moment, making Henry shudder.

"Usually," he admits shakily, and then Alex is helping him slide the toy out of himself so he
can press inside instead, and it's—

God, it's everything. They haven’t done this before and there’s a reason for that, there’s a very
good reason, but Henry’s too overwhelmed and desperate to care. He’s oversensitive - unsure
he can even take much more, honestly - but Alex's cock inside him is such a different kind of
a heat; a welcome stretch that the vibrator, incredible though it always feels, simply can't
replicate.
Alex is kissing him everywhere - his neck, his chest, his face - and Henry's well on his way to
orgasm number two just from the sheer intimacy and intensity of it. Alex is so soft, even as
he's fucking relentlessly into the tight heat of Henry's body, and in the end, that's what gets
him; the syrupy way his name falls off Alex's tongue.

"Fuck— Henry, I—”

He shudders and comes again, and Alex is right there with him, all heat and soft hands taking
Henry apart with his own release. If Henry wasn't in love before, he certainly can't escape it
now.

“Okay,” Alex says a little while later, after he’s carefully pulled out and lazily used his own
shirt from the floor to clean them both up a bit. “That was… yeah. Wow.”

“Mmhm,” Henry agrees, eyes closed, entire body feeling like one of the chocolate lava cakes
they had for dinner yesterday; as though, were the slightest bit of pressure applied to him, he
would simply collapse into something molten and without form.

God, he could absolutely go for one of those right now; he’d actually managed to forget how
hungry he gets after a good fuck. And it really was good. Henry might not have had anything
like this in an embarrassingly long time, but he knows what a good shag feels like, and it
feels like that.

“Think we’ll be staying in this week now?” Alex asks, and Henry huffs out a laugh, just
about managing to turn his head so he can look at where Alex is grinning at him from the
pillows, chest rising and falling erratically as he tries to get his breath back.

“Well,” Henry says slowly, forcing himself to speak past the sluggishness in his brain and
limbs, “if we need to shag a few more times, I’m sure I could force myself. You know — for
verisimilitude.”

Alex rolls back on top of him immediately, curling his hands around Henry’s wrists and
frowning down at him. “If you can still say shit like that, I did a shitty job of blowing your
mind.”

“Oh no,” Henry says, as deadpan as he can make it. “Help. More sex. How will I cope.”

“You’re the worst,” Alex says hotly, but then he’s kissing Henry again with something fierce
in the press of his teeth, so he’s not sure Alex means it, really.

Things really are better after that. Henry’s less sexually frustrated, Alex is in a much more
manageable mood all round, and Henry knows what he’s letting himself in for just a little
better this time. He can handle it, probably, and even if he can’t? It’s another month or so at
the most; he can deal with that, for the sake of the potential prize money and having Alex
wrapped around him again at night.

It probably helps that they get caught making out in stupid places no less than three times
before the final votes come in for week four, but the relief on June and Nora’s faces is
palpable when none of their names ring out from Oliver’s mouth at this week’s ceremony.
Instead, it’s Minnie and Justin who have to leave, which brings the four of them ever closer
to the gold at the end of the rainbow.

That night, Alex asks a hundred and one questions about the vibrator until Henry gives up
and gets it out again, which ends with Alex sobbing his way through an orgasm that seems to
shake his very foundations, the tip of the toy pressed just under the head of his leaking cock
and ramped up to the highest setting.

“Curiosity satisfied?” Henry asks once he’s turned the vibrator off and set it aside, ignoring
the ache of his own arousal just to bask in Alex’s for a little longer. Alex whimpers slightly in
response and pulls him down into a biting kiss; as his hand slides between Henry’s legs, he
wonders if this will ever get less intense.

He sort of hopes not. As long as it’s consuming him, he doesn’t have to think about the
consequences.

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser Junora my darlings! How could they do this without me! I ship it, but the
forecast says I should be hoisting those sails on occasion (please forgive me - Strumpet,
never read these tweets)

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser #halex giving me a toothache over here, H looks like this 😍 Delighted to
confirm that this is just how they ARE

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser Priah is a Queen, someone give her my number? Let’s do brunch, darling -
there’s a delightful place I can take you where all the waiters are shirtless for no good reason
and the eggs benedict are on point

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser oh I recognise that look, good for you #halex 😏 🍆

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser Strumpet used his gift to give that book to H? SCREAMING SOBBING
THROWING UP WHO SAID ROMANCE IS DEAD

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser Oh, bugger - got so caught up watching #fakeittillyoumakeit I forgot to tweet.

I shall try to be more diligent, my loves!

@pezdispenser
impending disaster (Strumpet, the leggings I gave you are 🔥🍑
@pezdispenser oh dear, look at Alex. Separating #halex is either a stroke of genius or
)

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser …how many of those cocktails H is mixing have vodka in them?

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser Looks like it’s ALL OF THEM. The tea shall be spilt thusly (and then some
other liquids probably, but we probably won’t get to see that - sorry chaps)

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser Minnie and Justin, more like Fakie and Zero-Trustin. Look at the gifs of
Minnie's blatant confusion when Justin talks about their alleged Madagascar vacay! If she's
ever been outside of W. Virginia, I'll eat my weight in papayas

@pezdispenser

@pezdispenser Still can’t believe you did this while I was communing in a
Buddhist monastery H!! There will be retribution

@cheapaschips

@pezdispenser this is giving me life, holy shit??? @santiagopher have you SEEN THIS

@santiagopher

@pezdispenser @cheapaschips SEEN it? I’m reading this thread like it’s a fuckin Agatha
Christie. I’ve got POPCORN

@cheapaschips

@pezdispenser @santiagopher PLEASE TELL US AGAIN THAT #HALEX ARE JUST LIKE
THIS, I NEED IT

@pezdispenser

@cheapaschips @santiagopher Can confirm that Alex and Henry are always this
disgustingly sweet (etc.) - they could make a unicorn throw up. I am the original shipper. Get
in line, babes! #halex4ever #otp

@pezdispenser

@cheapaschips @santiagopher HUGE fan of your work in chronicling this epic love story in
my absence, however. I am forever indebted to you both

@whaledicks
 Cannot believe we got like five whole minutes of footage where #halex were just… caught
macking on each other. Maybe there is a God??? #fakeittillyoumakeit

@dodonnahedron

@whaledicks Someone pls give that camera operator a medal jfc

Chapter End Notes

Pez, you continue to be a delight.

 Chapter 9
Chapter Notes

CW: Please note that someone gets hurt off-screen in this chapter, and I just want to
confirm that everything is going to be okay - I promise. No jokes.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Week Five: cut

Week five passes in somewhat of a blur.

There are tasks, and events, and a lot of stuff in front of the cameras that Henry’s become
almost immune to by this point, but that’s to be expected; he’s coming to terms with the ups
and downs of having his every move documented and then shredded on the cutting room
floor.

What week five also brings is a lot of… cuddling.

He’d been expecting the sex. Now that they’ve reopened that particular door, he hadn’t been
expecting Alex to be shy about asking for what he wants — and he’s not. Henry’s been
woken up twice this week because Alex has had a filthy dream and has something he wants
to try out, and they had a near miss in one of the outdoor hot tubs when Alex got it into his
head that it was the perfect place to try out underwater blowjobs.

(It wasn’t, and Henry maintains that he had been right to nip that in the bud from the word
‘go’.)

What’s much less expected is the way Alex seems to sink into him at every available
opportunity; seeking him out and tucking his fingers into Henry’s back pockets or
absentmindedly running his fingers through Henry’s hair. Alex still curls around him in the
night - looking for a warm body on autopilot - but he’s noticeably more affectionate in
daylight hours as well now.

To the point that June ends up pulling him aside again.

“Are you guys sleeping together again?” she demands, having managed to pull him into a
bathroom that Henry hopes is unisex — or at least not well-monitored. And wouldn’t that be
a fun scandal for the show to spin? Henry having some kind of dalliance with his boyfriend’s
sister. If he wasn’t so completely and utterly gay, he can see how they’d manage that kind of
storyline.
“I’m not talking about your brother’s sex life with you,” he says firmly, which it turns out is
entirely the wrong thing to say.

“So you’re saying my brother has a sex life,” June says, and Henry wants to throw himself
out of a fucking window. “Alex has a sex life, on this island where everyone thinks he’s
dating you, and can therefore sleep with nobody but you. That’s what you’re saying?”

“If it’s not a Claremont-Diaz sending me to my grave in the end, I shall be inordinately
surprised,” Henry says with a sigh, and refuses to answer any more of June’s lewdly probing
questions. For someone who wants absolutely no knowledge of where her brother’s dick is
residing at any given time, she’s incredibly nosy on the subject.

Midway through the week, they’re advised that there will be a competition the next day
between the couples, with only one half of the couple actually competing. They’ll need to
consider who’s best suited for the task, and nominate that person before the end of the day.

It is not, in the end, a difficult decision.

“I cannot bake,” Henry says flatly, looking down at the instructions with something bordering
on fear in his chest. “I beg of you not to test that theory. It has already been thoroughly
confirmed,”

Alex snorts and gently elbows him in the ribs. “Yeah, sweetheart — I fucking remember.
You’re a pretty good cook, but cakes are clearly not in your wheelhouse.”

“So you’ll do it then?” Henry asks, feeling suddenly very grateful that his fake boyfriend/real
best friend/person with whom he has an inadvisable, casual sexual relationship is better at
this kind of thing than he is.

“Of course I fucking will,” Alex says shortly, like he’s not even sure why it’s a question.
Neither is Henry, when it comes right down to it; Alex stress baked his way through finals, so
he’s much better equipped for this kind of thing than Henry could ever be.

“Lovely,” he says, then finds himself being pushed back into one of the armchairs in the
living area, Alex climbing into his lap immediately afterwards with a grin.

“Anyway, now that’s sorted—”

“You know, there are things we could do with our time that don’t involve you absolutely
mauling me,” Henry points out, as though he isn’t leaning into every bit of pressure provided
by Alex’s body; his thighs around Henry’s and his hands splayed firmly across Henry’s chest.
He shifts beneath Alex’s weight and Alex makes a pleased noise in his throat at what he
clearly perceives as physical agreement.

“Sounds fake,” he says, then leans down to kiss every gram of protest from Henry’s mouth.

They’re getting good at this; at all of it. Alex’s mouth is still soft and warm - still ruining
Henry for literally anyone else - but now it’s precise too. He’s already learned how Henry
likes to be kissed, and the best way to make him melt and whine and plead beneath the firm,
slick pressure of Alex’s mouth.

He hopes Alex never finds out that at least fifty percent of that is just the fact that it’s him.
He’d be absolutely insufferable.

“Are you ever satisfied?” Henry asks breathlessly as Alex’s fingers undo his buttons and push
the shirt off his shoulders, the fabric creasing horribly as it’s wedged behind his body.
Henry’s really not sure he’s ever cared less about the state of his clothes before.

“Not if I can fucking help it,” Alex says, “and not for long. It’s not my fault you’re hot and
available.”

“I’m available because you signed me up to be your fake boyfriend for several months on
television,” Henry points out, and Alex hums and buries his face in Henry’s neck,
immediately getting to work on sucking a deep, aching bruise into the skin there.

Conversation does somewhat devolve after that.

“Fuck,” Alex says succinctly, both of them now half dressed, trousers and underwear shoved
down far enough that Henry’s managed to get a hand around both of their cocks where
they’re pressed together. Alex is - as usual - pretty productive already, leaking so beautifully
that they don’t really need anything else, and that just makes Henry all the more keyed-up.

“Are you always this—” he starts to ask, but then one of Alex’s hands is covering his and
tightening the pressure a little as he rolls his hips, and he cuts himself off with a groan.

“Always this what?” Alex gasps, leaning forward and pressing their foreheads together,
looking not at Henry but at the hard, hot slide of them together; he’s clearly just as transfixed
by the visual as Henry is. “This persistent? Attractive? Annoy—”

“This wet,” Henry corrects him tightly, hissing out the word through clenched teeth as Alex
swipes a thumb over the head of his cock, making him shiver.

“Um,” Alex says, shaky and uncertain in that way he seems to get when he’s close; it’s like
he knows how, in theory, to force words out, but unless he’s swearing or saying Henry’s
name, he forgets how to string syllables together with any degree of coherency. “Yeah, I—
fuck.”

Henry uses his free hand to drag Alex into an uncoordinated, messy kiss, since he hadn’t
really been looking for an extensive answer anyway. Henry comes the second Alex sinks his
teeth into his lower lip, gasping and pushing up into the tight pressure of their joined hands as
he shakes apart.

“Just— God, just let me?” Alex says shakily when Henry’s too sensitive for anything more,
and the moment Henry removes his hand, Alex is pressing in closer so he can bury his face in
Henry’s neck, rutting against the slick mess on his abs with a whine.
“Come on,” Henry murmurs, hardly knowing what he’s saying as he tangles a hand in Alex’s
hair, sliding the other round to cup Alex’s ass and urge him on. “God, you’re so gorgeous,
Alex. You’re so good, love, come on — be a good boy and come for me—”

He has no idea why he says it, but the wounded noise Alex makes as he immediately comes
suggests that it was a good call. There are teeth in Henry’s shoulder that are definitely going
to leave a much clearer mark than usual - not a muddy bruise but the sharp, obvious outline
of teeth - and Alex is shaking so hard as his hips roll and stutter that Henry wonders, briefly,
if he should be concerned.

Then Alex says, “Jesus fucking Christ, Henry,” and he figures things are probably alright.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, just in case those words are - for once - meant to be an
indictment of his behaviour, rather than encouragement. Alex pulls back to glare at him, then
ends up kissing him so fiercely that Henry tastes copper on his tongue. Then he notices that
his shoulder is still stinging, and realises it’s probably his own blood; he’s not sure whether
that makes it more or less alarming.

“I think my soul almost left my fucking body,” he says, looking angry and - impossibly - still
a little bit turned on. “I need to like… nap now.”

“You can’t,” Henry points out. “This was, in fact, meant to be our time for such things as
naps and relaxing, but then you jumped me.”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” Henry says firmly. “And now we have around five minutes to clean up so we
can head off and tell Shaan what ingredients you need for whatever you’re baking, so you’ve
only yourself to blame.”

Alex scowls at him and climbs off his lap, almost falling over in the process. Whether this is
down to the tangle of fabric around his thighs or the fact that he came so violently he made
Henry’s shoulder bleed with his mouth is unclear, but he rights himself fairly easily before
grimacing at the mess they’ve both made.

“Okay. Okay. Shortest shower in the history of showers, then we go. Even though napping
would be a way better use of my time, and I’m kind of mad that you’re blaming me for you
being hot.”

“I can’t believe you’re blaming me,” Henry says as he gets to his feet. “I am merely a victim
of your insatiable sexual appetites.”

“Urgh,” Alex says with feeling as they make their way through to the bathroom. “You made
that sound gross. How? How the fuck? You made us having sex - which is actually pretty
great, objectively - sound creepy. Why would you do that?”

“I’m hoping for a short break from it,” Henry says drily, then turns on the shower and shoves
Alex under the cold spray while he’s still struggling out of his clothes.
The yelp it startles out of him is absolutely worth the fact that he immediately drags Henry
under the frigid water too.

“You can’t,” June says with a frustrated sigh, punching Alex in the arm. “You’re always
doing this! Not everything has to be about you, Alex.”

“Stop hitting me,” Alex says with a grimace, rubbing his arm. “It doesn’t belong to you,
okay? We can both do it, it doesn’t need to be the big issue you’re making it out to be. Abuela
wouldn’t want us to fight over a cake.”

“Eres un pendejo,” June mutters, ending this sentence with a punch to his other arm; Henry
notes that it’s considerably softer than the first one, however, and Alex grins at her.

“Yeah, I know. Runs in the family, actually.”

Henry, personally, does not see the problem with both of the Claremont-Diaz siblings baking
their abuela's tres leches cake; neither does Nora. She and Henry are standing side by side,
watching this exchange alongside the other contestants. It's the day of the competition, and all
the remaining couples are looking on with some interest as June and Alex devolve into
insulting each other in Spanish.

"You've never even made it before, Alex," June says crossly, but she seems to be simmering
down now. For all that Alex often flies off the handle when things are going awry - not at
anyone in particular, but in more general terms - June has quite the temper on her too, on
occasion; it's possible they bring it out in each other.

"Hey, I've made it once," Alex retorts immediately, then shuts his mouth abruptly, glancing
guiltily over at Henry.

For a moment, he wonders why, and then it hits him; the tres leches cake is the one Alex
made for Henry's birthday last year. He'd made a complete mess of the kitchen, but he'd
surprised Henry after work with it, looking nervous but generally rather pleased with himself.
Henry had had an unavoidable deadline, and couldn't afford to take the time off work to
celebrate, so coming home to Alex holding what turned out to be an incredibly delicious cake
- decorated with a great deal of care - had meant the world to him.

Henry swallows. "I didn't realise that was the first time you'd made it," he says quietly, and
Alex shrugs, biting back a self-deprecating smile.

"I made a bit of a mess."

"You always make a bit of a mess," Henry points out, not bothering to keep the fondness out
of his voice. "That was really the first time?"

"Yeah, well — I didn't have any time to practise," Alex says defensively, and Henry
immediately breaks away from the gaggle of onlookers and wraps his arms around Alex,
dragging him into a hug. Alex makes a surprised noise but his hands immediately come to
rest at the small of Henry's back, his face fitting into the curve of Henry's neck like it's meant
to be there.

"It was perfect, love," he murmurs.

"Even though I got at least dos of the tres leches on the kitchen cupboards?" Alex asks
hoarsely, and Henry laughs and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

"That just made it taste even better. What are they always saying on those cooking shows?
Tell a story with your recipe. I knew exactly what was in it just by looking around the
kitchen."

"You're a dick," Alex mumbles into his neck, but he doesn't sound like he means it.

“This is gross,” June says flatly. “You guys are gross.”

“I think it’s cute,” Nora says gamely, and Dean says something that sounds suspiciously like
“goals" from somewhere behind her.

The competition itself is actually incredibly entertaining. The people baking are June, Alex,
Hugh, Mike, and Florence. Nora, Henry, Dean, Kathleen, and Niamh get to stand around and
drink margaritas while they watch their partners frantically mixing batter and staring through
oven doors with their noses practically pressed to the glass. It’s one of the better tasks
Henry’s ever had to be a part of, which may be mostly down to the margaritas.

The points scoring system has been explained to them in some detail by Oliver - who has
also had a few margaritas - but until the cakes are cooled and decorated, there isn’t much for
them to do but drink and watch the show.

(Henry, remembering his last run-in with an overabundance of cocktails, switches to water
after two. Dean, who is a strong and mighty ox, and quite possibly one of the most interesting
and impossible people Henry has ever met, manages seven before he has so much as a
wobble. Hugh only starts to look concerned when he begins on number eight, but given that
he’s carefully washing up every bowl and utensil he used for his chocolate gateau, he’s too
distracted to stop him.)

“What d’you think of my chances so far?” Alex asks Henry a little while later, gratefully
taking the glass of water Henry offers him and pushing his hair out of his face with his other
hand. It’s getting rather long now, and while they’re offered haircuts every other day by the
styling team, Alex has refused any and all efforts to get anywhere near his curls.

Henry is inordinately pleased about this, and would prefer that Alex never ever notice the
correlation between Henry’s libido and just how easy it is for him to thread his fingers
through Alex’s hair and pull.

“Well, it looks like Florence was chosen as the lesser of two evils,” Henry comments, then
remembers that he’s probably being filmed and hastens to add, “according to Niamh, anyway.
I believe her exact words were ‘everyone assumes that at least one of us can cook, but neither
of us have touched the stove since the great fire of 2016’.”
Alex grins around the mouth of his bottle and Henry watches him swallow, because he’s
allowed to do that right now. He’s not sure when the privilege is going to be taken away from
him.

“Cool,” Alex says, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and then pushing them up to his elbows.
“Who do I need to watch?”

“Your sister,” Henry says immediately, and Alex grimaces.

“Urgh, seriously? You’re on my side here, right?”

“I’m on the side of whichever cake is objectively the best,” Henry says firmly, and Alex
elbows him in the ribs.

“Mutiny.”

“Common sense,” Henry corrects him, and presses a kiss to his cheek before pushing him
back over to his baking station. “Go do some work.”

“Drink twelve margaritas for me,” Alex says mournfully.

“Absolutely not.”

By the time all the cakes are done, Dean is having to sit down while Hugh very firmly hands
him a large glass of water, Florence and Niamh are giggling as they attempt to cut up a carrot
cake that looks simultaneously rock hard and swamp-like, and June and Alex are having a
staring contest over the top of two very attractive tres leches cakes.

Henry has to admit, this is probably making some pretty good television.

“The taste testing begins,” Oliver says solemnly, pulling an actual cake fork out of God only
knows where and waving it in the direction of the contestants. “Don’t forget how you’re
scoring these — flavour, texture, and presentation must all be considered, and you have a
limited number of points to attribute across the cake pool. Choose wisely!”

Hugh’s chocolate gateau is good, but there’s not enough buttercream in the middle layers, and
he’d spent so much time keeping his workstation tidy that he didn’t actually get around to
decorating it properly. That being said, it’s still delicious, and a damn sight better than
Florence’s non-existent carrot cake, which has been consigned to the bin.

“Pretty sure it woulda given at least one of you food poisoning,” she laughs, sitting on the
messy counter and swinging her legs while Niamh grins up at her. “The cream cheese
frosting is good though.”

They all take a big spoonful of cream cheese frosting before they move on, and Henry
decides to give her points for audacity, if nothing else. Also, the frosting really is incredibly
good.

Mike has gone for style over substance, and while his vanilla “birthday cake" looks very
impressive - Henry wonders if it’s possible he’s ever seen Bake-Off when he notices the sugar
work - it’s a little dry and… well, vanilla on the inside. It’s nothing to write home about.

June and Alex’s cakes are identical in almost every way, but June’s is very slightly neater.
Henry doesn’t think he’s allowed to give extra points to Alex just because he has a bit of
batter on his cheek, or because tasting the cake in front of him reminds Henry of the first time
Alex had ever made this for him. It wouldn’t be fair to sway things in his favour simply
because he knows who made it; he has to be reasonable here.

“Well, that was pretty close,” Oliver says once they’ve submitted all their points totals to him
and helped themselves to more drinks. Henry has his arms around Alex’s waist, and while
both of Alex’s hands are busy with a margarita, he’s leaning back into Henry’s chest like he’s
tired of standing up, but doesn’t want to be beaten. “Our winner today, with a lead of just two
points, is June Claremont-Diaz!”

June grins and flushes, and everyone except Alex claps — Henry hopes it’s because he’s
holding a drink, but suspects that it isn’t. He can be incredibly petty sometimes.

“We have Alex in second place, then trailing a little way behind we have Hugh, Mike, and…
Florence.” Niamh laughs a little hysterically and Florence turns her face into her girlfriend’s
neck, shoulders shaking with laughter.

“The rest of the afternoon is yours, but the production team would like to come out and see
what all the fuss is about, if you don’t mind us breaking the fourth wall for a bit?” Oliver
asks, grinning at them all.

They all agree that, of course, the cake should be eaten, and Florence makes a big show of
lining up teaspoons of frosting on little napkins at her station, giggling uncontrollably the
whole time. Henry helps Alex cut his cake into neat little squares while he mutters
mutinously under his breath, and he only calms down when June drapes herself over his back
and refuses to let go until he relaxes.

“Abuela would love that we both made her cake,” Henry hears her say to him, voice quiet and
quite clearly not intended for outside ears.

“Shut up, Bug,” Alex says softly, but he carries her around on his back for another half an
hour anyway, passing her bits of cake every so often and telling her very seriously that he’ll
dump her in the sea if she gets frosting in his hair.

Eventually, Henry and Alex end up back in their room, Alex complaining about his feet
hurting and asking if they can just, “sit the fuck down for twenty seconds and eat something
that doesn’t have an entire bag of conectioner’s sugar in it.”

“I should’ve docked more points for your attitude,” Henry remarks, throwing Alex the room
service menu like it isn’t a couple of hours until dinner.

“What do you mean ‘more points’?” Alex asks with a frown, putting the menu on the bed and
folding his arms. He looks like an angry toddler. “You docked points? Hold on… did you
give June more points than me?”
Henry can see from his expression that he’s not joking about this, which is just… completely
absurd. "Alex, you can't be serious," he says flatly, even knowing full-well that he is. "You're
actually annoyed with me about this?"

Alex glares at him venomously. "Yeah, I'm pretty fucking annoyed, H. There's no way June's
cake was better than mine — and even if it fucking was, you're meant to be my boyfriend!
That's, like... the first rule of dating: your partner's baking is better than everyone else's."

"That is definitely not a rule of dating," Henry says immediately. He's actually getting a little
annoyed himself now. There hadn't been much in it, but he'd been trying to be objective;
that's the point of judging things, isn't it? Besides which, he'd only given one more point to
June than he had to Alex, and he'd been fairly thorough in his working when he'd been
rationalising his point distribution.

"Yes, it is—"

"Well, how the hell would you know, Alex?" Henry says sharply, and Alex goes absolutely
still.

"What the fuck is that meant to mean?" he asks eventually, voice dangerously low. Henry isn't
usually one for arguments, but the last five weeks have been completely insane, and he's not
sure he's the same person he was when he arrived here; he’s not just going to let things slide
this time.

"When was the last time you had a relationship?" he asks, folding his arms and raising his
eyebrows at Alex. "Nora was well over four years ago. You've had a few drinks with people
since, but you've never brought them home or introduced them to anyone, let alone grown
attached enough to have opinions on baking etiquette."

"And you have?" Alex bites back, face flushed with anger now.

"We're not talking about me," Henry says quickly, because he's never had a conversation
about his relationships with Alex before and he's not bloody well starting now. Not like this.

"Well, why the hell not? I'd say you're fair game. When was the last time you brought
someone home?" Alex presses, and Henry feels sick all of a sudden. The very idea of
bringing someone into their space - sleeping with someone who isn't Alex when he's only a
room away, knowing that he would much rather it was him - makes Henry want to turn out
the lights and crawl under the covers for several, long hours.

"That's not—"

"When, Henry?" Alex says loudly, not letting Henry interrupt. He just keeps pushing. "Why is
it that I'm under scrutiny for having a perfectly fucking reasonable opinion, and now I'm not
allowed to push back? I'm not allowed to ask questions, is that it? That's bullshit, Henry —
so, why haven't you dated anyone recently? I'm all fucking ears."

"Because I'm in love with you, you insufferable arse," Henry says hotly, and he doesn't even
register the words coming out of his own mouth until they've escaped; until they're hovering
in the air between himself and Alex, impossible to take back or erase or bury underneath
anything else. They're just... there; real and true and terrifying, and Alex looks like he's been
slapped.

Henry swallows and wonders, very briefly, if he’s actually going to throw up. The silence
stretches out between them for longer than Henry can really conceptualise, and then Alex is
opening his mouth and—

There’s a loud, insistent knock on the door. Neither of them moves.

The knock comes again - louder this time - and Henry briefly closes his eyes before moving
over to the door and opening it just a fraction.

“Henry,” Shaan says seriously, “I need you to come with me.”

“It’s not really a good time,” Henry says, suddenly very, very tired. Tired of everything. He
just wants his own flat, his own bed, his own coffee mug; wants to be able to take back the
last five weeks and live in ignorance of what Alex’s body feels like under his and precisely
how he’d looked when Henry had told him the one thing he swore he’d never say aloud.

“Henry, it’s your sister,” Shaan says, and those four words are enough to wake Henry up so
instantly and violently, it’s as though he’s been thrown headfirst into a shock of cold water.

“What?”

“What’s happened to Bea?” Alex says from somewhere behind him, and Henry doesn’t even
mind that he’s so close, because it doesn’t matter — how could it matter?

Shaan comes into the room - Henry’s grip on the just-open door having gone slack - and goes
straight for Henry’s luggage. “Pack what you need — you have five minutes. Your sister’s
been in an accident and, while she doesn’t appear to be in any immediate danger, Ms
Bankston and the production team have given you special dispensation to leave the island and
go straight to see her.”

Henry swallows. “What’s the catch?” There’s always a catch. Nobody’s allowed to leave the
island until filming is over. “I assume we’re not allowed back?”

Shaan has thrown the half-full suitcase onto the bed like it weighs nothing at all, and has
turned to face Henry and Alex. “You can’t tell anyone what’s happening on the show. You
cannot engage with anyone - either in reality or online - about your experiences here, or
provide insider information on the couples — and yes, that includes yourself and Alex. As far
as anyone out there is concerned, you’re as real as anyone else, and that illusion is not to be
shattered.”

“Right,” Henry says hollowly, grabbing his pyjamas from where he’d had them folded
underneath his pillow and then going for the wardrobe. “So Alex and I are going to have to
—”
“I’m not going with him, am I?” Alex interrupts softly, and Henry turns to face him with a
frown, because of course he’s coming. Bea may be Henry’s sister, but they’ve all been friends
for so long that she may as well be his too. This is family.

Henry is, apparently, quite mistaken on this point.

“Alex has to stay here,” Shaan confirms, and Henry rounds on him, the anger from earlier
suddenly spiking like a moment of activity on a cardiogram.

“No,” he says sharply, and Shaan fixes him with a look that’s far too sympathetic for Henry
to take.

“That’s the deal, Henry. I’m sorry — I know it’s not perfect, but we have limited time, and if
you try to press Ms Bankston on this, there’s every possibility she’ll change her mind in
entirely the wrong direction.”

Henry bites back further vitriol - it is not, he realises, Shaan’s fault - and turns back to Alex,
who’s already shaking his head.

“For fuck’s sake, Henry, she’s your sister. Obviously you’re gonna go. I’ll be fine — we’ll
just… We’ll talk when you get back. Give her a hug from me.”

Talk. God, his sister has the worst timing in the world. The second he knows she’s okay, he’s
going to strangle her.

“Alright,” he says quietly, and Alex gives him a tight smile and goes to grab some of his
clothes out of the wardrobe for him.

When he’s packed, he barely has enough time to say goodbye before he’s being ushered out
of the room by Shaan; the last thing he sees is the door closing on Alex’s face, his expression
open and yet more impossible to read than ever.

This isn’t the best day Henry’s ever had.

@cheapaschips

@santiagopher Okay we’re gonna watch this one like 5 times later, I can already tell - some
quality #halex content in that baking section, according to the gifs??? TRYING NOT TO
SPOIL MYSELF

@santiagopher

@cheapaschips you would not believe the look I got when I bought three bottles of wine and,
like, 12 bags of popcorn earlier. MY BODY IS READY

@whaledicks

@cheapaschips @santiagopher WAIT WHAT

 @pezdispenser

@whaledicks @cheapaschips @santiagopher !!! I’M OBSESSED

@dodonnahedron

This week has been so good but can we just appreciate Florence and Niamh for a second???
They’re so cute I might die #fakeittillyoumakeit

@dodonnahedron

@pezdispenser @whaledicks @cheapaschips @santiagopher OH MY GOD I CANNOT

BELIEVE I MISSED THIS??? DO I HAVE A NEW SHIP???

Chapter End Notes

We all know the real ship here is santiagopher x cheapaschips

 Chapter 10
Chapter Notes

CW: Some frank but quite vague discussions regarding Bea's substance abuse issues in
the past (canon compliant levels)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Week Six: strong and stable

It turns out Shaan is coming with him, which is news to Henry.

"Who's staying with—"

"Alex has had Amy assigned to him," Shaan says firmly, carrying Henry's luggage like he's
not capable of doing it himself. He's shaken, yes, but he's still perfectly able to carry a bag or
two. "She won't let him get into any trouble in your absence."

Amy had originally been assigned to Gaia and Astin, so she can't have had a great deal to do
in the last few weeks. Whether or not this is preferable to taking care of someone like Alex is
unclear.

"I'm not sure I was doing a very good job of keeping him out of trouble myself, honestly,"
Henry says, and Shaan hums noncommittally as they make their way to the private plane
they'll apparently be taking to get to England. This is Henry's life at the moment, apparently;
room service and private planes and telling his fake boyfriend that he loves him when there's
absolutely no need for that kind of honesty. It's all a mess of unfamiliar feelings and
experiences and he's not sure he's handling it very well.

"What I mean is," Shaan continues a moment later, as they draw closer to the plane, "Amy
will... take care of him. She's good at her job, but she's also good with people. I hope that
helps."

Henry looks at Shaan curiously, but he's looking determinedly ahead, focused on the task at
hand. Henry softens a little, in spite of the concern gnawing at his gut; he trusts Shaan's
judgement, so he supposes that will have to do.

He really needs to focus on Bea, anyway.

"So, you can't give me any more information on my sister than, 'she was in a car accident'?"
Henry asks for what must be the millionth time, sitting down in a seat that feels too plush and
luxurious to be on a plane. He feels as though he's stepped into a first class lounge or
something; he has no idea how people get used to this sort of thing, but at least he's not flying
economy and pissing off fellow passengers with his anxious fidgeting.

"She's doing well," Shaan says, sitting down opposite Henry and buckling his seatbelt.
"Strap-in, please." Henry does so immediately, and Shaan continues, apparently satisfied by
his compliance. "From what I understand, she was relatively lucky. No head injuries, but
some broken bones. They're keeping her in for observation and she was asking for you, so
your family got in touch with the production team somehow—"

"Philip," Henry says decisively. For all that his brother can be an utter wanker at times, he
has contacts in the BBC - who have the UK rights to 'Fake It' - and Henry has no doubt that
he's abused that privilege royally in order to get Henry back to the UK. He feels a rush of
gratitude for Pip that is, quite frankly, completely alien to him.

"I'll take your word for it," Shaan says calmly. "Regardless of how news got to us, it did, and
you're allowed ten days - or until your sister is out of hospital - before I need to bring you
back to the island."

Henry nods. "Right. Well... Thank you."

"Just doing my job," Shaan says, but there's a half-smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as
he pulls out a book and opens it to his bookmarked page.

The flight is fine, but Henry hates it anyway. He's restless, unable to read and without a
phone or an Alex to distract him from the clawing concern threatening to pull him under. He
oscillates between wishing Alex was here, and being desperately glad that he's not; he can
only feasibly worry about one thing at a time.

When they touch down and Henry is finally allowed to breathe the English air again,
something in him unwinds. It’s damp and the wind has some bite to it - even though it is,
purportedly, summer - and it’s all just so familiar; he shouldn’t be smiling, really, but he is.
He can’t help it.

Then he sees who’s waiting for him, and his smile only gets wider.

“Henry, you complete and utter trollop,” Pez bellows at him delightedly from several feet
away, hanging out of the back of a black vehicle with tinted windows that Henry thinks is
probably meant to be discreet. He’s wearing a hot pink blazer and there’s a feather hanging
from one of his ears, and Henry’s so bloody delighted to see him, he doesn’t even mind being
referred to as a trollop at a hundred decibels.

Unlike the car, nothing about Pez is ever discreet, and everything he comes into contact with
gets the same treatment; very much like how a single thimbleful of glitter ends up adding to
shine to every inch of its surroundings.

“I’ve been back in God’s own country for all of thirty seconds—” Henry hollers back, but by
then he’s just close enough that Pez is able to leap at him and drag him into a bone-crushing
hug, which rather effectively cuts his sentence short.
“What are you doing to yourself, Haz?” Pez murmurs fondly in his ear, pulling back before
he can respond and giving him a once-over. “Bloody hell, have you managed to get a tan?
Heaven be praised! The palest Englishman of my acquaintance is going to have to switch up
his foundation game.”

“I don’t wear foundation,” Henry points out, as he and Shaan follow Pez into the car and
strap themselves in.

“Well, not all of us have been blessed with dewy skin and rosy cheeks, my liege,” Pez says
breezily, as though Henry hasn’t seen him first thing in the morning, before he’s even picked
up his eyeliner pencil. The bastard wasn’t even spotty as a teenager.

By the time they get to the hospital, Pez has asked Henry sneaky questions about the show no
less than twelve times, and about Alex specifically an additional twenty.

Which means that Shaan has had to say, “Henry, you can’t answer that,” thirty-two times.

“I’m not sure I like this game,” Pez says primly as they exit the vehicle, and Henry can just
about hear Shaan muttering, “I’m having the time of my life.”

“We’re here to see Beatrice Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor,” Henry says politely to the lady at
reception, assuming it’s better than simply allowing Pez to drag them through the halls of the
hospital until they find the right room again. Pez’s sense of direction is notoriously poor.

The woman behind the desk looks at Shaan - tall, unsmiling, and impeccably dressed; then
she looks at Pez, in his vibrant blazer, a glimmer of recognition in her eyes; then her eyes
land back on Henry, and she flushes just a little before looking back at her computer and
tapping away at the keyboard for a moment.

“It looks as though she’s on the Valentine Ellis ward — let me just call up and check that she
hasn’t been moved.”

Henry knows it would have been unlikely, but he’s grateful Bea’s in an entirely different
ward to the one they’d frequented with his father before he died. He’s not sure he would have
been able to deal with that, on top of everything else; it’s quite enough that they’re at the
same hospital.

“Thank you,” he says with a small smile, and she nods before picking up the phone, looking
quite red in the face now.

Henry realises belatedly that she’s probably a fan of the show, and reminds himself that this
might happen a few times over the coming days. The idea makes him wildly uncomfortable,
but he’s at least fairly confident that the hype will die down at great speed once the show has
finished airing; reality TV stars only really remain ‘relevant’ when they grasp hold of fame
with both hands, and Henry has absolutely no intention of doing that.

The receptionist gives him a floor and room number, confirming that Bea is indeed still on
the Valentine Ellis ward, and the three of them troop off to find the right place. Henry
pretends he doesn’t see her immediately getting out her phone the moment they turn away; he
really would rather not know.

“Henry!” Bea cries out delightedly from the bed as they cross the threshold, and their mother,
Catherine, has to immediately put a hand on her shoulder to stop her trying to get up and go
to him.

“Bea, you still look like absolute hell,” Pez says easily, floating over to Catherine and air
kissing her on both cheeks. “Did you get hit by another car?”

“Unfortunately, I’m still entirely out of your league, Percy,” she says breezily, and he grins at
her before swooping past Catherine to press a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Hi, Bea,” Henry says softly, and the moment he gets to her, she drags him onto the bed with
the arm that’s not in a cast to hug him, so that he has to grab hold of the railing on her other
side just to avoid falling on her. “Jesus Christ—”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us you were going on that show,” she scolds him, directly into
his ear, much louder than he’d like. He winces, but he’s just so glad to see her in one piece
that he lets it slide.

“Well, I wasn’t allowed, for starters,” he points out and when she tries to hug him harder, he
pulls away from her with a frown. “How many broken ribs have you got?”

She rolls her eyes. “They’re just fractures.”

“Oh, well then,” he says drily, pulling back completely and sliding off the bed. “That’s
absolutely fine, I suppose. Mum, did you know they’re just fractures?”

“Yes, well — she’s hardly the most sensible Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor,” someone says
tartly from the other side of the room, and Henry turns to see Philip in the doorway, arms
folded and looking uncharacteristically wary.

“Do shut up, Pip,” Bea says easily from the bed. “I can’t actually run away from your
negativity right now, so you’re going to have to do me a huge favour and lock it up in that
box where you keep all of your other feelings.”

“Beatrice,” Catherine says reproachfully, but Henry personally thinks she has a point.

“Sorry, mum,” she says, sounding anything but. “What has our fearless older brother brought
back from his travels?”

It’s at that point that Henry notices Pip has a bag on his shoulder, which he now slides off and
unzips. “Not that I’m entirely sure you deserve it,” he says primly, “but I remembered your
taste for truly disgusting fast food, and there was a Burger King just around the corner.”

“Pip, Pip, Pip,” Bea chants, which is the point at which Henry realises she must be on a
reasonably large dose of pain medication. He shares a worried glance with Catherine, who
shakes her head almost imperceptibly as Philip moves between them to hand Bea her food.
Usually, Bea would have refused pain medication entirely - having been sober for going on
three years now - but it must have been bad enough that they didn’t have a choice; Henry
supposes that makes sense, given that they’re on the trauma ward.

“Should you be bringing in food from outside the hospital?” Henry asks as Philip continues
to pass out burgers and fries from his seemingly bottomless bag.

“Given that Beatrice tried to throw a yoghurt at one of the nurses earlier, I thought it best to
comply,” he says as he hands Henry a burger, expression grim.

“I didn’t mean to,” Bea says, and she sounds a little upset now, even though she’s already
shoving fried potatoes into her mouth like she’s starving. “I’m just… not very good with my
hands right now.”

That’s an understatement. Several fries have already fallen into her lap, and it looks like she’s
having difficulty gripping things consistently. Henry steps forward immediately and perches
on the edge of the bed, picking up the fries she’s dropped before very carefully feeding them
to her, one by one.

“Philip and I will eat ours just outside,” Catherine says firmly, and sweeps out of the room
with a gentle touch to Henry’s shoulder before anyone can protest. Pez stays behind, and
Shaan slips into the room a moment later, very pointedly putting in headphones and sitting on
the opposite side of the room to read his book.

“So, you and Alex—”

“We’re not talking about this,” Henry says flatly, shoving another fry into Bea’s mouth before
she can argue with him. “I’m contractually obligated not to talk to you about it, in fact. Do
you want to get me thrown in jail? I wouldn’t survive in there, you know.”

“You and Dean look like pals,” Pez tries, somehow having managed to consume half a
Double Whopper without getting a single spot of sauce on his clothing or face.

“Pez, no.”

“So, how about that episode where you and Alex got caught snogging in the—”

“I am begging you,” Henry interrupts him, tearing off a piece of Bea’s burger so she can start
on that without either of them embarrassing themselves. “I cannot talk about any aspect of
the show, my relationship with Alex, or—”

“So you have a relationship with Alex?” Bea says brightly, then almost chokes on the piece
of burger Henry vindictively shoves into her mouth to shut her up.

“Stop twisting my words,” he says firmly, taking a bite of his own burger to give her a
moment to collect herself.

“There was a wobble a few weeks ago, on the footage I was catching up to,” Pez says
conversationally, but he’s looking out of the window like he’s having this little chat with his
own reflection. “It was almost like you and Alex were having difficulties. Then things started
looking up and, unfortunately, I know exactly what it looks like when you’ve—”
“I will literally pay you,” Henry says loudly, “to stop talking.”

Bea shifts and winces, Henry only just noticing out of the corner of one eye, and his gaze
goes immediately to the ‘help’ button beside his sister on the bed.

“Do you need something?” he asks softly, and Bea immediately shakes her head.

“No,” she says firmly.

“Bea,” he starts, voice still purposefully soft, but she grits her teeth and he waits to let her
speak instead.

“They’re weaning me off the meds, at my request,” she says eventually, and Henry takes her
good hand in his and lets her squeeze it far too tightly for comfort. “I hate feeling like this, H.
I’d rather have a little discomfort. Or quite a lot of discomfort, I would imagine”

Henry can’t claim to understand what she’s going through, but he feels an immense amount
of pride at her tenacity; at just how far she’s come, and how much of it was entirely her own
efforts. She’s stronger than he is.

“But when it gets bad enough, you’ll ask for more?” he asks, squeezing her hand this time,
and she smiles.

“When it gets bad enough,” she agrees, and Henry lets himself be mollified.

Philip and Catherine come back into the room eventually, and - with some precise and
pointed intervention from Shaan - it’s agreed that Henry will stay with Pez while he’s in the
country. He lives in a secure building with a doorman and a private lift, and there’s a nearby
hotel that will accommodate Shaan; it’s preferable to him staying with his family, as that will
be the first place anyone looking for him would go.

“Why on earth would anyone be looking for me?” Henry asks, bewildered, and Pez laughs
raucously.

“Hazza, my sweet and lovable carton of unseasoned bean curd—” (that’s a new one) “—the
internet is blowing up over hashtag-halex right now. There’s an episode tonight that’s going
to mysteriously not feature you - even though it’s this week’s voting ceremony - and while I
am in the fortunate position of knowing precisely where you are, I’m fairly certain the rest of
the world is going to go completely ape shit.”

Henry looks at him blankly. “Pez, I’m just a person.”

“Correction,” Pez says with a wide grin. “You’re just a person who’s fifty percent of one of
the most adored, highest trending couples in the show’s history. It turns out the people are
thirsty for halex content, and one should never underestimate the paparazzi, crazed fans, or
angry handbag dogs.”

“Sorry, what was that last one?” Bea pipes up from the bed, and Pez waves his hand in the
air.
“Not relevant, but nonetheless true. I would rather cross an enraged pelican than a chihuahua
that’s been sweating all day in an oversized Prada tote.”

The conversation gets away from Henry after that, but he kisses his sister and mother
goodbye not long later, after arranging to come back the following day.

Philip shakes his hand as he leaves, and Henry rolls his eyes and pulls him into a hug that his
brother seems so surprised by that he doesn’t bother trying to pull away.

“Thank you,” Henry says in a low voice. “I know you’re the one that made sure I got over
here.”

Philip clears his throat awkwardly as Henry pulls away, and smooths down the front of his
own shirt. “Yes, well. It’s about family, isn’t it? I’m reliably informed by our mother that this
includes you.”

Henry just smiles at him, ignoring Philip’s attempt not to admit he did a good thing, and lets
Shaan escort him and Pez out of the room.

Later, with Henry installed in Pez’s luxury flat to Shaan’s satisfaction, they’re left to their
own devices.

Which is, of course, when Pez pulls out several bottles of wine and turns on the television
with a wicked gleam in his eyes, pulling up the app for catch-up. “I may have saved a few of
my favourite episodes to rewatch, at such a time as you were available to join me. That time
has, I will admit, come a little earlier than I’d originally planned for, but I am ready.”

“Absolutely not,” Henry says firmly, but then Pez is pouring the wine and pressing play
anyway, and Henry’s too bloody tired to argue. Or move.

He watches as Jason metaphorically gets into the sea, and Rafael Luna teaches the rest of
them how to play volleyball; watches as Alex mouths off and makes people laugh and gets
dropped into the ocean by a smiling version of Henry himself; watches as his face shows
everything, to the point that he feels almost naked. He tries not to get sucked in, but it’s very
difficult, and he can’t believe how different everything looks from an outsider’s perspective;
he and Alex really do look completely besotted with each other.

“Couple goals,” Pez says seriously, and Henry can’t even say anything in response because
he knows exactly what it looks like.

It looks like what it’s supposed to look like.

Then it’s a god-awful time of night and Pez is turning the TV over to the live episode as it
starts up, and Henry wakes up rather fucking quickly when the first shot shows Alex, moody
and alone, sitting on the beach at sunset. He’s wearing one of Henry’s jumpers, the sleeves
pulled down over his fists, and the fact that he’s wearing shorts means it’s almost certainly
too warm for that. Henry swallows past the lump in his throat and refills his wine glass.

The episode does not get less emotional with time.

It becomes apparent that the rest of the cast and crew have been told nothing more than the
bare minimum - that Henry’s had a family emergency - and there are a number of shots of
Alex stubbornly refusing to provide any further information to anyone who asks.

“Family emergency, huh,” Dean says at one point, sitting next to Alex at lunch as he pushes
the food around his plate like a toddler.

“Yep,” he says dully, and Henry wonders briefly if Dean’s going to push it.

Then he says, voice so quiet it barely gets picked up by the overhead mic, “He’ll be back
soon, alright? Don’t think he can go without you for more than a couple of days.”

Henry very nearly loses it.

When he actually loses it, it’s because of Nora — because of course it is. The one person who
would have absolutely no idea what to do with him if he cried near her in person, and she’s
the one who sets him off.

Alex is at the beach again, and Nora must know that there are cameras but she doesn’t seem
to care. June stays at the edge of the sand and watches them with something fond and
bittersweet in her expression, and when Nora reaches Alex, he leans into her automatically;
they’ve always been something to each other, and Henry knows that part of that is because
Alex is always expecting people to leave.

Nora didn’t just stay in his life because of June; she stayed because she wanted to. That
means something to him.

"Alex," Nora says softly, and God — Henry shouldn't be seeing this. Nobody should be
seeing this. It's too personal, he wants to cover the screen with his hand and stop himself
from watching but he's locked in place. "Your boy's gonna be fine."

"He's always fine," Alex says immediately, but the piss-poor joke doesn't work in his weak,
shaky voice, and then Nora's—

Nora's hugging him. Hugging Alex, on television, where anyone can see both of them being
vulnerable like this.

"His boy, eh?" Pez says quietly, and Henry puts his face in his hands.

"Since the day we met," he says hoarsely. "God, you know that. Who doesn't know that?"

“I think it’s possible Alex might not have figured it out yet,” Pez says calmly, and Henry
chokes on a bitter laugh, because that’s not true at all anymore, is it? Henry told him
everything that mattered, and now he might lose one of his best friends, and there’s not a
bloody thing he can do to stop it.

Henry doesn’t bother pretending he’s going to stay in the spare room. The moment the
episode is over, they leave their glasses in the kitchen and Pez forces Henry to brush his teeth
in the ensuite while he changes. Then Henry pulls on pyjamas and climbs into Pez’s bed, and
Pez murmurs absurd, outlandish stories about smuggling papayas across the border while
Henry laughs and cries and interjects with quiet noises of disbelief.

It still takes him an age to fall asleep, but not as long as it would have if he’d been by
himself.

When they arrive at the hospital the next day - coordinating with Shaan by virtue of him just
turning up outside Pez’s building when they’re leaving, somehow - they drop in briefly at
reception before going immediately up to Bea’s room.

They aren’t the first ones to arrive.

“Oh,” Henry says, stopping at the doorway in front of Shaan and Pez, his throat suddenly
unpleasantly dry. His grandmother - Mary Mountchristen - is standing by Bea’s bed,
Catherine and Philip sitting awkwardly in seats by the windows. The tension is so thick it
feels like an almost physical presence, and Henry briefly feels Pez’s hand on his arm,
squeezing encouragingly; it helps a little.

“I’ll go and grab some tea for everyone,” Pez says loudly.

“Coffee for me,” Shaan murmurs, and Pez confirms this before hurrying off to give the
family some privacy.

Shaan does not. Instead, he gently pushes Henry into the room before taking up the same spot
as yesterday, putting in his earphones and pulling out his book. Henry is comforted by his
presence in all this, he realises; he’s not sure there are many things that could shake Shaan
Srivastava, and he’s fairly certain that elderly, entitled white women don’t make the list.

“Henry,” Mary says with a stiff nod. “Pity it took an accident of this magnitude to get you
back in the country to see your family, but I suppose you must have been busy.”

That hurts, but then Mary has always been able to find the soft spot beneath his ribs; she
always knows just where to slide the knife in, and how to twist it just right, so that he can’t
stop it from bleeding.

“I’ve been working,” he says carefully, “although recently I’ve had other things on as well. I
try to get over here when I can, but I do live in America, Gran.”

She doesn’t respond, instead turning to her daughter. Henry moves across the room so that
he’s closer to his family - and he’s not sure when he stopped thinking of Mary Mountchristen
as his family, but there it is - and sees Catherine’s eyes flicker up towards him gratefully,
before landing back on her mother.

“Well, is somebody going to tell me what the prognosis is?” Mary asks, raising her eyebrows.
Apparently, the fact that she hasn’t immediately been provided with a medical chart she can’t
even bloody read is an insult. “I don’t know what happened, of course, but I assume it was
Beatrice’s little problem again,” she continues, like that part’s not even a question; like it’s a
foregone conclusion that her granddaughter relapsed and somehow caused the four car pile-
up that broke several of her bones. Henry wishes he could say he can’t believe this, but
unfortunately, it’s incredibly on-brand behaviour for their grandmother.

That doesn’t mean he has to accept it, however. He goes to open his mouth - to tell her to sod
off, really, in whatever way comes to mind in the moment - but someone else beats him to it.

“Get out,” Catherine says calmly, and the entire room turns as one to stare at her. She’s
standing in front of her recently vacated chair, and she looks absolutely incensed, in spite of
how level her voice is.

“I beg your pardon?” Mary says imperiously, and Catherine clenches her jaw.

“I think you heard me, mum,” she says, pointing at the door with a steady hand. “Get out.
You’re not welcome here with that kind of attitude. I’m not just going to sit back and allow
you to talk down to my children like that.”

“At least two of your children have proven time and time again that they—”

“All three of my children,” Catherine says loudly, talking over Mary before she can even
finish her sentence, “are good people. They’re better than me, and they’re most certainly
better than you, because Arthur made sure of it. Now, if you’re just here to throw around
baseless accusations, rather than supporting your granddaughter in her recovery, I’m afraid
it’s time for you to go.”

Shaan makes a show of standing up from his seat on the other side of the room, taking out his
earphones as he does so, and Henry feels suddenly fiercely fond of him. He’s not a
bodyguard, but he certainly looks like one right now, and it’s the first time Henry’s truly felt
as though he’s part of a united front against his grandmother.

Unless, of course—

“Philip,” Mary says crisply, and then doesn’t say anything else; like he’s a dog she’s
expecting to come to heel. Henry turns just a fraction to look at where his brother is still
sitting in his chair, and the look on his face is impossible to parse out.

Philip has always been Mary’s favourite; so willing to bend to her will, absorbing every bit of
the vitriol and bigotry that she tried to feed to all of them, especially after their father died.
He’s been vocal in his opinions about Henry’s lifestyle choices in the past - although that has,
thankfully, died a death, and he’s less of a wanker about these things now - and has been less
than kind about Bea’s issues as well. It’s been a couple of years, however, and Pip has
become somewhat of an unknown quantity to Henry; a variable he cannot account for.

Which is why it’s a complete surprise when he says, “I think I’ll be staying here, Gran.”

Henry blinks at him, and Mary seems utterly taken aback. Philip, to be fair to him, also looks
as though he’s not sure it was him that said those words, but he swallows and nods slightly, as
though adding a non-verbal full-stop to the end of the statement.

Mary, having run out of allies and options, leaves.

“Well,” Philip says awkwardly into the silence, “shall I see where Percy’s got to with that
tea?”

“Philip, that was the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Bea says seriously from the bed, beaming at
him. “Come here and hug me.”

“I don’t think—”

“I’m not well,” she says dramatically, “and I require you to hug me.”

“Oh, Christ,” he mutters, but pulls himself up and out of his chair, before going over to his
sister and giving her an awkward, one-armed hug around her cast. Henry glances over at
Shaan with a grin, and notices that he’s already back in his seat, book open and earphones in.
He’s definitely smiling a bit though.

“Are you alright, mum?” Henry asks her quietly; she’s starting to look a little shaken, which
is hardly surprising given who she just stood up to. His mother, however, just nods and, with
a little smile, opens her arms to him. He steps into them easily and she hugs him tightly, her
cheek pressed into his shirt.

It’s actually so tight it hurts a little, and he winces — before realising why it hurts, at which
point he hopes with every fibre of his being that his mum has somehow become incredibly
unobservant in the last twenty seconds.

She has not.

“Sorry, love,” she says as she pulls back, grimacing and immediately going to his shirt collar.
“I must have—”

“Mum—”

Catherine pauses for a moment, having pulled Henry’s shirt collar down far enough that she
can quite clearly see the mouth-shaped bruise on his shoulder, then pulls the shirt back into
place. She pats the fabric gently once and clears her throat.

“Well,” she says, the perfect mirror of Philip’s earlier awkwardness. “Where has Pez got to
with that tea?”

“I’m right here,” Pez announces from the doorway, where he has, Henry has no doubt, been
standing for this entire interaction. “I bring caffeinated sustenance, as well as the news that I
saw Mary Mountchristen storming out of the building so fast that she almost tripped over an
ageing Shih Tzu, and was thoroughly berated by its aggrieved owner.”

Bea laughs delightedly from the bed and the tension is broken, Pez sweeping into the room to
distribute teas - and a very strong coffee for Shaan - before settling into one of the plastic
chairs.

“What did I miss?”

Bea can’t answer fast enough.

@dodonnahedron

Henry’s LEFT? without Alex?????? oh nooooo someone explain to me WHY

#fakeittillyoumakeit

@whaledicks

@dodonnahedron better than them actually both leaving the show ig #halexforever

@santiagopher

@dodonnahedron @whaledicks YEAH I GUESS BUT @pezdispenser you got any tea for us
pls????

@pezdispenser

@santiagopher @dodonnahedron @whaledicks I admire your tenacity but Haz is my first

priority - my lips are sealed, my darlings

@saltyseadog

Oh no oh no look at Alex 😭😭😭 forget kicked puppies, he looks like his heart left the
island #fakeittillyoumakeit

@cheapaschips

@saltyseadog THAT’S BECAUSE IT DID WITH HENRY SKSKSKSKSKSKSSK I STG I

WOULD KILL FOR THEM

@santiagopher

@cheapaschips @saltyseadog See, this is why my housemate said we were intense, okay???
We need to DIAL IT DOWN (jk, never stop)

@whaledicks

omg June greeting Alex with a coffee and the way she just folds him into her arms these
siblings have my whole heart #fakeittillyoumakeit

@jessicabones1

is Alex wearing Henry’s sweater??? I’m sure I’ve seen Henry wear that before and it’s too
big for Alex #fakeittillyoumakeit

@dodonnahedron

@jessicabones1 omg good eye!!! This is just too much 🥺🥺🥺

@muttonchops
 That image of Alex sitting on the beach alone I’m done for never recovering Henry come
back to your love 😭😭😭😭😭 #fakeittillyoumakeit

@cheapaschips

Do my eyes deceive me or did June & Nora sneak in and out of Alex’s bedroom last
night/this morning on the “up late” ep??? @santiagopher back me up here
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@santiagopher

@cheapaschips 100% happened, yes, mmhm, I’m not dying over how adorable that is at all

@muttonchops

@cheapaschips @santiagopher they had a SLEEPOVER?!?! That’s TOO FUCKING CUTE

@thereisnoTrystan

@muttonchops @cheapaschips @santiagopher oh god I’m glad you said cute cos I thought
this was going somewhere dark and weird and no to that

@muttonchops

@thereisnoTrystan @cheapaschips @santiagopher wtf why would you even say that

@jaceheronfail

@muttonchops @thereisnoTrystan @cheapaschips @santiagopher idk alex & nora dated so,
like, they have a point - could be some freaky shiz goin on in that fam

@dodonnahedron

@jaceheronfail @muttonchops @thereisnoTrystan @cheapaschips @santiagopher gtfo of

here, that is DEEPLY cursed

Chapter End Notes

Pez can return to tweeting wildly about his bestie's love affair once said bestie is no
longer sitting right next to him and eyeballing him about it.
 Chapter 11
Chapter Notes

Alexa, play 'Space Ghost Coast to Coast' by Glass Animals.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Week Seven: static

Henry's not vain, but there are a few things he's exceptionally good at: polo, for one; making
sure Alex eats regular meals during particularly intense days of work or study, for another.

Oh — and he's incredibly accomplished in the ancient art of worrying himself sick over
things he cannot control.

“Do you need a bag?” Shaan asks politely once they’re in the air, correctly interpreting
Henry’s paler-than-usual complexion as something that may require intervention. Henry
counts himself very lucky that his handler - regardless of whether or not he actually knows
what’s happening inside Henry’s head right now - is keeping any other concerns to himself;
that might otherwise be the thing that pushes him over the edge.

“No, thank you,” he says, equally politely, and Shaan inclines his head slightly before pulling
out his book again. He’s on his fourth since they arrived in the UK, which is mostly down to
the fact that he's been silently consuming them in the corner of Bea's hospital room daily for
the past week.

Henry thinks through every possible scenario on the way back to the island, and every single
one of them is bad. He cannot imagine anything positive coming from this, and the week-
long break from Alex has only confirmed in his mind that he can't possibly feel the same way
about Henry that Henry does about him; Alex isn't like that. He can keep bugger-all to
himself when he thinks it needs yelling from the rooftops, and he's hardly one for inaction
either.

No; he would have said something by now. Which leaves only one possibility:

Henry's on his way to get his heart broken for good.

The thought helps, in a strange way. He feels a little disconnected from himself, as though
this might hurt a bit less now that he’s watching the inevitable motions play out in front of
him, rather than them being a surprise.

It does not, however, mean that he gets a wink of sleep on the plane.
They’re filming when he gets back to the villa — because of course they are. Henry’s come
back to a place where there is no peace, and every single move he makes has to mean
something; every word out of his mouth is ripe for analysis by the public, whether he’s happy
about it or not.

Which means he has to blame the lack of sleep for the way he practically shouts Alex’s name
when he spots him at the other end of the hallway. Even from here, Henry can see that he’s
wearing his glasses, and his hair is kind of a mess; he can only assume that hair and makeup
realised that allowing him to go a little rogue would only increase their viewership. Alex
looks both devastatingly gorgeous and appropriately wrecked by Henry’s absence.

Nobody has to know that the reason Alex is like this isn’t anything like what they’re picturing
in their minds. This isn’t pining, for Christ’s sake; he’s been tearing his hair out trying to
figure out how to let Henry down gently, probably.

Alex walks closer, then comes to a stop just a few feet away from him. God, Henry really
didn’t prepare himself enough for this — though he’s not sure it would have been possible.
Alex is mussed and beautiful, and that’s one of Henry’s short-sleeved white t-shirts he’s
wearing, and he looks as though he hasn’t slept properly since Henry left; he really shouldn’t
look this gorgeous.

There’s a tense moment where Alex just stares at him, and then he’s letting out a noise like a
yelp and running at Henry, practically knocking him to the ground as his arms come up to
wrap tightly around Henry’s neck, mirroring the legs around his waist. Henry holds him there
automatically, arms around him, and laughs a little breathlessly; he can’t help it. He might
have missed Alex just a little, in spite of everything.

“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you, love?” he murmurs in Alex’s ear, and the noise Alex
makes in his throat is practically feral.

“I fucking love you too,” he says tightly, and Henry—

Henry’s knees almost buckle. He must have misheard, obviously, but his traitorous brain has
latched onto the words anyway, storing them away somewhere under lock and key.

“Henry,” Alex says seriously, pulling back far enough to put one hand on his cheek, looking
him dead in the eyes as he continues. “I can fucking hear your brain, so just… don’t. I love
you. I fucking love you, okay?”

And then, Alex kisses him.

Alex has kissed Henry with quiet desperation before; with heat and desire; he’s kissed Henry
like he’s needed it, but also like it’s all part and parcel of everything else that they’ve done.

This is completely new. Alex is kissing Henry like that’s all it is; like that’s all it needs to be.
He’s kissing Henry like he’s missed him and he loves him and there’s nothing more to it than
the necessary warmth of connection after time apart. It is, in short, one of the best things
that’s ever happened to Henry in his gay little life.
When Alex pulls back, one hand still cradling Henry’s face, he looks so soft that Henry wants
to sink to the floor and just… wrap himself around Alex for a little while. But there are
cameras on them, and they need to pretend - for now at least - that this is just a couple
reuniting after time apart, rather than Henry’s heart trying to climb up and out of his throat
because Alex—

Alex loves him.

“Christ,” Henry murmurs, sounding a little more reverent than he’d been intending, and Alex
grins at him.

“Right?” he says softly, moving his hand just a little so he can run a thumb over Henry’s
lower lip. “We should—”

Henry doesn’t get to hear what they should do, because suddenly everyone else is here;
clearly the producers decided that having every remaining cast member pile into the hallway
would make for a dramatic reunion scene.

Their timing, however, is terrible.

“Okay, where’s my hug?” Dean asks, hand on one hip while Hugh rolls his eyes good
naturedly next to him. “I’ll skip the rest of it though — I think it would just confuse our
friendship if we started with all this pash stuff, mate.”

“Was that English?” Nora asks, and June shakes her head solemnly.

“Nope.”

Kathleen and Mike were voted out at the end of the week just gone, so it’s… Well, it’s a very
gay reunion. Florence and Niamh - the latter of whom appears to be covered in peanut butter,
for reasons unknown to him - are grinning at Henry like they’re actually pleased to see him,
while Nora and June look on with something satisfied and knowing in their expressions. Dean
and Hugh look like they’d already known he was going to be here, in this exact space, at this
exact time; at some point, Henry’s going to have to ask them which one of them’s a bloody
wizard, because he’s fairly certain at least one of them has some sort of precognitive abilities.
He suspects Hugh.

“Boyfriend-slash-love-of-his-life privileges, sorry,” Alex says, still attached to Henry like

some kind of limpet. Specifically, Henry reminds himself, the kind of limpet that is
apparently in love with him; that’s going to take some unpacking. He might have to dissect it
for a bit, and inspect each of its component parts for errors. He’s not entirely sure he trusts
the declaration as yet.

“Alex, do you think you’d better get down now?” Henry asks softly, very much aware that
several cameras and the eyes of everyone in the immediate vicinity are on them both. Alex
glares at him, jaw set in that way Henry has always found frustratingly attractive.

“No.”
Well. Henry supposes that’s settled then.

The time between arrival and his being allowed to retire to bed passes fairly quickly; this is
partially because it had already been fairly late when he’d got there, and partially down to the
fact that Alex absolutely refuses to let go of him, and everyone around them knows that it’s
only a matter of time before something inadvisable happens.

Something inadvisable happens, in fact, the second they close the door to their room a little
while later.

Except, it’s… It’s not inadvisable, really — not if Alex is precisely as gone on Henry as
Henry is on him. Whatever it is, however, it happens with barely a breath between the snick
of the lock and the feel of hands on Henry’s body.

“You left, and I didn’t even have a chance to say it back,” Alex says, sounding hoarse and
desperately sad. “You just— I know you had to, but I needed some time to process, and fuck,
Henry, I’m so in love with you, I can’t—”

“Alex,” Henry breathes, and there are hands on his face and everywhere else, the touches so
reverent that Henry doesn’t know how his body can take it, and they’re sinking to the floor
even though the bed is mere feet away from them; neither of them seems able to disengage
for long enough to take that into consideration.

“I’ve loved you for years,” Henry says urgently as Alex pushes him into the plush carpet, one
hand on his shoulder, one elbow sunk into the surprisingly forgiving comfort provided by the
floor as he hovers above Henry. “You have to know that before— before you do anything I
can’t come back from.”

“You’re a fucking idiot, and I’m a fucking idiot, and I’m so, so sorry,” Alex says seriously,
something fervent in the way his tongue wraps itself around the words before it’s wrapping
itself around Henry’s tongue instead, quieting them both rather effectively.

“We should probably talk,” Henry gasps eventually, Alex’s teeth at his neck and his shirt
somewhere off to the left, he thinks; he hadn’t been paying a great deal of attention when
Alex had urgently pulled it off him.

“I’m in love with you, you’re in love with me,” Alex murmurs into his neck, “and I thought
there’d be more to talk about, but it turns out I really, really wanna do this first.” And then he
bites down on the almost-faded bruise he’d left on Henry the week previously, and Henry
makes a noise like all the breath has gone out of his body; he feels rather like it has.

They end up on the bed - because the carpet’s comfortable but it’s not a mattress - and Alex is
under him now, body warm and welcoming and mostly naked. It’s not precisely what he’d
prepared himself for on the flight over here.

“Are you—”

“If you ask me if I’m sure,” Alex says firmly, “I’m going to bite you in a not-fun way.”
Then Henry’s being dragged down into a kiss that takes away most of his higher brain
functions, and it suddenly seems like a really awful time to be thinking about anything else at
all.

Alex wriggles out of his jeans and gets started on Henry’s too, and then they’re finally naked
together, pressed skin to skin in the lazy heat of early evening. The air conditioning is
whirring away in the background, and the window is cracked open just enough that they can
distantly hear the sea, and Henry doesn’t care about any of it; all he cares about is the way
Alex’s breath catches when Henry gets a hand in his hair, and the way he tilts his head back
so obligingly when Henry presses his tongue to the thudding pulse in Alex’s throat. All he
cares about is this body under his, and the way it holds everything he’s ever bloody wanted.

"What do you want?" Henry asks, an urgency in his voice that he can't control.

"You," Alex says. "Anything, fuck. Just— touch me. Please? God, I missed you so much, you
have no idea—"

There’s nothing more that Henry wants than to take that and run with it; to paint out
everything he’s feeling on the canvas of Alex’s body until it’s awash with jewel tones and
brushstrokes and there’s no telling where he ends and Alex begins. But this feels more
important, so he’s going to have to push, just a little. He needs to know precisely what Alex
wants from him, because he knows for a fact that he’s going to remember this until he’s on
his deathbed; he likes to think the moment will hold similar weight for Alex.

“Anything is very vague,” Henry points out, and Alex makes a noise like a whimper when
Henry punctuates the sentence with a soft kiss just below his ear, shivering under the gentle
touch. “I want you to tell me something you’ve been thinking about, since I’ve been gone. I
want to give you that. Please, Alex.”

Alex clings to him, blunt fingernails and desperation, and when he finally answers a moment
later, Henry can’t even hear him, he’s so quiet.

“You’re going to have to speak up, love,” Henry prompts him, and Alex groans and pushes
up into the firm pressure of Henry’s body above him.

“Finger me?” he asks, and Henry hears him this time. Jesus Christ, does he hear him.

“Alex—”

“I just saw how that vibrator made you feel,” Alex hurries to justify himself, even though
there’s absolutely no need. “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet, but I really want to know
how it feels to have you opening me up. I tried doing it a bit myself, but the angle wasn’t
fucking right, and I just… I really like your hands.”

Henry scrapes his teeth over that same spot under Alex’s ear, then follows the shudder as it
travels through him so that he can press his mouth to the gasp it drags out of Alex’s. Henry
kisses him with as much feeling as he knows how, as though it might do a better job of telling
Alex exactly how much he wants to do this than words ever could; he’s not sure how to say,
“you’re giving me everything,” without breaking down a little.
 “Yes,” he says instead, managing to push the word out past the ridiculous lump in his throat,
and Alex drags him back in immediately to kiss him again. There’s anticipation in it now, and
when Henry pulls away to grab the lube, Alex makes a soft little sound in his throat that he
probably doesn’t even realise he’s made; he sounds utterly desperate, and Henry wants to
destroy him just enough that he can put Alex back together again. He wants it to be him. He
needs it to be him.

Henry ends up propped up on one elbow between Alex’s legs, and when he circles one slick
finger around Alex’s entrance, the resultant shiver makes him glad he doesn’t have to stand
for this; he’s not sure his legs would support him.

“It’s probably going to feel strange at first,” he murmurs, “but you just need to relax. Let me
take care of you, love.”

Then he’s pushing the first finger in and Alex’s response - if he was about to make one at all -
disappears in a little gasp of breath as he immediately starts to squirm at the intrusion.

“Oh,” he says, and then, “fuck,” when Henry starts to move the pad of his finger in small,
searching circles, getting Alex used to the feeling of being filled.

“Alright?” Henry asks, wanting quite desperately to look at Alex’s face but finding himself
unable to look away from what he’s doing.

“Yeah,” Alex says croakily. “Yeah, it’s just— Can I have another one? Please?”

It shouldn’t do something to Henry that Alex is so bloody polite about it, but it does; he’s
long since come to terms with the length and breadth of his depravity when it comes to Alex.

Henry pulls back a little then slides a second finger in alongside the first; it’s tight, but Henry
reminds himself that Alex needs to relax and open up, and it’s going to take a moment. He
reminds himself that Alex hasn’t really done this before, and he’s trusting Henry to do it with
him for the first time. He’s glad he doesn’t have to speak right now because he’s not sure he
wouldn’t choke on the emotion trying to claw its way up his throat.

“Just— Oh,” Alex cuts himself off with a little breath when Henry finds the right spot inside
him, pressing up against his prostate with two fingers and curling them in a way that has Alex
gasping again and pushing his head back into the pillows. “Oh, fuck, okay. Yeah, that’s…
Fuck me.”

“I sort of am,” Henry says hoarsely, but the levity isn’t there, because Alex is moaning and
taking Henry’s fingers inside him like he never wants it to stop, and Henry has had dreams
less intense than this.

“More,” Alex says eventually, the one word coming out cracked and wavering. Henry gives
him more.

Alex is more beautiful like this than Henry could have ever imagined; whimpering and
fucking himself back onto Henry's fingers, one hand on Henry's arm and the other bunched
up in the sheets like he's trying not to float away. The noises he's making are high pitched and
desperate, and there are no other sounds in the room besides Henry's own stuttering breaths
and the wet, obscene sounds of his fingers moving inside Alex.

It must get to be too much - Henry's pressing insistently against his prostate, circling his
fingers and providing unrelenting pressure there - because a moment later Alex tries to close
his legs.

That is not, Henry thinks firmly, how this is going to go.

"Alex, I need you to keep your legs spread for me," he says in a low voice, and Alex makes a
noise like he's been gutted, taking his hand away from Henry's arm so he can cover his face
with it.

"It's— Fuck, Henry, it's so much."

"I know, love, but you can take it — I promise. I just need you to be good for me and keep
your legs open, alright?"

Alex makes another of those heat-drenched, rough noises in his throat, but does as he's told;
he spreads his legs a little wider, in fact, hand still covering his face as he shakes and lets
Henry go a little bit deeper, keeping up that steady pressure where he needs it most. Alex’s
cock is hard and flushed where it’s curved up towards his stomach, and he’s made such a
mess of himself that Henry stops wondering if Alex is going to come just from this; it almost
looks like he has. He’s definitely capable. Henry wonders, instead, if Alex will think it’s
weird if he cleans him up with his tongue afterwards; he’d really, really like to.

“Oh, fuck,” Alex gasps, his back arching just a little more as he tries his best to get more of
Henry’s fingers inside him. “There, oh God, don’t fucking stop—” As though Henry has any
intention of stopping when Alex is looking and sounding like that.

He presses a little harder, leaning forward to ghost a kiss over the skin on the inside of Alex’s
thigh; that’s all it takes. Alex stiffens underneath his mouth with a wail, spasming around
Henry’s fingers as he comes, making even more of a mess of his stomach as he does so. He’s
unapologetically loud, as always, and it seems to go on forever; he seems to be searching for
more contact with his body even as he tries to pull away from it, and Henry works him
through it with the gentle pressure of his fingers until Alex is practically crying, unable to
take any more.

“God, Alex, you were so good,” Henry says softly as he gently slides his fingers out, voice
cracked. “So beautiful, so good for me—”

“Henry, fuck,” Alex whimpers, and then Henry can’t say anything else, because Alex is
dragging him up and into a kiss that sears itself onto his bones and winds itself around his
lungs, reminding him that Alex could suffocate him with a single word if he was so inclined.
Alex could destroy him, and Henry would let him.

“What do you want?” Alex asks him once he’s had his fill of kissing — which takes, by
Henry’s estimate, around ten minutes. His lips almost feel numb and he’s never been happier.
“Alex, believe me when I tell you that you could do almost anything to me and I’d thank you
for the privilege,” he says seriously, and Alex rolls his eyes but looks quite pleased by the
admission. “That being said,” he continues, “I’m rather a fan of your mouth.”

“I thought you said it was a filthy American mouth?” Alex asks with a grin, and Henry raises
his eyebrows.

“Like I said — I’m a fan.”

They end up in the shower, which Alex insists is integral to his plan. “Also, I’m a complete
fucking mess after you turned my prostate to butter, so—”

“You do have a way with words, love,” Henry says with a sigh, but lets Alex push him under
the warm spray anyway to kiss him against the tiles.

“We’re gonna have to own up about this, aren’t we,” Alex asks when he pulls back, and he’s
so serious now that it actually takes Henry by surprise.

“Well, yes,” he says eventually, frowning a little while Alex grabs a washcloth and some
shower gel. “I think we’re probably going to have to tell Zahra. As soon as possible, ideally,
so that she’s surprised enough by it all that she doesn’t have a chance to murder you where
you stand.”

"She likes me," Alex insists, pushing Henry into the tiles again and grinning. "It'll be fine.
Probably."

"You are the absolute bane of her existence," Henry says firmly, hands moving to Alex's hips;
it shouldn't already feel like second nature, but it does. "At best, she'll decide you're worth
keeping as a pet. At worst, she'll put you in a boat with a broken engine and push you out to
sea, with nobody but Hunter for company."

Alex grimaces. "Zee would never do that to me."

"Alex," Henry says seriously. "Will you please shut up?" Then he kisses him, which seems to
do the trick.

When Henry had mentioned Alex’s mouth, he’d been talking about a blowjob. He thinks
that’s a reasonable assumption for either of them to make, given what they’ve already done
together; Alex is pretty new to all of this, so he hadn’t exactly been thinking of anything
more adventurous.

What Alex has in mind, however, is apparently much less pedestrian.

“This is—” Henry says, pushing his forehead against the well-warmed tiles and wondering if
he’s ever going to stop being surprised by this man. He’s also wondering how he was going
to finish that sentence, because he doesn’t think he has words for quite how it feels to have
Alex spreading him open with his thumbs and fucking him with his tongue.

Alex hums in response to Henry’s aborted attempt at a sentence, and the vibrations of it just
send Henry even higher. He gasps and pushes back against Alex’s mouth, greedy for more
already, and Alex gives him everything he has until Henry’s shaking and begging to be
touched. He hadn’t been ready for this in the slightest, but he’s not sure he could have done
anything to prepare himself regardless; Alex isn’t the kind of person Henry thinks he could
ever be prepared for.

Around the twentieth time he whispers the word, “please,” Alex moves one of his hands to
Henry’s neglected cock, and Henry lets out a hysterical, sobbing breath of laughter as he
comes. It’s all heat and the rushing of blood in his ears, and he’s honestly surprised he doesn’t
immediately collapse.

Alex works him through it with his mouth and his hand and when it’s all over he plasters
himself to Henry’s back and murmurs things Henry doesn’t have the brain capacity to
understand into his neck, kissing across his shoulders beneath the water with one arm
wrapped around Henry’s waist.

Eventually, they do have to get clean - properly this time - and Alex barely bothers to dry
himself before he’s dragging Henry back to the bed and pulling him on top of the sheets.

“I love you,” he says, and Henry kisses him because he wants to see if the words taste as
good as they feel. He wants to drink them in and let them sit under his skin, to see if they
might change him; he thinks they’ll feel good there. He thinks they’ll feel right.

“I love you too,” he says eventually, when he’s had his temporary fill of Alex’s mouth. He
cups Alex’s face in his hands and drags his nose across one cheekbone, tracing the shell of
his ear before pulling back again. “Alex, I’m so in love with you. I should never have agreed
to any of this, but I thought that if I could just pretend for a while, I could have a small part of
you and—”

“Sweetheart,” Alex breathes, pulling him close by the waist so that their bodies are flush
again. “It’s not pretend. I don’t think it ever was, honestly, I’m just… Okay, so I hear I’m
kind of an idiot about this stuff? I’m trying to be better though, and — Henry? Baby, you can
have all of me. Okay? It’s all fucking yours, if you want it.”

“Alex,” Henry says seriously, “if you don’t think I want every part of you, you really are
incredibly stupid.”

“Fucking rude. And you say I’ve got a filthy mouth.”

Henry raises his eyebrows, but he can’t stop his mouth from curving up into a smile; he’s not
sure he wants to try anyway. “You just spent rather a long time proving that hypothesis.”

“Yeah, I fucking did,” Alex says, sounding incredibly smug, and Henry has to kiss him again.

That inevitably leads to round two; leads to Alex pushing inside Henry achingly slowly in the
growing darkness, their fingers interlocked where he’s pressing Henry’s hands back into the
pillows over his head. Every roll of his hips stops Henry’s breath for a moment in his chest,
and when they come it’s together, hot and wild and utterly perfect.
“We’ll go to Zahra tomorrow,” Henry says quietly, when they’re lying in a tangled mess on
sheets that almost definitely need changing. “We’re going to have to tell her.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, voice soft. “I’m not mad about it though. They couldn’t pay me enough
not to be with you like this.”

“Now, if I said something like that to you, you’d say—”

“Yeah, I’d tell you to shut up,” Alex snorts, pressing in closer. “Sappy shit’s only okay when
I say it.”

“Noted. So I shouldn’t tell you about the poetry I’ve been writing about your eyes or
anything then?”

The outraged squawk Alex makes in response leads to Henry being shoved off the bed, which
leads to them fucking again on the floor, which leads to Henry wondering how on earth he’s
going to walk properly tomorrow.

It’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

“Ms Bankston is ready for you now,” Shaan says as he steps out of the room Zahra’s using as
an office, his face completely unreadable. Henry’s heart is in his throat, but Alex’s hand is in
his, and this is something they have to do; this is real now. This matters more.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” Alex says quietly, squeezing his hand a little.

They step into the office together and Shaan closes the door behind them with a definitive
click.

@herbaciousbabe

Are we all okay? #fakeittillyoumakeit

@santiagopher

ETOIHJWRHJREOHIJjoirhoirjhoierfjwjSJGOIAJETHOIJTOSRijoisjoijsoixJodHOIDXhOJo
ijoij #fakeittillyoumakeit

@whaledicks

FUCK OH MY- JESUS. FUCK. DID I SAY THAT ALREADY? #FAKEITTILLYOUMAKEIT

#SCREAMING

@cheapaschips

BURY ME WITH THIS EPISODE #fakeittillyoumakeit

@santiagopher
 @cheapaschips DO WE NEED TO BE CHECKING ON @pezdispenser ???? ARE YOU
STILL BREATHING???

@muttonchops

@santiagopher @cheapaschips okay but I’M not breathing, so like - jot that down

@dodonnahedron

Jfc jfc jfc jfc #fakeittillyoumakeit

@pezdispenser

@santiagopher @cheapaschips pez.exe has stopped working tbh. MY BOYS REUNITED, I

CANNOT EVEN

@pezdispenser

I will be designing and producing #halex t-shirts with the fabulous artist @porquenolosdos
for this season’s fave #fakeittillyoumakeit couple - all proceeds to LGBTQIA+ charities!!!

@santiagopher

@pezdispenser @porquenolosdos I’LL TAKE SEVEN

@muttonchops

I have to go to work tomorrow and I literally don’t know how I’m going to cope? Someone pls
gif Alex throwing himself at Henry, I need it #fakeittillyoumakeit

@jessicabones1

brb suing the producers of this series, Henry, and Alex for emotional damages. MY HEART
#fakeittillyoumakeit

@dodonnahedron

@jessicabones1 make it a class action and I’m right there with you Dhdjjdjsks

@herbaciousbabe

@herbaciousbabe That was a trick question, obviously. None of us are okay.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you to the HGA and ifyoustay for helping me plot this chapter (don't laugh,
DON'T LAUGH) and for the excellent tweets (which were actually just reactions, so). I
love you all.
 Chapter 12
Chapter Notes

To anyone expecting some kind of linear approach to this... my apologies.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Week Ten: final curtain

[The camera pans over the beach, waves rolling in gently in the background, and lands on
Nora, who looks determined.]

Nora: Scared, Dean?

[The camera switches to Dean, who's grinning widely. Hugh is in the background, looking
vaguely long-suffering.]

Dean: You wish, Holleran.

June (sighing deeply): As much as I love this weird, borderline sexual Harry Potter-based
standoff, I'm not sure this is helping anything.

[The shot pans wide again, showing Dean & Hugh standing opposite June & Nora. Oliver is
between them, holding a golden envelope in his hands. The show’s logo can be seen on the
front of it.]

Oliver: Hello and welcome to our avid viewers! This season’s final voting ceremony is going
to be a little different, so— actually, can we get these guys some chairs?

[A shot of several, slightly confused looking people wearing black, headsets clipped on,
rushing forward with some folding chairs for the two couples. They all take them with
murmured thanks and unfold them to sit down. They, at least, seem unperturbed by this turn
of events.

The camera pans again, and there’s a group of people at the other end of the beach who have
just become visible. Oliver’s voice can be heard in the background of this image, as the
crowd draws closer.]

Oliver: This season has been a real landmark in television, and it means something to so
much of us that ‘Fake It’ has taken the necessary steps to bring inclusion into yet another
area of media. There’s still more to do, but I think—
[Oliver is interrupted by the arrival of Rafael Luna, the retired Olympian gold medalist who
helped the couples with the volleyball tournament of the first week. Luna grins at him, and
Oliver, who was apparently expecting this interruption, smiles back.]

Luna: Oliver.

Oliver: Raf.

[Luna holds out his hand and Oliver takes it in his, to an audible shriek of delight from
several people off-camera.]

Oliver: This show is about love, at its core - no matter how you feel about reality television -
but this season has really taken that to the limit. Before we reveal the winners of this season’s
‘Fake It Till You Make It’, we have some very special footage for you — and some very
special guests.

[The camera switches to the shot of the crowd coming down the beach, but it’s close enough
to see individuals now. It’s every member of the cast - minus, notably, Jason - headed up by
Alex and Henry; they’re all talking and laughing, Alex’s hand held tightly in Henry’s.

The camera is back on Oliver and Luna now, who are looking off-camera at the imminent
arrivals. Oliver looks back to the camera and grins a little wider.]

Oliver: If you’re sitting comfortably? We’ll begin.

[The screen fades to black.]

Oliver:
So, Dean — you believed Alex and Henry were in love?
Dean:
[a laugh that turns into a cough] You're kidding, right? They were in love.
Oliver:
Right, but you believed—
Dean:
Sorry, I didn't answer that right. Give me another stab at it?
Oliver:
[making a 'continue' gesture with one hand] By all means.
Dean:
Thanks. I think I missed this out of the interviews about our relationships in the first
week, but when Hugh and I met? I wasn't out. I didn't even know I needed to be out. I'd
never thought about that before, and then Hugh came onto the scene and it was like my
eyes had been closed for my entire [REDACTED] life. [A pause] Oh, [REDACTED],
sorry.
Oliver:
This isn't live, have at it.
Dean:
[laughs] Thanks. Okay, so— I get Alex. I really do. For me, the second Hugh existed in
my vision, I knew what I wanted, but it's scary, alright? It's terrifying, when you think
 you know yourself, then one person just... ruins that. I was actually pretty angry at
Hugh for a while about that, even though that's total bullsh... bull.
Oliver:
Commendable restraint there.
Dean:
Yeah, this place takes some getting used to. I’m Australian, for [REDACTED] sake.
Anyway, I know the signs. I didn't think they were faking it, no, because they were both
so obviously in love with each other that I assumed both of them knew. You don't see
someone the way they both see each other and remain ignorant of it for very long.
Oliver:
[smiling] Unless—
Dean:
Yeah, unless you're Alex. Self-awareness of a drunk [REDACTED] toddler. Oh f—
faaaair dinkum [looking noticeably pleased with himself].
Oliver:
Nice save.
Dean:
[REDACTED] nailed it.

Alex has been saying Henry's name in increasingly hysterical tones for the last ten minutes;
Henry hasn't managed to keep up an accurate count, however, so this is an estimate. He's
been a little busy.

"Henry," Alex gasps, sounding close to tears as he pushes back against the heat of Henry's
mouth. "Fuck. Oh God—”

Henry finds he rather likes his name on Alex's tongue while he's desperate. It's hardly a
surprise.

He hums and presses in a little closer, working into Alex with his tongue and spreading him
wider with his thumbs until Alex is actually sobbing into the sheets. Alex had been good
when he'd done this to Henry; really, he's been unfairly accomplished at everything they've
done so far, given his inexperience, but-

Henry is not inexperienced.

"Fuck, oh— Oh—" Alex completely runs out of words as he flails one hand out behind him,
tangling shaky fingers in Henry's hair as he eats Alex out with a degree of enthusiasm he can
honestly say he's never felt before. Alex is just so delightfully responsive, rutting against the
sheets and pushing back against Henry's tongue like he doesn't know what feels better; just
that he wants more of it.

Henry slides one finger in alongside his tongue without warning, and that's all it takes. Alex
makes a dry, broken noise in his throat and thrusts desperately against the sheets as he comes,
and the way he shakes and cries into the pillow as a result of what Henry is doing to him is
honestly the most gratifying thing Henry has ever experienced in his life.
"It's alright," he says quietly - soothingly - as he crawls up Alex's body a moment later,
pressing kisses to the top of his spine, the nape of his neck. "It's okay, I've got you."

"Henry," Alex says, voice shaky and inescapably wet, as though he's been sobbing
desperately for some time. He has, Henry thinks a little smugly, though in better
circumstances than one might usually expect.

"I've got you," he says again, and Alex turns on the bed and curls into him with a needy little
whine in the back of his throat.

Oliver:
Can you walk me through your feelings when you saw your brother and his then-
housemate holding hands opposite you on the terrace? Did you immediately know they
were one of the fake couples?
June:
[raising her eyebrows sceptically] Are you kidding me? No offence, it’s just… you’ve
seen them. Imagine that for literally years, and tell me whether you’d be surprised by
them finally getting their act together?
Oliver:
I’ll concede the point there. When did you figure out that they were - allegedly - one of
the fake couples?
June:
The interviews in the first week — Nora and I both knew they hadn’t been together for
three years, as attached at the hip as they kind of are.
Oliver:
And you decided to play along?
June:
[sighing] You have to understand something about my brother, okay? He’s insanely
smart — annoyingly smart. But he’s also a complete moron about some stuff, and even
though I didn’t think it was a good idea, it was the closest he’d ever been to figuring
things out about himself. About Henry.
Oliver:
[raising his eyebrows] I mean, I can’t technically fault you there.
June:
[suddenly smiling widely] Well, I wasn’t expecting it to work this well, honestly. Did I
mention the part where my little brother is a moron? Because I really can’t overstate
that.
Oliver:
It’s come up, yes.
June:
So, my feelings? [she smooths down her skirt then looks into the camera] I wondered
what the hell Henry was doing, but mostly I was hoping it was my brother, for the sake
of all of us.

Alex is wrung-out. He's completely gone, having just come on Henry's tongue, but that
doesn't really matter; he seems to be more than present enough for what Henry needs.
"C'mon, sweetheart. Come on," Alex says, the words sounding like molasses as they drip off
his tongue. He wriggles a little underneath Henry, flexing his fingers where his hands are
pinned to the pillows either side of his head. "Take what you need, baby. I'm good. I'm so
good."

Henry lets out a harsh breath and lets his head drop between his shoulders where he's braced
over Alex's body. "I don't... I can just—”

"You can just do what you need to fucking do," Alex says, argumentative even though his
words are a little slurred; Henry's learned that he takes a lot longer to recover from a good
orgasm mentally than he does physically. Even so, he’s still a complete shit. "Take it. I want
you to."

So, Henry takes what he needs.

Alex's skin is still a little slick and sticky where he's come all over himself, and it's enough.
Hands still wrapped firmly around Alex's wrists, Henry lines himself up and starts to roll his
hips, letting his cock slide through the mess on Alex's abdomen. It's immediately almost too
good; he hadn't been expecting the heat and the way Alex shivers beneath him, and both of
these things are factors in how tightly the pleasure in his stomach now begins to coil, long
before he's ready for this to be over.

"Alex," he breathes, and Alex makes a noise of confirmation in his throat, soft and
encouraging. Henry thrusts a little harder and tighter, leaning down to push his face into
Alex's neck so he can feel the hum of enjoyment and approval every time he rolls his hips.

It doesn't take long. He's wound up and Alex is hot and pliant beneath him, and he's only
human. All Alex has to say is, "that's it, sweetheart," and he's gone; he comes with a
shuddering gasp of breath that sounds closer to laughter than anything else, and spills hotly
over Alex's skin as he tries very hard not to bite down hard enough to bruise.

"Nice," Alex says appreciatively once Henry has all but collapsed on him a moment later, and
Henry laughs properly this time.

"Really? Nice? Quite the vocabulary you have there, love."

"You fucked it out of me with your tongue."

"An accolade indeed — I'm not sure anyone's managed to shut you up since the advent of
human speech."

"Come here and say that to my face, Fox."

Henry does.

[A series of images.

Alex rubbing sunscreen into Henry’s back on the beach, his fingertips lingering on the
waistband of Henry’s swim shorts. They’re speaking but there’s no audio, and when Henry
turns around, there’s a visible flush on both their faces.

Alex leaping on Henry in the water, being held up by Henry’s arms. There’s a moment of
intense conversation, Alex looking very pleased with himself, before they’re kissing. Alex is
dropped into the water a moment later and Henry gets dragged under before long; both of
them are laughing delightedly, regardless of the amount of salt water they must both have
swallowed.

Henry carefully opening a gift, looking awestruck at the contents when the paper eventually
falls away. A conversation that is picked up in its entirety by the microphones, but which
melts away in the face of Henry pulling Alex in and kissing him like there’s nobody else on
the earth; like nations aren’t watching.

Henry with his head tipped back on a sofa, Dean holding a cocktail in the background. Alex
pushes the hair off Henry’s forehead in a familiar gesture and Henry closes his eyes.

Alex and Henry staring at canvases with their own likenesses on them, awed and completely
undone.

Henry looking guilty where he’s been caught kissing Alex against a pillar.

Alex looking incredibly pleased with himself where he’s been caught kissing Henry against a
pillar.

Alex smiling softly at Henry when he’s not looking.

Alex smiling softly at Henry when he’s not looking.

Alex smiling softly at Henry when he’s not looking.]

“This is kinda weird,” Alex murmurs under his breath as they approach the edge of the beach
where the final ceremony has been set up. Oliver and Luna are there - holding hands,
actually, which is something Henry will spare some time to be confused about later - along
with Dean, Hugh, June, and Nora. Henry can hear his heartbeat in his ears and the heat of the
sun on his neck, and he’s indescribably happy, in spite of everything.

“You should feel right at home then,” he says solemnly, then leads the group forward and
onto the patch of sand and scrub that houses the remaining contestants.

“Thank you for joining us, everyone,” Oliver says with a warm smile, and Alex squeezes
Henry’s hand just a little harder where their fingers are still linked together. There’s a general
murmur from the group at large, as well as a few giggles from - Henry assumes - Niamh; she
laughs a lot, and he finds it hopelessly endearing.

“I have the great honour, this season,” Luna says grandly, grinning at them all in a way that
no doubt has a few people blushing (Alex included), “of being able to announce the winners
of ‘Fake It Till You Make It’. This is no longer just a reality TV show, mijos — you’ve all
been part of something much bigger. We may have started out with seven real couples and
three fakes, but the balance quickly shifted — and we have all had the absolute privilege of
watching two people realise just how much they mean to each other in real time. I don’t
wanna say love wins, but—” He cuts himself off with a laugh that Henry giddily hears
echoed by several people around. “But, well… Love really does win.”

Henry squeezes Alex’s hand this time, a warmth that has become not just familiar, but very
much welcome, blooming behind his ribcage in response to Luna’s words. This show has
given him everything, when he’d initially thought it was going to take it away; he can’t really
say anything more or less of it than that it has been life-changing.

“So, without further ado,” Luna says, and everyone’s attention snaps back to him like the
tightening of a rubber band, “I am pleased to announce that the winners this season - other
than love - are—”

There’s a collective breath held in the little crowd of people; even some of the crew behind
the cameras seem to be awaiting the results with bated breath, even though Henry can’t
imagine that it’s a secret from them.

Then Luna’s saying, “Dean and Hugh,” with a smile on his face that could light up a vast
ballroom, and Alex is screaming for some reason, and everything devolves into complete
chaos mere seconds later.

“Oh my God,” June is saying, though she looks absolutely delighted where she’s jumped up
from her chair, her arms around Nora. “This is—”

“I love you,” Dean’s saying to Hugh and Hugh’s saying it back with a delighted grin, adding,
“we won?” in a voice that, if Henry could hear him properly over the babble of the
assembled contestants, he thinks might be a little awed.

“You won,” Alex yells, completely ruining their moment by dragging Henry over there to
force them into a four-way hug. Dean and Hugh don’t seem to mind though, and a moment
later Nora and June are joining in, then everyone else is there too, and Henry’s being crushed
just a little bit, but he’s not sure he minds.

Everything is warmth and swearing that’s going to end up on the cutting room floor, and
Henry wonders if anything that felt this wholly right could possibly have happened to him if
he’d ever learned to say ‘no’ to Alex.

There’s a lot of drinking after that, and Alex all but refuses to let go of Henry’s hand for the
rest of the day. The only time he does is when he’s needling Nora, which is probably a bad
idea, but Alex has always been a fan of those.

“Y’see, neither of us really needed to win the money, Nora,” Alex says solemnly, and how
the hell he’s keeping his shit-eating grin at bay is anybody’s guess, but he’s managing it
somehow. “The true prize was the love we found along the way.”

Nora sighs and Henry’s biting the inside of his cheek so hard he’s pretty sure he tastes blood,
just to keep from laughing. “Alejandro,” Nora says seriously, then stops. Alex raises his
eyebrows.

“Yeah?”

Henry sees it coming long before Alex does; Alex is too self-satisfied and running on
adrenaline, and he’s somehow managed to forget that they’ve migrated to the terrace from the
beach, which means they’re right next to a conveniently-placed pool. He also appears to have
forgotten who he’s talking to.

So it obviously comes as a complete surprise to him when Nora presses her hand to his
sternum and shoves him into the water with a resounding splash.

Henry laughs so hard he almost makes himself sick, feeling lighter than air — and then he
follows Alex into the pool, diving in and emerging from the cool water just in front of the
place Alex is spluttering indignantly and thrashing around like a dying man.

“Don’t be so bloody dramatic,” he says firmly, then drags Alex into a very damp kiss.

They lost, technically, but Henry has never before felt this much of a winner.

@santiagopher

I didn’t think anyone else on that show would get bleeped as much as Alex but Dean is giving
him a run for his money #fakeittillyoumakeit

@dodonnahedron

@santiagopher he’s a fucking Aussie what did you expect? We’re a sweary bunch

@dodonnahedron

That montage oh my god I’m DECEASED #halex #fakeittillyoumakeit

@santiagopher

This is the best thing to ever happen to me #fakeittillyoumakeit

@cheapaschips

@santiagopher :(

@santiagopher

@cheapaschips this is the second best thing to ever happen to me

@cheapaschips

@santiagopher :)

@whaledicks
 Fuck. oh. Oh wow. I’M INCOHERENT WITH JOY #fakeittillyoumakeit

@pezdispenser

I would be happy to redirect any and all fanmail to my boys #halex - don’t forget shirts by
myself and the wonderful @porquenolosdos are still on sale, all proceeds to charity!
#fakeittillyoumakeit #couplegoals

@saltyseadog

Fuck 😭 #ilovethemyourhonour #halex #fakeittillyoumakeit

@jessicabones1

There are… no words. Truly, this is the best show ever made and I will not be taking
questions at this time #fakeittillyoumakeit

@muttonchops

RAFAEL LUNA AND OLIVER WESTBROOK??? DID NOT SEE THAT COMING BUT I
THINK I’D PROBABLY DIE FOR THEM #fakeittillyoumakeit

@beahive

Finally #FakeItTillYouMakeIt

@pezdispenser

@beahive I couldn’t agree more fervently.

Chapter End Notes

They're in love, your honour.

 Chapter 13
Chapter Notes

Where did I come from, where did I go? Where did I come from, Cotton Eye Joe?

NOTE: regarding the new tag (mildly dubious consent) - some people have been
concerned with some of the themes around boundaries, and with consent not being
explicitly stated at all junctures. This tag has been added so that people can make an
informed decision about whether or not something here might make them
uncomfortable; while there is no coercion and nobody is an unwilling participant,
consent is not always explicitly stated. I appreciate that sometimes both feedback and
the RESPONSE to feedback can be immediate and reactive, but I hope this helps to
make this a more user-friendly space.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Home Sweet Home

It’s a nice day. Well, not quite ‘living on a tropical island in a huge villa a stone’s throw from
the beach’ nice, but… nice. It’s actually, in Henry’s opinion, a lot better where he is right now
than it had been on that island anyway; primarily because nobody’s filming his every action,
and he’s not at quite as high a risk of contracting some kind of deadly virus that the media
likes to refer to as ‘exotic’.

Also, his favourite brand of tea is here. There’s something to be said for that.

Henry looks out of the kitchen window at the city beyond as the kettle boils, and finds
himself smiling in spite of how grey the sky is behind the looming buildings. He has, in truth,
never been happier to be home; not many people would describe the ominous clouds above
New York’s inimitable skyline as ‘nice’, but Henry is not most people.

He’s home, after all. That counts for rather a lot.

The kettle comes off the boil, and he makes one cinnamon-spiked coffee before steeping
himself a small pot of Earl Grey; Bea gave him a very cute ‘tea for one’ set for his birthday
last year, where the miniature teapot sits on top of a matching mug. She’d handed it to him
with a needlessly grave expression on her face as she’d told him, “tea doesn’t taste the same
when you make it straight in the cup, and you know it. Don’t let the Americans convince you
otherwise.”

Henry takes the coffee back to his bedroom, carefully holding his tea-and-teapot combo in
the other hand, and finds himself pausing in the doorway to just… observe. Alex isn’t awake
yet, so Henry has the time.

Alex is so frenetic when he’s awake that it seems like time slows down while he sleeps; like
the rest of the world is just waiting for him to struggle into consciousness so it can start back
up again. It’s as though everything around Henry is at half speed while Alex isn’t with him,
and when he’s there, there’s never enough time. Henry can’t get enough of him; can't get
enough of Alex smiling and cracking jokes and touching Henry like he’s the most important
thing in the world. Henry loves every double-speed second of it.

But there’s something nice about this, too. With the layers of talk and bite stripped away,
Alex is still beautiful, but he’s subdued. He’s accessible. His eyelashes, which have always
been Henry’s Kryptonite, look even longer and darker when his eyes are closed and his face
is relaxed in sleep. His hair is a glorious mess, still a touch golden somehow, even though
what light is spilling into the room through the open doorway is as washed-out as the sky
outside. Alex’s mouth is slightly open, and Henry can see the faint stain of red wine on the
inner curve of his lips, where even a very thorough brushing of his teeth hadn’t managed to
rid the colour entirely from his mouth the night before.

Henry wants to kiss him all the time, but especially now.

Instead, he puts Alex’s coffee on the side table and pours himself a cup of tea. Instead, he
climbs into bed, slowly and carefully, and picks up his book. Instead, he lets himself look at
Alex for a moment longer before focussing on his novel, and allows the peace of Alex’s
sleeping body seep into him like a hot bath at the end of a long day.

Henry manages a chapter or two before Alex starts to stir, shuffling almost unconsciously
across the mattress towards Henry like he’s automatically seeking the heat of another
person’s body. He makes a pleased, sleepy noise when Henry puts down his almost-empty
mug of tea and slides a hand into Alex’s hair, scratching gently at his scalp and carefully
working his fingers through the tangles put there by a full night of rest. Alex is adorable,
which should be impossible given everything Henry knows, but there it is; he’s cute, even
though Henry’s had him so many ways by now that it should be impossible.

"S’time?” Alex asks, his nose pressed to Henry’s hip, hot breath ghosting over his skin where
Henry’s shirt has ridden up.

“Early enough that you can sleep more if you’d like to,” Henry murmurs, continuing to work
his fingers through Alex’s curls, since he seems to be practically purring in response.
“Although I did make you a coffee, so you have a couple of options. It might be a bit
lukewarm, but I used that heat-retaining stoneware mug you rave about whenever you get the
chance, so it might be alright.”

“Mm,” Alex says, which isn’t really a response, but Henry doesn’t mind too much. He
generally prefers Alex non-verbal for other reasons, but there’s still something soft and
extremely gratifying in being able to see him like this too.

Speaking of—
“Alex, what are you doing?” he asks, trying not to sound amused. He suspects he fails. Alex
is running a hand up and down Henry’s leg underneath the duvet, and it’s a purposeful
enough touch that Henry suspects he doesn’t need to ask what Alex is doing at all; he’s
insatiably horny in the mornings even when he’s not just discovering the full breadth of his
sexuality, as it turns out.

“Nothing,” Alex lies, the pressure of his hand turning a little firmer as he presses a kiss to
Henry’s hip and grazes his teeth over the skin there. Henry tries very hard not to shiver in
response.

“Well, would you mind not doing ‘nothing’, please? I’m trying to read.”

“Boring,” Alex says immediately, his hand now coming up to cup Henry through his
pyjamas. Henry hadn’t even realised he was getting hard, but apparently Alex touching him
with any kind of intent is destined to always get him going unreasonably fast.

“I’m rather enjoying it actually,” Henry says as nonchalantly as possible, turning the page
and attempting to concentrate on the words in front of him while Alex feels out the shape of
his hardening cock through worn plaid pyjama bottoms.

“Yeah?” Alex queries, voice deceptively innocent as he shuffles even closer to Henry on the
bed and begins to follow the path of his hand with his mouth. Henry tries to keep breathing
normally, the book still just about steady in his hands, but it’s not an easy task.

“Yes,” he says, as firmly as he possibly can, and Alex huffs out a breath of disbelieving
laughter that very nearly has Henry squirming.

“Tell me what’s happening on the page, like… right now,” Alex challenges him, before going
back to his task of, it would seem, trying to drive Henry completely mad.

Henry can’t tell him what’s happening on the page in front of him; of course he can’t. Alex’s
lips are a hot, barely-there pressure on him through one layer too many, and he doesn’t care
about what anyone is saying to anyone else in this work of fiction anymore. Alex is very
much not a work of fiction – his mouth in particular feels very real – and Henry cannot be
bothered to pretend he’s unaffected.

“Do you ever shut up?” he asks, closing his book and shoving it onto the nightstand as Alex
gleefully hooks his fingers inside the waistband of Henry’s pyjama bottoms and pulls them
down to his thighs.

“Literally only ever for one thing,” Alex admits, before wrapping his hand around Henry’s
cock and leaning down to curl his tongue around the head. Henry sucks in a breath and
reaches down to push his fingers into Alex’s hair – something he’s still revelling in being able
to do in any and all situations – as Alex slowly starts to take more of Henry’s cock into his
mouth.

Mornings. Insatiably horny. Henry’s not sure how he manages to keep forgetting, but he
supposes he has the excuse that all of this is fairly new; being able to touch each other
without any mental acrobatics or justifications, bar simply wanting to do it. Wanting each
other.

Henry is freer now, both in his movements and the sounds that slip past his teeth. Alex takes
him down – perfect, overwhelming heat and pressure – and Henry pushes his head back into
the pillows and gasps, not bothering to try and keep the noises from spilling out of him. Alex
deserves every scrap of him, and he has no desire to hold anything back anymore; not after
all the stupid mistakes he’s made that almost saw all of this being ripped away from him. Not
after almost losing Alex and—

Alex pulls off him and murmurs, “I need you to stay with me, baby,” voice hoarse, and Henry
lets all the breath out of his body in one, long exhalation.

“I’m here,” he says, and Alex hums and takes him back down again, the fingers of one hand
now curled around Henry’s hip; grounding him.

This time Henry doesn’t think at all.

The grey light outside is almost silver now, brightened to something metallic as the sun fights
its way through cloud and pollution. Henry’s close – so achingly close – and all it takes is
Alex’s hand finding his where it’s clenched tight in the bedclothes, Alex’s fingers replacing
the fabric, and Henry’s there.

Alex works him through it with his mouth as Henry shakes and arches up from the bed,
panting and writhing against the sheets until he’s too sensitive to take any more. Before he
even has the breath to ask for it, Alex is pulling back and crawling up his body to kiss him,
and Henry melts into it like the silvery light and Alex’s mouth combined are enough to break
him down to almost nothing.

A minute or two later, Alex pulls back with a grin and rolls back over to his side of the bed,
sitting up a little and grabbing his mug of coffee.

Henry stares at him, still a little dazed from his orgasm. “Did you not want anything?” he
asks after a moment, once he can coordinate his tongue and vocal cords again.

Alex hums and takes a sip of his coffee. “Nah, I’m good for now. Coffee’s great, by the way.”

Alex continues to drink from his mug in an annoyingly nonchalant fashion, and Henry
narrows his eyes.

Right.

Alex is significantly less nonchalant when Henry eats him out in the shower half an hour
later.

“Jesus,” Alex says desperately, face pressed against his forearm where it’s braced against the
tiles. His other arm is otherwise engaged, the shaking fingers of his hand tangled in the wet
strands of Henry’s hair as he pushes back against the heat and pressure of his tongue. “You
—”
“It’s not against the law for you to be quiet while I do this, you know,” Henry points out as he
pulls back, pressing against Alex’s hole with his thumb and enjoying the stuttering moan it
pulls out of him as he pushes inside just slightly.

“You’re the fucking worst,” Alex says hotly, and then Henry pushes just a little deeper and
goes back in again with his tongue, which seems to take most of the breath out of Alex’s
lungs. He swears and – if Henry’s not very much mistaken – bites down on his arm, and it
takes five minutes and the briefest of touches to Alex’s cock before he’s coming all over the
tiles with a shout.

“The worst,” Alex reiterates, voice a little slurred as Henry climbs to his feet and kisses his
neck.

“So you like to tell me,” he says with a smile, pulling away again and grabbing the shampoo.
“Is that something you’d like to expand on? Am I not giving you enough orgasms? Not
making your coffee quite right? You were very complimentary about the pasta I managed to
throw together last night, but I suppose it could feasibly be my cooking.”

Alex puts a hand on his arm and Henry goes easily, allowing himself to be pulled against
Alex’s body and kissed in a way that suggests they’re not going to get a whole lot else done
today.

“You’re the worst,” Alex says eventually, pushing Henry’s wet hair out of his eyes, “because
you make me feel everything, all the time. You’re so good, I can’t fucking believe you
actually want me sometimes, and I’m kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’re the
worst because you’re fucking not, and that makes it hard for me to see this as real. Y’know.
Sometimes.”

Henry stares at Alex for a second – at the vulnerability in his eyes and the way he’s worrying
the inside of his cheek with his teeth – and wonders if it’s possible to love someone so much
it gives you heart failure. It would be an awkward way to be found by the medics, but he
supposes there are worse ways to go.

“Do you know what I love most about you?” Henry asks, and watches as Alex practically
squirms at the sincerity in his voice.

“It’s gotta be either the ass or lack of gag reflex,” Alex says eventually, deflecting the way he
so often does when Henry tries to tell him that the earth would spin off its axis if he ever left.

“While those are, of course, contenders,” Henry says calmly, “unfortunately you’re a little far
off the mark.”

“Pretty sure those are—”

“Alex,” Henry interrupts him, taking Alex’s face in his hands and forcing him to maintain
eye contact. There are droplets of water clinging to his eyelashes and his hair is wet in places
and dry in others, sticking out in all manner of directions; he looks, as always, like every
half-stifled dream of true happiness Henry has ever had. “I love you because you’re selfless
and you pretend not to be. I love you because you do good things for people without the
assumption that they will be recognised, but you do them anyway because they’re things
worth doing. I love you because you’re messy and chaotic, and you put both of those
qualities to regular use in driving me utterly up the wall, but you do it in a way that makes me
want ‘messy and chaotic’ until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil. But the thing I love most
about you is your passion – the way you never, ever shut up. Your brain is always awake,
always working towards something, and I’m not entirely sure I deserve everything that you
are, but I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make sure I get to keep it anyway. Are
we clear?”

Alex stares at him for a moment, then his tongue darts out to clear the few drops of water that
have settled on his lower lip. He clears his throat and puts his hands on Henry’s hips.

“Shut the fuck up,” he says, voice gravelly, and Henry grins at him.

“I will if you will. Somehow I don’t think you know how.”

“It’s a good thing you’re, like, my absolute dream guy. Otherwise this would never fucking
work.”

Then Alex kisses Henry before he can respond, and Henry lets himself be dragged back into
something that they absolutely should not be starting again so soon after round one.

It has not, so far, stopped Alex even once.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“You already agreed to it.”

“You had my cock halfway down your throat at the time – I cannot be held accountable for
things said in the heat of the moment.”

“Excuse you – I gave you several seconds after asking before I started blowing you. You had
plenty of time to say no.”

“Well, I’m saying no now, aren’t I?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, the window for returns has expired. This does not affect your statutory
rights. I can provide the number for a complaints line if you want, but in the meantime—”

“You are the absolute worst person I have ever met,” Henry says firmly, but Alex is now in
his lap and there’s something to be said for that, at least. “We are absolutely not watching
this.”

“We are though,” Alex says confidently, and the fact that the opening credits for ‘Fake It Till
You Make It’ are already playing in the background lends credence to his argument. “You
love me, which means you should probably just capitulate now. You’re gonna lose in the end
anyway.”
Henry would like to say this isn’t true; he’d like to say that he has the ability to say no to the
man currently crowding into his space, but it would be a complete falsehood.

“Christ – fine,” he says with a sigh, and Alex makes a whooping noise and leans in to kiss
the dissatisfaction from Henry’s mouth.

So – they watch the show. They watch, in fact, all ten weeks of it – thirty episodes in total.
They watch themselves being complete fools, and Jason getting in the ocean, and Alex’s
sister being quite obviously completely in love with Nora; the fact that it took something like
this to make Alex see it is honestly a little alarming.

“They’re good together,” Alex says at one point, and Henry feels warmth spreading out from
his core to his fingertips when he sees the reluctant fondness on his boyfriend’s face.

He’s still a little alarmed though. It has been, quite literally, a year; he’s not sure how Alex
missed it.

The show is… well, it’s annoyingly addictive. Henry doesn’t care much about the segments
featuring his own face, but there’s something about seeing Alex when he’s being this utterly
charming that always does something to him. Add to this the fact that he feels rather a lot of
fondness for several of the other contestants by this point – Dean and Hugh among them –
and he’s suddenly wondering why he was so against this.

Then, of course, he’s reminded.

"We were friends at university – sorry, college – and when it came time to graduate—”

“Maybe we should take a break for a bit,” Henry says loudly, trying – and failing – to drown
out his counterpart on screen. Alex’s only response is to put his entire hand over Henry’s face
without looking at him, shoving him back into the sofa cushions while his eyes remain fixed
on the screen.

Henry resigns himself to feeling more embarrassment than any one human was meant to live
with in their body, and peels Alex’s hand off his face.

“Alex has this way of lighting up a room... It's a bit like standing in sunlight,” the Henry on-
screen says, traitorously, and the Henry in the here-and-now wants to die just a little bit. “It's
just... very easy to love him. In spite of everything.”

“Henry,” Alex says, turning to him and attempting to crawl all over him. Henry, who is in the
process of figuring out how best to get a hole to open in the floor beneath the sofa and take
him down to the fiery depths of Hell for a little holiday, draws his knees up to his chest and
fends Alex off with both arms. “Henry—”

“No, absolutely not,” he says, shaking his head emphatically. “We’re not doing this. We are
going to watch this in complete and utter silence from this point onwards, and you are going
to forget you ever saw this segment. I mean it.”
“But Henry, I’m so easy to love,” Alex says plaintively, and Henry makes a noise like a
beached whale and pushes him off the sofa completely.

They finish the entire season in two days, and the only reason it doesn’t take less time than
that is because Alex drags Henry off three separate times to blow him because—

“You’re just really hot, okay?” Alex says breathlessly, slithering down the bed and gripping
the base of Henry’s cock almost desperately the second he gets close enough. “Why weren’t
you a fucking movie star or a model or some shit? Don’t answer that, just shut up and let me
do this.”

Henry’s not sure when he’s supposed to have time to answer anyway, given that Alex rarely –
if ever – takes time to do more but take in a short breath, but then Alex swallows him down
and Henry loses all ability to string together a coherent sentence.

“You know,” Henry says, after he’s returned the favour and brought Alex to the brink of tears
with his mouth, “I’m not sure the show is meant to have this effect on people.”

“We’re not people, baby,” Alex says, sounding almost drunk as he pulls Henry into a messy
kiss that does absolutely nothing to explain his reasoning for that statement.

“You have to visit,” Alex says firmly, leaning a little further into the path of the camera and
pushing Henry most of the way out of frame. “Seriously. I need someone around who can
outdrink me, and that person is not Henry.”

“You’re a plague,” Henry says cheerfully, and Alex elbows him in the ribs, grinning.

“He doesn’t know, does he?” Dean asks, his smile a little pixelated in what is – for him and
Hugh – the light of mid-morning. Henry and Alex have only just started thinking about what
to have for dinner.

Alex squints at the screen, then rounds on Henry. “What don’t I know?”

“Technically, lots of things,” Henry points out.

“When someone’s head over fucking heels for you,” Dean suggests, and Hugh – holding a
coffee and an obscenely large croissant next to Dean on the sofa – nods sagely.

“When someone is, in fact, being friendly with your fake boyfriend, rather than trying to do
anything untoward with him while you almost drown his own, very much real boyfriend,”
Hugh adds, and Dean makes a noise of abject delight.

“You also don’t know, apparently, that being jealous of someone touching your fake boyfriend
might mean—”

“Urgh,” Alex says with feeling, flopping back onto the bed and disappearing from the
sightline of their Australian friends. “Remind me never to fucking talk again.”
“When?” Henry asks mildly. “I’m happy to remind you whenever it’s required. I could do it
now, if you like?”

“Urgh,” Alex says again, then sits up. “Okay, seriously though – what are the gays keeping
from me? I’m part of the community now.”

“I’m pansexual,” Hugh says, completely deadpan.

“What are the queers keeping from me then?” Alex corrects himself immediately, and Dean
snorts.

“Better.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Alex mutters petulantly, and Henry relents. It should
probably be concerning how little it takes for Alex to bend Henry completely to his will, but
it’s something he’s had a while to come to terms with; it’s hardly a new concept.

“Dean and Hugh are flying out here next month,” Henry explains. “They’ve bought their
tickets already.”

“Shit,” Alex says, looking delighted. “Fuck – amazing. Awesome. Wait, did we ever work out
if the couch pulls out? I feel like we were gonna check but then we both decided it didn’t
matter—”

Henry looks at the screen, where both Dean and Hugh look far too invested in what is
currently happening in another time zone; a time zone in which Henry is now going to have a
conversation with his boyfriend about how he is, it would seem, still a little bit of an idiot.

“We’ll have a chat with you guys again in a couple of weeks,” Henry says firmly, and
watches as Dean’s smile only grows.

“Good luck,” Hugh says solemnly, and then Alex is saying, “wait—” as Henry waves and
terminates the call. He shuts the laptop and turns to Alex on the bed, who’s looking a little
like he got to the end of an episode of his favourite show and several of the characters got
swept up in a freak hurricane just before the end credits.

“The fuck, Fox?”

“Since we already live together,” Henry says, deciding to get straight to the point and ignore
anything Alex tries to say or do to distract him. “I had a thought. The thought was that you
end up in my bed most nights anyway, and I have the bigger window in here, and we could
really do with a spare room.”

Alex blinks at him, then clears his throat. He looks a bit flushed, if Henry’s not very much
mistaken. “That was more than one thought,” he points out, sounding slightly overcome.

“Some of us are capable,” Henry says primly, and Alex’s brain is clearly going too fast for
him to say anything witty in response to that, because his mouth is slightly open and he looks
a little dazed. He is, annoyingly, still incredibly beautiful, even if he’s doing a reasonable
impression of a venus flytrap.
 “Are you asking me to move in with you? I mean, move into your room?” Alex clarifies
slowly, and Henry rolls his eyes.

“No,” he says drily, “I’m asking you to move out so I can have a spare room. Yes, I’m asking
you to move into my bedroom, you complete—”

Henry doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Alex’s mouth is very suddenly on his, and
the world is flying off-kilter as Henry’s pushed back into the sheets; the laptop wobbles
dangerously where it’s perched on the end of the bed, but Henry pays it no mind. He can get
it fixed. Or get another one. It doesn’t seem important what happens to it right now.

“Is that a yes?” Henry asks breathlessly a little while later, his mouth practically aching after
being so thoroughly kissed for so long. He’s hard and Alex is pressed against him like a
second skin, but they haven’t done anything more than grip tightly at each other and kiss until
they have to part for breath; Henry feels like a fucking teenager, honestly, but without the
crushing pressure of maintaining a journal.

“It’s a hell yes,” Alex clarifies, eyes bright, before diving back in to reclaim Henry’s mouth.

Alex has an unreasonably large collection of chinos, but Henry makes room for them
anyway. We all make sacrifices for the ones we love.

Chapter End Notes

Where Cotton Eye Joe = me, the lyrics to the Rednex classic can be solved
mathematically as "did some actual work at work" + "accidentally started three more
WIPs or something". Trust me, I work in finance. The maths checks out.

BUT (I hear you cry), WHAT COULD POSSIBLY COME AFTER THIS? HOW
MUCH FURTHER CAN WE TAKE THESE BOYS ON THEIR QUEER LITTLE
JOURNEY THROUGH MILD TELEVISION FAME?

Three words: Alex. Missing scenes.

 Chapter 14
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Stop thinking

“Alex.”

He’s drowning, or he’s falling, or – possibly both? There’s water in his lungs or not enough
air in them somehow, and Alex can’t breathe, which is the main problem anyway. It’s not
really important which of the terrifying options is his reality, because he’s going to die; he’s
never been more sure of anything. He can’t shout or scream, and he can’t figure out whether
he needs to break the surface or land safely, and it’s—

"Alex. Come on, wake up.”

Alex can’t wake up, because he isn’t asleep. He is, as previously noted, either falling or
drowning, and neither of these are things he can wake up from. The voice is comforting
though, and it’s almost like Alex’s whole body twists towards it; which is about when he
realises his body isn’t really there, which sort of lends credence to the ‘dream’ theory.

“Wake up."

This time, Alex wakes up without a thought. He startles into consciousness like he’s hit a lake
at terminal velocity with his arms and legs spread out like an under-equipped base jumper.
The room is dark – lit only by moonlight that his eyes aren’t yet accustomed to – and Alex
flails around a bit before he realises that Henry’s above him, looking concerned and very
close and very—

Something. He looks very something. Comforting, possibly? Welcoming? That’s probably it;
Alex always drags Henry out of his bed after he’s suffered through… whatever that was. It
makes sense that Henry feels like home where he is right now.

“What the fuck?” Alex says instead of voicing any of these things, and it comes out a little
more pissy than he means it to. He tries again, but only gets as far as adding, “What?”

Henry, who is still hovering above him looking concerned, tells him it was a nightmare,
which Alex sort of knew, but had forgotten the word for. It’s slipping away from him already
like warm sand through relaxed fingertips, and in place of the fear is something else;
something unfamiliar and needy that sits where his heart is still thundering away, giving it
another direction.

Alex just can’t read the signpost yet, even if the name of his destination is on the tip of his
tongue.
He relaxes into the mattress a little – because he’s safe, and his lungs are fucking fine – but he
swears a couple of times for dramatic effect. Okay, so it’s not totally for dramatic effect; he
thinks he’s probably shaking quite a bit still. It had felt so horribly real and it’s barely a
minute out of sight, so—

In the midst of Alex panicking about something that didn’t even happen, Henry leans down
and kisses Alex’s forehead.

He just—

What?

Alex stiffens automatically, but that signpost looks a little clearer now, and how the fuck
didn’t he realise; how didn’t he know that Henry’s lips on him could mean something more
than he’s let it mean so far?

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have—” Henry’s apologising and Alex isn’t fucking sorry, okay; he’s
come out the other side of sorry and into desperately hungry for something he’s only just
figured out how to put a name to. Alex cuts Henry off with a hand on his arm and he doesn’t
know what his own face is doing but Henry’s expression is so beautiful and vulnerable – even
in the dim light of the room – that Alex’s stomach swoops.

“Henry,” he says, and Henry’s face doesn’t change but he does start to pull away, and Alex
sort of panics.

He grabs Henry’s other arm and pulls him down and suddenly they’re kissing, which – well,
it isn’t exactly new, but this time there are no cameras. This time it doesn’t feel like practise
or pretend, and Alex has a brief flash of regret when he wonders if he’s assumed too fucking
much here, but then—

Then Henry’s kissing him back. Alex doesn’t know what noise he makes, but he thinks it’s
probably about as cracked and desperate as he feels, and Henry’s pressing down into him like
he’s quite suddenly as mad for this as Alex is, the welcome heat of another body keeping
Alex from slipping back into panic mode.

Because he’s definitely not straight. Not a chance in hell. This feels too good, and too right,
and maybe he’s been fucking stupid for most of his life, but that ends here.

Alex doesn’t know when he got his arms around Henry’s neck, but that’s where they are, and
when he wraps a leg around Henry’s waist and realises they’re both hard, it’s a revelation that
sends fire shooting up his spine. Alex doesn’t remember the last time he felt this alive when
someone else was touching him.

“Alex,” Henry says when he pulls away, and Alex knows him, alright? They know each other
too well, and Alex can see Henry putting up walls and knows he thinks Alex is being
impulsive, but Alex wants this too much to care if it ends up hurting him in the end. Henry
can fucking have him. He’d give Henry anything right now.
“Stop thinking,” Alex begs him, because he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more
than he wants this. He pulls Henry back down, but tries to keep his touch as light as he’s able
when there’s so much chaos inside his head. “Shut up. Just— please, sweetheart. I fucking
need you.”

“Christ,” Henry croaks, and it’s suddenly like a dam’s broken. Henry had been holding back
before, but now Henry kisses him like there’s nothing else but this, and the rest of the world
has fallen away. It’s frantic and hot and unbelievably good, and when Henry groans, Alex’s
hips come up of their own accord – that’s even better.

“Please,” he says, barely fucking knowing what he’s asking for, but Henry’s so good – too
good, more than Alex deserves, probably – because he figures it out anyway. Henry shoves
every obstacle out of the way and gets a hand around both of their dicks, and the feelings
after that are like an avalanche; like stone fragments and debris rolling over one another,
picking up speed until eventually they run out of anywhere else to fucking go.

Alex calls Henry “baby" without meaning to – wound-up and desperate and a bunch of other
words and phrases that make him feel simultaneously vulnerable and hot all over – and then
Henry’s coming with an “oh" of surprise, hot and wet where they’re pressed together, which
has Alex swearing as he follows him over the edge immediately.

Henry kisses him before he’s even finished and Alex has never really had that before; never
had someone who wants that kind of intimacy when things are, for all intents and purposes,
done with. He’s not expecting it to draw out his orgasm a bit, but that’s exactly what it does,
and by the time it’s finally over he feels like some part of him has been stripped back and laid
open for the world to see.

Or at least Henry.

Alex cannot stop kissing Henry afterwards. He feels kind of like he needs to be put back
together again; like he’s Humpty Dumpty and Henry’s all the King’s men or— no, wait, they
couldn’t do it, could they? That’s the point of the rhyme. Fuck, his brain feels like soup.

Henry does not appear to be having any trouble thinking, however; Alex can pretty much
hear the cogs turning inside his head.

“Your brain is always so fucking loud,” he says, because Henry really doesn’t need to
overthink this. Things are just allowed to feel good, and that’s something that a lot of people
don’t get. This doesn’t need to be… well, okay, it’s gonna be complicated, but it doesn’t need
to be impossible. They like each other, and the sex is apparently very enjoyable, and things
can sort of progress naturally. Alex doesn’t think that needs to be said.

"This is a slight deviation from our usual dynamic," Henry says, voice dry, and Alex shoves
at him, trying and failing not to snort out a laugh. Henry falls to the side and Alex follows
him immediately, because he’d thought he was ready for the lack of contact but he very much
had not been.

"Mutually beneficial orgasms aren't exactly forbidden. We're not breaking the rules or
anything."
Okay, Alex didn’t really mean it to come out like that, but Henry just took away his ability to
think properly, so he might have to reword all this later; have a proper discussion with Henry
when his brain is in a state of solid matter.

For now, he lets the statement stand and kisses Henry again, his blood fizzing a little in his
veins when Henry opens up to him like he’s just as greedy for it. Alex kisses Henry until the
night catches up with him, and then – once they’ve cleaned up a bit in the bathroom – he
pulls Henry against him and laments the fact that he can’t even fucking tell anyone about this.
He wants to scream about it.

Instead, he goes to sleep, and with Henry’s arms around him, the nightmares daren’t come
close enough to touch him.

Don’t

So, Henry and Alex aren’t sleeping together anymore. It’s fine, really, except for how Alex
misses him constantly even though he’s right there; so it’s actually horrible and not fine at all.

Henry’s right, though, and it’s his choice as much as it’s anybody’s, and Alex has to accept
that Henry’s dick and his stupidly nice hands are off-limits to him now.

All of this would be a lot more fine if Alex didn’t have to watch Henry swanning off with an
annoyingly attractive Australian to do Latin dancing and couples yoga. Sure, Alex is also
doing both of those things with an attractive Australian, but Dean’s, like, really fucking tall?
And his voice is nice. And even if he’s super in love with Hugh – who seems great, really –
how is he going to resist Henry? Alex might not be in love with him, but that’s just because
Henry’s his best friend and he’s never thought about it.

“I should probably warn you,” Hugh says, shaking his hand gravely like they’ve never met
before, “I can’t dance. You might want to wear steel-capped boots.”

Alex can’t help laughing a little at that, although the tension in his shoulders doesn’t fade.
“Yeah, well – I can grind with the best of them, but somehow I don’t think that’s gonna help
me with the fucking Viennese Waltz.”

“At least you have some rhythm to work with,” Hugh says with a lopsided smile. “Dean and I
are both embarrassing. Can’t wait till we have kids, so our dad dancing will finally be
validated.”

Right. Probably not one of the fake couples then; Alex had already been pretty sure, but
nobody talks about kids with that kind of surety and fondness unless they’re either a) the real
deal or b) a professional goddamn actor. It makes something inside him ache a bit, but he
ignores it, because he’s too annoyed and on-edge to have any more feelings right now. He has
reached capacity.

Alex will probably feel bad about his behaviour later, but he spends most of his time avoiding
Hugh’s two left feet – the guy hadn’t been kidding – and watching with growing irritation
and honest-to-God stress as Henry and Dean laugh and joke around on the other side of the
room. Henry is, of course, amazing at this, which is kind of hot, and Alex really needs to stop
thinking stuff like this if he wants to get through today with all his limbs intact.

Lunch is worse.

Alex literally hasn’t had to sit without Henry during a meal since they arrived here, and
honestly? He’s pretty sure they haven’t eaten apart from one another – provided they’re not at
work – since they first moved into their apartment together several years ago. It’s throwing
Alex all the way off and making him feel itchy and irritable.

Then it’s time for yoga, which is worse again; Alex feels like he’s taking a tour of every
circle of hell Dante ever wrote about, and this one has Henry being bendy in loose-fitting
shorts while Alex tries not to pop a boner in his incredibly tight leggings. His own outfit had
been an error, apparently, and one for which he will blame Pez for all eternity.

Finally, it’s over, and Alex is allowed to go back to their room before Henry to change for the
next task… thing. He feels wrung-out and drained already, so he kinda hopes it’s just, like,
napping. At this point, napping with Hugh doesn’t even sound like a bad activity.

“What the fuck does comfortable outerwear mean?” Alex mutters mutinously as he goes
through his wardrobe looking for something that fits the brief. It would probably help, he
thinks, angrily pulling a short-sleeved t-shirt off its hanger so hard that it almost falls to the
ground, if they’d just tell the contestants what they were meant to be doing.

He eventually chooses a pair of shorts to go with his t-shirt, shoves his feet into some
sneakers, and flings the door open to find Shaan standing quietly on the other side.

“Jesus fuck,” Alex hisses, taking an automatic step backwards. “Could you be less silent?”

Shaan looks at him for a moment, gaze steady, then says, “no.” This is, Alex supposes, fair
enough; he answered the question, at least.

It turns out that Alex and Hugh’s joint activity is canoeing, which isn’t actually as bad as
Alex had been expecting. He likes the ocean, and at least he’ll have to actually concentrate in
order to make sure neither of them drown, but Hugh doesn’t seem quite as happy with their
assignment.

“I can’t swim,” he says flatly, and Alex frowns at him.

“You’re Australian,” Alex points out, and Hugh sighs deeply.

“And my mum was a swimming teacher,” Hugh adds, in the manner of someone who’s
explained this multiple times, and is fully aware of how batshit insane it sounds.

“How?”

“My coordination on the dance floor extends to literally all areas of my life, mate.”
Alex is going to die. They’re both going to drown and he’ll never get to softly touch Henry’s
face and call him a fucking moron ever again; he’ll never get to see if Henry changes his
mind about this, or if he’d be willing to have a conversation about how, actually, Alex might
be feeling some things he wasn’t prepared for. Alex will never get the chance to explain that
his bisexuality is kind of Henry-specific, and that maybe he would like to explore why that is,
and—

“It’s gonna be fine,” Hugh says, because of course he and Dean must stare lovingly into each
other’s eyes all the time and make love to each other on a bed of rose petals or what-the-fuck-
ever, and he probably doesn’t have any regrets about his soon-to-be tragically short life.

Not that Alex wants that with Henry, necessarily, but he’s not ruling it out. He just needs a
second to think about things where people aren’t filming him constantly.

(Yes, he’s aware this whole thing had been his idea. No, he hadn’t been expecting it to
backfire quite this spectacularly.)

Hugh’s actually reasonable company, and of course they have a crew on a boat right near
them, so there’s very little chance either of them will actually be dragged down into the
watery embrace of the sea, but it still sucks. It sucks because Alex has no idea what Henry’s
doing right now, and it sucks because he doesn’t even know what he’d do if he did know.
They have their own assignments! He can’t just switch with Dean because he’s… Y’know.
Jealous, or whatever.

“Swimming lessons are part of the school curriculum, but it just never stuck,” Hugh explains
from the back of the canoe, and Alex twists around so fast they almost capsize.

“It’s just swimming,” he says disbelievingly. “You just – you just swim. It’s really not that
complicated. You move your legs and your arms like they goddamn tell you to—”

“See, that’s the problem,” Hugh says, and he looks like this is actually kind of funny to him;
like Alex’s dogged belief in the power of bodily coordination is laughable. “Literally can’t do
it, mate. I can tread water though, if that makes you feel any better about our chances of
survival?”

“If you drown, Dean’s going to kill me with his bare hands,” Alex says through gritted teeth.
Hugh nods solemnly.

"’Fraid so. Pity I’d be dead in this scenario because it sounds—”

“Do not say hot,” Alex says firmly, and Hugh breaks into a wide grin.

That’s the only time Alex capsizes them on purpose.

When Alex finds Henry laughing with Dean – about as drunk as Alex has seen him since
they arrived on the island – he doesn’t know what comes over him. He just knows that he
hates it, because he feels like Henry can’t laugh with him like that anymore after what
they’ve done, and Dean is objectively very attractive, and it’s just so fucking wrong; all of it.
“Day’s over,” he says sharply, and when Henry tips his head back to peer at him over the
back of the couch with a little grin, Alex’s heart jumps in his chest.

“But, darling – I haven’t finished my Cocksucking Cowboy shot.”

God, Henry is so drunk. Alex pastes on his most pleasant facial expression when he looks at
Dean, because he really needs this guy not to murder him for almost drowning his boyfriend
several times. “He can’t hold his liquor.”

Dean laughs, and Henry points at him without looking away from Alex even once.

“You’ve got a nice laugh, Dean,” Henry says seriously, and Dean laughs again and it’s just—

Alex wants to throw something. He really does. Instead, he pushes Henry’s hair off his face
and watches his eyes flutter shut as he presses a cool hand to the hot skin of his forehead;
Alex’s stomach swoops again, and he’s been getting that feeling when he looks at Henry for
years, but he’s starting to wonder if he got the context all wrong.

“What have you been drinking?”

It turns out the answer to that is “everything,” and after that, Alex isn’t even sure what he
says – or indeed what anyone else says. He’s pretty sure he’s moving on autopilot as he pulls
Henry up off the couch and drags him back to their room to—

To what? Tell Henry to calm down on the booze? That would be seriously fucking
hypocritical. To tell him to stop looking at Dean like he means something, when Alex wants
to be the only person in the world who means that much to him? That’s ridiculous, and
possessive, and absolutely one hundred percent how he feels, but he can’t say it.

“Did you have a nice time with Hugh?” Henry asks in his plummiest voice; the one he only
drags out of the back of the closet when he’s drunk and trying to pretend he’s not. He sounds
like a royal love-child.

“We went canoeing and we capsized several times,” Alex explains, and Henry laughs. It’s a
really nice sound, and Alex wants to throttle him.

“Still not sure if that means—”

“It was fine,” Alex says through gritted teeth, finally getting the door to their room open and
pushing Henry inside.

Things get a bit weird after that. Alex feels like he’s moving through treacle; like he’s
experiencing time just slightly out of sync with reality. It all rushes back in – realigns and
clips crisply back into place – when he kisses Henry against the door, Henry hoisting him up
into his arms and pressing Alex into the wood instead a handful of seconds later. Henry
kisses him with such intent and enthusiasm that Alex barely has the capacity to process it,
and the noise Henry makes against his mouth is one that Alex immediately files away for
later use without even really making the conscious decision to do so.
Then Henry’s saying his name in broken tones – “Alex, Christ" – and suddenly the weight of
everything Alex has just allowed to happen slams into him like a freight train.

Henry’s drunk. Henry said they shouldn’t do this anymore. They haven’t had a conversation
about this at all and Alex suddenly feels like the worst kind of scum; he feels like Jeffrey
Bezos and Elon Musk combined, except without the money to hide behind, and he
immediately feels like he’s about to throw up.

He pulls back from Henry so hard his head hits the door, but he barely feels it. He looks at
Henry – pupils blown, mouth red where Alex basically fucking attacked him – and swears
loudly, his heart now pounding in his chest for entirely different reasons.

“Alex, what’s happening?” Henry asks him, and Alex can barely fucking look at him. He
doesn’t want to be touching Henry – doesn’t want Henry touching him – and the longer they
stay here, the more he wants to climb out of his own skin with anxiety.

“Put me down,” he says quickly, the words brittle in his throat. “Henry – Henry, put me
down.”

Henry lets him down immediately and Alex is almost at the bathroom door before he even
realises that’s where he’s going. Henry tries to follow him and Alex finds the word “don’t"
hissing through the gaps in his clenched teeth without a thought going into its utterance, and
then there’s a door between him and Henry and he finally fucking loses it.

It gets better eventually – Henry counting his breaths in and out for him from the other side
of the door – but Alex still feels disgusting. He’s drenched in sweat and sea water and his
eyes and throat feel raw, and Henry tries so desperately to give him an out, but it’s kind of
late for that.

Alex is just going to have to try and be better. Henry deserves better.

I’d say you’re fair game

"When was the last time you had a relationship?" Henry asks, and Alex is pretty sure the only
reason he’s not yelling yet is because he’s saving it up; Henry does that with his anger. It’s
like he has a limited amount, whereas most people – Alex included – have an endless well of
it inside them, ready to draw on at any time. "Nora was well over four years ago. You've had
a few drinks with people since, but you've never brought them home or introduced them to
anyone, let alone grown attached enough to have opinions on baking etiquette."

Alex is almost speechless with rage – almost.

“And you have?” he snaps, face feeling hot with so many emotions he doesn’t know which
one to focus on. There’s anger, yeah, but he’s also embarrassed and kind of sick from the
amount of sugar he’s consumed, and there’s something growing hotter in his stomach that
he’d like to attribute to the latter, but which is probably a whole separate emotion from those
first two.
“We’re not talking about me.”

Alex wants to fucking scream. “Well, why the hell not? I'd say you're fair game. When was
the last time you brought someone home?”

Never mind that the idea of Henry bringing someone back to their apartment – holding their
hand and cuddling with them on the couch where Alex kissed him for the first time – makes
Alex want to dig a deep hole and live in it for the rest of his life. Never mind that he never
wants Henry to touch anyone else ever again and oh God—

“That's not—”

“When, Henry?” If Alex stops, he’ll have to think, and he doesn’t want to; doesn’t want to
pull back the surface of this stupid fucking argument and see what’s been hiding underneath
it this whole time. “Why is it that I'm under scrutiny for having a perfectly fucking
reasonable opinion, and now I'm not allowed to push back? I'm not allowed to ask questions,
is that it? That's bullshit, Henry – so, why haven't you dated anyone recently? I'm all fucking
ears.”

Alex is expecting Henry to tell him to go fuck himself. He’s expecting Henry to tell him he’s
being a dick – which he is – and that he needs to calm the fuck down and have a nap or
something – which he does.

Instead, Henry says something Alex could not have predicted in a million years.

“Because I'm in love with you, you insufferable arse.”

Alex’s mouth drops open.

He thinks he heard that right, but it doesn’t make any sense; how could it? Alex is messy and
chaotic and impossible to be around for any considerable length of time – at least for most
people. He drinks too much coffee and hoards bacon from all-you-can-eat brunches and
buffets, and would kill almost anybody if one of the five-to-ten humans he gives a shit about
asked him to do it.

Alex isn’t somebody people fall in love with. Period. There’s too much of him and not
enough of the parts of him that people tend to fall in love with, and Henry’s—

Well, Henry’s Henry. He’s perfect in all the ways that matter, and some ways that shouldn’t
but kind of do, and he’s always been kind of an anomaly in Alex’s life; something completely
unpredictable in the way that, like… Spiders Georg is an irrelevant statistical data point.
Henry is an outlier and should not be counted. Alex has never been able to unravel why
Henry sticks around, except for how Alex always wants him there.

He… Fuck, he literally always wants Henry there. Jesus. Alex is in love with him too, isn’t
he? When did that fucking happen? How long ago did it happen?

Before Alex can say anything – before he can say it back, or tell Henry he wants to but needs
a little time to process – they’re interrupted by a knock on the door that makes something in
Alex’s stomach twist. Of course he doesn’t get to have a fucking minute to get to grips with
what’s just happened; of course this had to come out when they’re on a TV island in the
middle of fucking nowhere without any way to contact their loved ones. Alex, for one, would
quite like to call his entire family and ask if they fucking knew about this.

Ellen probably knew. Fuck. Alex is starting to panic again.

Neither of them moves but the knock comes again, and Henry sighs and goes to the door like
a man walking to the gallows. Alex hears Shaan’s voice on the other side of the door when
Henry opens it, but he can’t make out the words.

“It’s not really a good time,” Henry says, and Alex almost laughs. That’s quite possibly the
understatement of the fucking century.

Then Alex hears what Shaan says next, his hearing sharpening and honing in on that one
sentence, and he’s over by the door before he even knows he’s moving.

“Henry, it’s your sister.”

“What’s happened to Bea?” Alex demands, seconds after Henry’s managed to utter a blank-
sounding “what” without any sort of punctuation or inflection at all.

Shaan’s inside the room a moment later and instructing Henry to pack, telling him what he
can’t do while he’s off the island, and giving him what minimal information he has been
allowed to pass on. Alex watches this happen and realises with a sick sense of dread that he
doesn’t factor into this equation at all; Henry’s going to be heading out without him, and Alex
is going to have to stay here. He can feel it.

“So Alex and I are going to have to,” Henry starts to say, but Alex can’t let him finish that
sentence; he thinks it might actually hurt him.

“I’m not going with him, am I?”

Henry wheels around immediately like this is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard, and
when Shaan confirms it a second later, Henry looks absolutely livid.

“No,” he says, all sharp edges and corners that Alex wants to kiss into softness even if it
makes him bleed.

“That’s the deal, Henry. I’m sorry,” Shaan says, not without sympathy, reminding them both
that Zahra Bankston isn’t the easiest person to get a concession from, and they’re probably
lucky they got this much. Pushing her wouldn’t be one of their better plans.

Henry looks at him and Alex is already shaking his head vehemently. Alex doesn’t matter; all
that matters right now is Bea. “For fuck’s sake, Henry, she’s your sister. Obviously you’re
gonna go. I’ll be fine – we’ll just… We’ll talk when you get back. Give her a hug from me.”

‘Talk’ is hardly a big enough word, but there’s nothing else they can say without giving the
game away to Shaan – who is, first and foremost, an employee of the show – so Alex doesn’t
say anything else at all.
Henry watches him with an unease that quickly softens into resignation, and Alex very
suddenly wants to cry.

“Alright,” Henry says quietly, and Alex tries to smile at him but he’s not sure it works; he
doesn’t know if his face is quite ready to take that instruction from him just yet. He does his
best though, helping Henry pack with whatever energy he has left in him, and a few minutes
later Henry’s leaving.

Alex sees Henry’s anguished face through the crack in the door for just a split-second before
it closes, leaving him truly alone for the first time in a very, very long while.

“Hey,” Alex says, tapping Henry on the shoulder and grinning widely at him when he
turns around. Henry grins back and reaches down to gently flick the edge of the
mortarboard that’s carefully balanced on Alex’s curls.

“Hey yourself,” he says fondly, and lets Alex drag him into a tight hug, laughing as he
goes.

“I didn’t trip over,” Alex murmurs in his ear, then buries his face in Henry’s neck to feel
the vibrations of his continuing laughter, letting it fill him up to the brim with warmth.
God, he’s just so fucking happy.

“You did very well,” Henry says firmly when he pulls back, readjusting Alex’s cap with
a small smile. “You didn’t swear loudly enough for anyone to hear either, which is even
more impressive.”

“And I looked hot,” Alex says seriously.

“And you looked hot,” Henry says, nodding, which makes Alex feel tingly all over. He
just really likes compliments.

“You looked good too,” he says benevolently, and Henry huffs out a laugh.

“Yes, well – I probably won’t look so good when potential employers realise I’ve got a
joint honours degree in English Literature and History,” he says drily. “I shall be out on
the street before you know it, begging for lettuce leaves from passing strangers just to
survive.”

“Why lettuce leaves?”

“Oh, you know,” Henry says vaguely, waving a hand in the air. “For the aesthetic.”

“You’re a fucking weirdo,” Alex says with a grin. “Also, we’re obviously gonna keep
living together, right? And I’m, like, super employable, so it doesn’t matter if you need
me to support you for a bit. Like a sugar daddy, except we actually like each other.”

“And we’re not having sex,” Henry points out, which makes Alex feel a bit warm for
some reason.
 “Yeah, obviously,” he drawls. “So, you in?”

Henry blinks at him. “Am I in what?”

“D’you want to keep living together, Henry?” Alex says, exasperation creeping into his
voice. “After graduation, I mean. Which is now, I guess.”

“Oh,” Henry says, looking completely taken aback by this. Alex starts to backtrack
immediately.

“I mean it’s fine if you don’t—”

“Yes,” Henry says quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets and biting his lip. “I would
– Alex, are you sure? I wasn’t joking about the employment thing.”

“Neither was I,” Alex says with a shrug. “But I’m pretty sure most people would look at
your insanely high grades, perfect attendance, and baby blues and take a punt on you
being a good employee.”

“What on earth do my eyes have to do with anything?” Henry says, smiling again now
like he can’t help himself. Alex feels a little giddy himself.

“Unclear. Couldn’t hurt to put ‘em on your resume though, right?”

“Would that go under ‘skills’ or ‘experience’?” Henry asks, and Alex rolls his eyes.

“You’d just attach a photograph of you doing, like, Blue Steel. Obviously. A picture
speaks a thousand words, sweetheart.”

“And every one of them would be absolute nonsense if you’d had anything to do with
it.”

“Is that any way to speak to your sugar daddy?”

“Piss off, Alex.”

Oh.

When June and Nora sneak into his room that night and curl around him in bed like brackets
closing in a whispered aside, Alex doesn’t even try to stop himself from crying. Nora, for
once, doesn’t even bother to call him an idiot; she just murmurs random statistics to him like
they’re a bedtime story while June plays with his hair and hums tunelessly under her breath.

“You love him,” June says quietly, when Alex has almost managed to drop off to sleep. He’s
too tired to argue, and it would be pointless anyway; it’s the truth, and he feels it down to the
very core of him.

“Yeah.”
“Guess it’ll be quite the reunion,” Nora says after a moment, then goes back to reeling off
Grand National factoids and statistics.

Alex falls asleep between, “the most horses to compete were the 66 that lined up in 1929,”
and, “the oldest winning horse was called Peter Simple,” and when he wakes up in the middle
of the night, June and Nora’s clasped hands are still resting on his hip where he lies between
them.

He aches.

Let’s start there

“Hey, you have a second?”

Henry looks up from where he’s been going through his PhD defence – on paper, with a red
pen, like some kind of beautiful alien – and smiles at Alex. It’s annoying how quickly Alex
feels that in his bones; how fast it travels from Henry’s mouth to Alex’s heart. Terrible, really.

“For you? I suppose I should say ‘always’, but I do occasionally have to do things that don’t
involve you, unfortunately.”

‘There is one very specific thing I need you to do that involves me,’ Alex thinks a little
desperately, and it must show on his face in some way, because Henry frowns and
immediately puts his pen down.

“Is everything alright?”

Alex wants to say yes, since everything really is alright. He’s fine! Everything’s fine. It’s just
that—

“I really want you to fuck me,” Alex says, and then shuts his mouth so quickly he’s pretty
sure he chips a tooth.

Okay, so he’d kind of been hoping the request would come out a bit more smoothly than that;
in fact, he’d been planning on being significantly more seductive all round. Alex had been
intending to distract Henry from his work, maybe kiss him a bit, get him riled up enough that
he’d agree to be dragged away from his work. Then, once Alex had Henry in their bedroom –
which it still gives him a little thrill to say, or even think about – he would’ve asked Henry to
fuck him.

Finally; after several incredibly intense instances of being fingered, two memorable nights
where Henry used his tongue and his fingers while Alex cried a bit, and the one time they
almost got into it in the heat of the moment — except Alex came before they could get that
far.

So, yeah; it’s been long enough. Alex is more than ready.
Henry deliberately puts down his pen and looks at him with a serious expression that
probably shouldn’t turn Alex on, but which absolutely turns Alex on.

“Did you have a particular time in mind?”

“Like, now?” Alex suggests, because he was already horny but now Henry’s doing incredibly
sexy stuff like looking at him, so—

“I see,” Henry says, then looks back down at the paper in front of him, very briefly. “Well.
This can probably wait anyway.”

It’s possible Alex’s pulse skyrockets when Henry stands up from his chair. Nobody can prove
anything though.

Then Henry’s in front of him, one hand resting against Alex’s neck where his over-excited
blood is traitorously thundering around in his veins like something’s triggered his goddamn
fight or flight response, and suddenly there’s one other person who very much knows what
his pulse is doing, actually.

“Do you want to just get straight to it, or are you happy for me to engage in some good, old-
fashioned foreplay?” Henry asks drily, and it’s not sexy, except for how Henry’s very close to
him and trying not to smile and—

Yeah, it’s a bit sexy. Fuck.

“You may proceed,” Alex says loftily, but it comes out a bit strained; this only serves to
increase Henry’s amusement, apparently.

“So benevolent,” he murmurs, and then he’s kissing Alex like he wants to show him exactly
how much this part matters, and Alex is gone.

He’s never been more ready for anything.

Alex is not, as it turns out, ready. He is in fact shaking, which hadn’t been part of his plan at
all. He's shaking and Henry's being so patient with him – giving him everything he wants, the
second he asks for it (sometimes even before he asks for it) – and Alex can’t concentrate on
anything except the sparks of pleasure skittering up his spine and the feel of Henry’s lips on
his skin.

Henry's inside him where they're both kneeling on the bed, but he's not moving, because Alex
has asked him not to. It's so intense already – just the fullness and heat of it, with every inch
of Henry's body pressed against him – that he’s kind of worried he’s going to go off if Henry
so much as twitches his hips; he'd really like this to last.

"What do you need, love?" Henry asks him, mouth on Alex's neck and quite clearly looking
over his shoulder so he can watch Alex as he wraps a hand around his own cock and starts to
– very slowly – jerk himself off. One of Henry's hands is on his hip, the other rubbing up and
down his chest, brushing over his nipples and causing little shockwaves to course through
Alex's body at every pass of his hand, and it’s very nearly enough.

Suddenly, Alex knows what he wants.

"I need some pressure," he says, voice hoarse. "Just – my neck? Can you—"

Alex doesn't even need to finish his sentence; Henry's fingers are already curling around his
throat – just a gentle, but nonetheless firm pressure – and then he's pulling out just slightly
and thrusting forward, and—

"Fuck," Alex yells, voice cracked and the volume of it entirely out of his control as he comes
all over his own fist and the bedsheets below; he works back against Henry's cock, and can't
stop shivering and shaking as his orgasm spreads out from his core to his extremities, making
him feel like something hot and liquid.

Henry takes him through every last second of his orgasm, rolling his hips and pressing his
thumb to the hollow in Alex’s throat until he can’t take any more.

“Henry—”

The shift is immediate. Henry’s grip on him loosens and, with both hands now firmly on
Alex’s hips instead, he very slowly and gently pulls out, like he thinks Alex might break if he
goes any quicker. As it is, Alex is glad of how soft Henry’s being with him; being fucked is,
as it turns out, quite a lot more intense than just having a few fingers inside of him.

“Did that meet your requirements for a first fuck?” Henry asks a moment later, manoeuvring
them both into a horizontal position and tucking himself up behind Alex like it’s all over; like
it doesn’t matter in the slightest that he’s still hard, even though Alex can feel where Henry’s
cock is pressed to the cleft of his ass.

“Aside from the part where you didn’t come?” he asks, and Henry laughs softly and presses a
kiss to the back of his neck that makes Alex shiver. His skin still feels a little bit like there’s a
live current running through it.

“There’s still time,” he says mildly, and Alex snorts.

“Yeah, okay.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Are you saying I might be able to go again? Because yeah, I’m a little unsure that’s gonna
fly.”

“Really,” Henry says quietly, and Alex both hates and loves that tone of voice in equal
measure. He’s pretty sure he’s gonna end up struggling to sit down properly tomorrow, and
it’s going to be entirely his own fucking fault.

“Yeah,” Alex says anyway. “Really.”

"How are you doing, love?" Henry asks from where he's doing something insanely good to
Alex's ass. Again. Because Alex doesn’t know when to fucking stop, and had just let Henry
turn him onto his front like it wasn’t a supremely terrible idea.

He tries to reply; he really does. Alex swears he's usually pretty eloquent – in two whole
languages, actually – but Henry's just gently fucking into him with two fingers where he's
already loose and open from the first time, and it feels so good and dirty that Alex can barely
breathe.

"Mm," Alex just about manages to hum in a vaguely positive way, and then Henry's tongue is
there too – hot and wet and pushing in alongside his fingers – and Alex actually sobs as he
shoves his face into the pillow. He's not gonna survive this. His headstone is gonna read: 'here
lies Alex Claremont-Diaz. He died as he lived; accidentally goading his unspeakably hot
boyfriend into an inadvisable second round'.

Alex manages about five more minutes of Henry working him open again before he’s
begging – literally begging – to be fucked.

“Please,” he sobs, gripping at the sheets and pushing back against Henry’s mouth. “Fuck, oh
my God – Henry, please, please—”

Less than thirty seconds later, Henry’s replacing his tongue and fingers with the achingly
good pressure of his cock, and Alex is just… so gone. How do people do anything else but
fuck all day when they’re this in love; this obsessed with each other? How, once you’ve had a
taste of someone you want this badly all the time, are you meant to stop for breath? To eat?
To sleep? Alex wants to be consumed by this, and the way Henry’s murmuring praise and
filth in his ear as he fucks Alex into the mattress suggests he’s equally far-gone.

“God, Alex, you feel so good,” Henry gasps, and Alex makes a broken noise in his throat and
shoves back for more, no longer able to say anything at all. It’s too much, and nothing’s ever
felt like this; he’s not sure how anything ever could.

Henry’s shaking and Alex knows he must be close. Alex wants to feel it; God, really fucking
wants to feel it.

“Please,” he says again, managing somehow to speak past the heaviness of his tongue, and
Henry makes a wounded noise and grazes his teeth over Alex’s shoulder.

“I want to feel you first,” he says tightly. “Come on, Alex – be a good boy and come for me,
come on.”

Alex bites down on something that’s either his arm or the fucking bedsheets – he’s too gone
to even notice which – and comes with a broken moan, hips still working back against the
fullness of Henry’s cock inside him.

“Fuck,” Henry says succinctly, like he doesn’t have any other words left, and Alex feels wet
heat filling him up as Henry comes with his teeth set to Alex’s shoulder. It’s one of the
weirdest and hottest things Alex has ever experienced in his life, and he has the distinct
feeling he’s going to become addicted to it.
 That might just be Henry though. It’s impossible to tell.

Afterwards, Henry kisses him for a very long time, and Alex lets himself sort of drown in it.
Henry’s a really fucking good kisser, and while he’s probably going to want a repeat of what
just happened as soon as physically possible, Alex thinks he’d give sex up altogether if it
meant he got to keep kissing instead. There’s something about the way it lights him up; the
way Henry feels almost like he’s trying to climb inside Alex with the sweep of his tongue.
It’s the closest Alex has ever come to feeling owned without any kind of sex involved.

He really fucking loves it.

“What do you think the viewers think of our performance?” Henry asks, when their lips are
practically numb and Alex feels like all his bones have been turned to butter. “Real or fake?”

Alex takes Henry’s face in his hands and runs a thumb over his abused lower lip, then lets a
slow smile spread across his own mouth. “Who gives a shit?”

Henry smiles back and kisses him again.

Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.

– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene I

Chapter End Notes

And it's over! Genuinely didn't expect this to get the traction it did, frankly, so thank you
to everyone who enjoyed it - I hope it has brought you joy.

Thank you so much to the HGA - yes, as always, but even more so than usual right now.
Thank you to ifyoustay for being a dirty little gremlin (positive) and to my wife for
being much, much funnier than me. Thank you to ASOS for doing blue light lenses,
which might not seem relevant right now but very much is. I hope this has been a good
ride for most of you, and apologies to those for whom it has not been; also, a great big
smacking kiss on the cheek to CMQ for giving us such stellar content to work from. A
true gem.

Drink some water. No I will not be taking my own advice, shut up.

ADDENDUM: Totally forgot to provide the list of couples detailing who was real and
who was fake. List below!

Couples:
Alex & Henry (F)
Maria & Trenton (F)
Jessica & Marc (F)
Nora & June (R)
Priah & Jason (R - except here the R stands for 'RIP Jason')
Kathleen & Mike (R)
Minnie & Justin (R)
Florence & Niamh (R)
Hugh & Dean (R)
Gaia & Astin (R)
Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!