give me your hand and take what you will tonight
[after this.]
* @Alexander picks a bedroom and opens the door, happy enough to just ... have some silence and space.
[Henry] "What happened?" And now Henry chooses to break that silence, closing the door behind them and casting about for another door leading to a bathroom with a sink and hopefully some bandages- lucky for them, it exists.
[@Alexander] "They came in through the back and shot one of the workers that tried to stop them," he says, voice calm. "Two men came from the front into where we were. We stopped them and moved forward, got into it with the men out there, and then found you." It sounds far too simple. "There were kids in the building. You can Caius..?"
[Henry] "Fuck," Henry says, simply, and he manages to make it sound pained as well. "We got them out. You're sure they killed him?"
[@Alexander] "They used a silencer." He sets his jacket - ruined without serious care - aside. That fact, he thinks, explains his assumption.
* Henry takes that in silence again, turning on the taps in the bathroom sink and wetting a hand towel he's sure won't be missed under them. "You 'got into it'?"
* @Alexander gives that a respectful pause, but he's not ashamed when he answers. "I wasn't going to let them kill or hosage either of us."
[Henry] "No. I know." He doesn't sound upset about that, exactly. "Here." He turns and cups the uninjured side of Alex's face in his hand, concentrating on carefully wiping away the blood and debris clinging to his wounds.
[@Alexander] ...*hostage
* @Alexander meets his eyes, if Henry will let him, and holds still for that. "I frightened you." Not a question.
[Henry] "How many people have you killed?" Henry's avoidance of eye contact is deliberate, and the way that question is phrased is too.
* @Alexander 's breath catches for a moment. It's not a question he can give a throw-away answer to, and he knows that, today, life is dearly important. Finally, he says: "I don't keep score like a mercenary," and his voice is constricted with emotion.
* Henry puts the washcloth down, examining his injuries more closely. "We're going to need- no, Alex, you know what, you didn't 'frighten' me, you're currently /terrifying/ me, I don't even-" For all he's saying in his tired, frustrated tone, he's also leaning forward with closed eyes to be closer to him. "I don't know anything about you, do I?" (He says it with something like grief.)
[@Alexander] "I /told you/ when I first met you in that restaurant that I'd been in war zones before," he says, voice emphatic and - for the first time - with a note of fear in it. Guns and killing can't scare him, but Henry's sadness does. He touches his face, hands clean now. "I /can't/ let people have.. that kind of power over me--" he has to force that out, such a vulnerable admission.
[Henry] "No- no, I don't mean- /Alex/." He puts his arms around him, protective as always, but more so, with greater urgency now, knowing there's something more permanent than leaving that could have happened today. "They could have- and I was all the way across the /fucking building/."
[@Alexander] "I had to believe that you'd be okay, that you could do anything," he tells him in a rush, the anxiety and adrenaline leaving him all at once as Henry pulls him close. "Or else I'd have lost it--"
* Henry is very nearly crushing Alex again, but he can't help it- he hates days like these, when what he's trying to build up is attacked at the foundations, when people he knows die because some people see anything that doesn't directly benefit them as a threat. And now there's Alex, and this complication in an already complicated relationship. "They're lucky they were dead when I got there."
* @Alexander revels in it, every bruise and scrape reminding him how alive he is, that this man in his arms is /his/. "I'm strong enough for this life," he tells him, voice a rough whisper, arms around his neck. "No one will take me from you."
[Henry] "Good," he says, softly tired again. "I still need to take care of your face." Take care of you in general- he still feels lost, on the edges of something important he can't see because he's too close, but God (and Alex's gods), help him, he doesn't think he can step back for the bigger picture.
[@Alexander] "I'm right here," he promises him quietly, hands over his hair, "I'm right here." After a while he lets himself unwind from him, hands still at Henry's sides, letting him tend to him if he wants to - Alex is content to sit and touch him like this, like he can't be grounded without some physical connection.
* Henry would have trouble admitting how much it means to hear Alex say that, being so obvious, but that and continuing to clean Alex up (he applies hydrogen peroxide from under the sink to his cuts, what with the fact Alex can't complain about it considering recent events) steadies him. It's the first step in putting everything back together.
* @Alexander sits patiently, trusting Henry /completely/. He doesn't complain at any stinging, just closes his eyes and waits, hands grasping at him every so often. There's still half-dried blood all over his clothes, and he'll have to get out of those soon (seeing as it's just disgusting).
[Henry] "I don't think there are bandages in here," Henry says, after making a search for said objects. "You should be okay, it's not bleeding so much anymore."
[@Alexander] "It's not that bad," he says, hand still on Henry's side. "Just some scrapes. My hearing will be worse than anything." He'll sleep with earplugs in for a few days and probably be fine; his ears are ringing now, but he can ignore it. "I should probably take a shower." He tugs Henry a bit closer.
[Henry] "Me too." He has some blood on him now, if only faint transfers from Alex, and more importantly he doesn't want to let him out of his reach for any amount of time. There's nothing sexual going through his mind right now, just that. He'll help Alex take his shirt off, if he lets him.
* @Alexander does let him, and he's a bit bruised up from the two that struggled - maybe now the scars that litter his body have more of a context, but he doesn't make any move to cover himself.
[Henry] That's not worrying. Henry ghosts his fingertips over the bruises, frowning, but they have more clothes to lose that he makes short work of before bringing them both to the shower, turning on the water and testing its heat with his hand. While it warms up, he says, "So we're leaving?"
[@Alexander] "It would be suicidal and politically foolish for either of us to stay," he says quietly, one hand rubbing the back of Henry's neck absently. "I.. /want/ you to come with me, to California. If you want to."
* Henry should think about this- "I don't have anywhere else I want to be." He puts his wet hand on his waist and pushes him under the water first, following and closing the translucent shower door behind them.
[@Alexander] "Mmph-" water, hi. Alex leans his head back and sighs, hands on Henry's shoulders. "I hear it's raining there, finally. It'll be nice to sit inside and watch the clouds.."
[Henry] "Mmhm." There's not enough water for the two of them to share if they're not close together, or so Henry's rationale for wrapping his arms around Alex again would go. He cups the back of Alex's neck, his own head bowed close to Alex's own.
* @Alexander relaxes against him, coiled close, palms against his shoulder blades. Moving and conversation seem highly overrated; warm water washes sweat and blood and tension away from him, and the feeling of their skin and heartbeats together is more than he could ask for.
* Henry will take this chance to reassure himself that Alex is here and relatively whole, moving his hands over his back and sides. He knows which of them belongs to the other, and he's not sorry for it. Eventually the water starts to wrinkle his fingers, and after kissing Alex's forehead he reaches behind him to turn it off.
* @Alexander kisses his neck, almost chaste, just reassuring and intimate - it's difficult to want to untangle from him even to dry off, though he does smile softly as he dumps a towel over Henry's head and gently ruffles his hair.
* Henry smiles back, and though exhausted, and still worried, it's real. He brushes Alex's hands away and handles drying himself, then look at their pile of stained clothes. "When are we expecting Joe?"
[@Alexander] "He should be here soon. I can text him and say we're going to sleep, though." Because.. yes. He wraps his arms around Henry, still insistant on touching him.
[Henry] "That's probably a good idea," and he's very grateful for not having to ask for it himself. It's too early in the day to sleep, still, but it feels a lot later.
* @Alexander leaves his clothes where they are after fishing out his cell phone, and texts Joe before turning the thing off entirely and tugging Henry to bed, exhaustion creeping up on him. As much as he'd like to be, he's just not a /warrior/ in this life, and doesn't have the trained-since-boyhood stamina to fight on the front lines for days on end.
* Henry would have to argue that point about being a warrior, but he doesn't know any better. He goes to bed willingly, kicking back blankets to nestle them underneath them- and you're the little spoon, Alex, enjoy that.
* @Alexander will tolerate this because he is too tired to tackle him or anything else ridiculous, and pulls Henry's arms around him, fingers laced. He brings one hand up to kiss his knuckles, thankful.
[Henry] It's only because Alex is here that they aren't bruised. He presses his face into Alex's still damp hair and breathes, curled up tightly around him. He can't think of any words, and now that they're lying down and his eyes are closed it's only a matter of minutes before he's entirely asleep.
And so he does sleep, in this house that Mina has borrowed, despite everything. He has Alex and they're not in immediate danger, so why not? It's as sane a thing to do as anything else. If he sleeps he can postpone the fallout for a while longer and that's necessary. When he wakes up, he'll call to find out how the children are doing, and who it was that died.
But for now he stays still (if not quite peaceful) wrapped around Alex like he was born to fit him exactly like this.