Take my hand, take my whole life too

hold my hand

[3rd January, 2024]

“Have you planned on telling your family?” Henry asks Alex, they're both on their couch watching bake off, cuddled in a blanket. Henry has an urge nowadays to be attached to Alex, like if he lets go, Alex would disappear into thin air.
Alex sighs “mhm, we can call them for lunch tomorrow and tell them. How's the idea?” Alex asks, squeezing Henry slightly. Henry doesn't say anything but nods, because he knows he'll cry if he says even a single word.

The next morning, Henry gets ready to go to the shelter. He has just had a shower and Alex is still asleep, his insomnia is kicking back in again slowly. Alex stretches and wakes up, rubs his eyes and back hugs Henry while he's lost in thoughts.
“Good morning baby” he says in his sleepy voice and kisses Henry's neck gently. He turns around and hugs him tightly and kisses him when he pulls away. “You look good baby” Alex remarks as Henry turns back again to fasten his buttons and put on a tie. Alex bends down and grabs a tie and starts fastening it “I can do it mys” Henry interrupts him and Alex shuts him up by kissing him again “shh let me do it, also you work with kids at a shelter, wouldn't kill you to buy a few ties with cute patterns” Alex says and Henry hums “buy some for me then, you have impeccable taste, love. I'm an example” Henry says and Alex smiles “yup, absolutely right” he replies and hugs him again. “Have you called everyone for lunch?” Henry asks him “yup, everyone in my family, but we're going to tell Pez and Bea too as soon as they're in America” he says and Henry nods again as he walks out of the room to brew himself some tea and coffee for Alex.

June puts the key in the lock and opens the door to Alex and Henry's apartment, Henry is wearing an apron and setting up the dining table and Alex is cleaning the kitchen top. “Heyy lil bit” June says as she walks up to Alex and hugs him, Nora follows soon after hugging Henry. Henry can hear Oscar and Ellen leaving their car and entering their home. “Hi maa, hi dad” Alex smiles and says to them both hugging them. As Henry is finished setting the table up he goes to join all of them at the couch. June steals the tv remote from Alex and tunes into bbc to turn on the telecast of pride and prejudice and leans back with Nora. Ellen walks up to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water and talk to Henry “you called everyone out of the blue, is everything alright sugar?” She asked him and he used his royal smile in front of her “yup, mum. Please call everyone for lunch” he turns away from her, not able to look her in the eyes and lie. This worries her further about what's up.

Midway lunch, Alex stands up and coughs to get everyone's attention.
“I need to say something important” Henry stands up too and loops his arm around Alex's waist and sighs. “I went to the hospital a few days ago…” he says and prefers to sit down, knowing he feels weak in his knees. “A tumour was detected in my body, and lab tests say it's cancerous” he can hear everyone audibly gasp, “if this is some sick prank, I will shoot you and ask Zahra to hide the body” June says and Alex grins a bit, but the stream of tears running down his cheeks say otherwise about his feelings.

“I'm not kidding. I can show you all the reports if you wish” he says, and Henry squeezes his hand thrice ‘earth to Alex’ the words ring in his ears. Ellen gets up and hugs him, patting his back as she realises something in his back.
“What's this sugar?” She touches that part of his back “it's a tube installed for chemotherapy, my appointment is the day after tomorrow.” He says and Nora perks up with a question, “did the doctors tell you about the stage?” She asks and Henry answers for him “it's stage two” he says with a sigh and his heart drops again. His father was diagnosed at stage 1, not stage 2, which meant Alex was hiding his symptoms and pain for a long time, he didn't want to show anyone how much he needs or hurts.

Henry controls his emotions, till all the questions fade away and they're all in silence, sitting together cuddled up on the couch, with the voice of Mr. Darcy faintly playing in the background. Henry almost feels Deja vu, his father cuddled up with him and Beatrice, his mother cuddled up with a young Philip sitting in Henry's odd little room. He didn't want his brain to remind him of this memory again, as he knows the end to this story, and he cannot mourn another story.

Eventually, everyone gets up and leaves, but Alex is still with him, and he prays he forever will be. He prays his destiny doesn't fail him yet again.

His brain sorts through the memories as he remembers another aspect, the hair loss. Henry almost sobs thinking this, his husband losing his beautiful brown curls which he loved to curl his fingers around, he feels almost selfish for caring so much about his physical appearance but it still hurts him as he thinks of all the memories tied to his hair, their first kiss, the tack room incident, his hair when he first wakes up in the morning, he'll miss all of that soon. The only thing that brings him comfort is that Alex will still wake up beside him, who cares about whether or not he has fluffy hair or not, at least he has the person who once had these hair.

He wants to distract himself from these thoughts right now, he opens a drawer underneath his bookshelf and takes out a crochet hook and yarn. Maybe if he makes a hat for him, the spirit of his hair will be attached to it.

He absolutely dreads Friday, the last day he will be able to see his husband in his full glory.