Dive into your creative stream
I haven’t finished the show so I might post later when I finish the last episode and then maybe some changes will be made. But to the few troopers in this fandom (I hope we grow) I hope you enjoy
The first time it happens Henry isn’t expecting it. It’s one thing to know what Alfred is, another to so clearly see the contraptions of life he’s caged himself behind, never to act on the desires he’s so adamantly pushes down, reassuring he doesn’t feel them. And in the short amount of time he has known Alfred he's learnt that the man is nothing if not a stubborn bastard, unyielding, determined to keep control so tightly wound around himself he might snap, that Henry has accepted that this is as far as their partnership will go.
So it takes him by surprise as he blinks his eyes open the morning after Alfred had come barging in, high, out of his mind but most unsettling, scared, that had Henry opening his door, letting him close.
Alfred’s body is turned towards him, his touch fluttering lightly across his cheek as the morning light gleams through the curtains. It must be early he manages to think, the street downstairs quiet.
He keeps his face as neutral as he can, doesn’t want to spook Alfred, too intrigued by the development in the man in front of him that he only dares to breathe, his mouth parting slightly as Alfred’s fingers trail downwards, almost reverently on his skin. But Alfred doesn’t seem deterred, he seems slightly transfixed instead, and when his fingers continue its path to Henry’s lips his own hand moves by its own accord, drawn to the other man in a way he can’t quite explain as he touches the surprisingly soft beard, thumb drawing circles underneath Alfred’s eye.