“It’s called NORA.” Henry barely spares Alex a glance, heading straight for the controls; he and NORA know each other well enough by now that she hums to life under his palms. “Navigational Oscillation of Relative Astronomy. And before you ask, no, I didn’t come up with the name. I’d tell you to take it up with the Time Lords, but…” he trails off as Alex gasps loudly, realising too late that he forgot to warn the man before opening the doors.  “It’s… bigger! On the inside! From the outside it looks small, but then inside… all this space!” There’s something odd about the way Alex is holding himself—his too-bright expression as he looks around, the way his palm presses to the centre of his chest instead of over his heart—but Henry doesn’t have time to figure it out, nor to hold this stranger’s hand through a fairly basic level of dimensional transcendentality. His Alex is running around out there somewhere, wearing god-knows-which of his dozen faces and liable to return to NORA at some point. And if he finds out Henry’s here… He knows exactly what will happen if Alex—his Alex—finds him. Henry’s not an idiot, and his diary is almost full.  But that’s a problem for another time. Right now, he has a job to do. And this man who invited himself along, with the right name and the wrong face, is nothing short of a distraction.

“You haven’t just met tonight, darlings.” Pez pauses. “Well, technically, you did—but tonight isn’t the first tonight you’ve had. Based on the time energy wafting off you, I’d venture you’ve had quite a few.” “Quite a few…” “Hundreds,” Pez says. “Quite a few hundreds, I’d say.” Alex wants to argue. He wants to say that’s impossible; he met Henry less than an hour ago. Except, when he looks into those vivid blue eyes, he knows—like a word on the tip of his tongue, a memory that he can’t quite place, an itch at the base of his skull. He can see it: the peeling corner of the wallpaper. All he needs to do is pull.

Henry smiles at their waitress and reaches over to hold Alex’s chin gently between his thumb and forefinger. He fixes Alex with a fond gaze and says, “I’m the luckiest man all around.”  And then he leans in and presses a soft kiss to Alex’s cheek, his lips lingering. It makes Alex’s skin tingle, all of his attention zeroed in on those few small points of contact. He can’t help but melt into that touch, the warmth and tenderness spreading through his entire body until it’s all that he can feel—just Henry, his Henry.  That comfort is a steady heat in his body, sparking embers that make the world seem much less cold.  And then Henry nuzzles, his nose pressing into the skin of Alex’s cheek before he pulls away and— Oh.

“And what are you going to do?”

Henry cups Alex’s cheek in his palm and leans in for a kiss that’s part check-in, part promise of what’s to come and Alex is so fucking turned on already that he might die.

When he breaks the kiss, Henry leans back against the counter and picks up his mug again.

“I’m going to finish my tea.”

“Do you have any idea,” Alex starts, no greeting or acknowledgement that these are the first words they’ve exchanged in three years in sight as he runs a hand through his curls, “how many James Smiths there are in the DMV?”

“A great deal, I should imagine.” James’ eyes absolutely do not follow the way Alex’s fingers run through his hair before disappearing into the pocket of his chinos. He’s well aware that his name is nothing special; he’ll never know if the choice was a deliberate on, picked to ensure that he would be lost in a sea of anonymity.

“About 738, according to my friend Nora. It sure fucking felt like it when I was combing through social media profiles to find out where you worked.” He glances over at Tiff, whose gaze is flickering between the two of them; James can now more easily interpret the expression he couldn’t before. It’s something that’s half holy hell, he’s even more attractive in person and half what does the First Son want with you?

James can’t bring himself to disagree with either assertion.

The eyes are the hardest part, or so Nora says. All the Secret Service agents’ eyes have a kind of strange metallic glint behind them. Often it’s not even noticeable, but if you look too closely, it becomes obvious. Prince Henry’s eyes are flawless, though. Just endless, perfect blue. Really, the only flaw Alex can see in this model is that they made him inhumanly beautiful. No real person has lips like that.

“Why did you do it?” Henry's voice shocks him, fracturing that silence with its sharp edge. Alex already knows, but he still asks, “Do what?”  “Kiss me.”  To sell the bit gets caught behind Alex's teeth, the words too heavy on his tongue to slip past his lips. His instinct is to deflect, to toss his vulnerable heart into a locked box inside his already cracked open chest. It's a defense mechanism, a desperate desire to protect himself from giving too much away, from admitting that he's fallen in love with his best friend so irreversibly that he'll never recover from a rejection.

“I’ll try my best not to kiss you.” “I think we might be asked to leave.” Alex shrugs. “If we didn’t burn in the Vatican, sweetheart, we’re not going to burn here.” “That was before I got you off in the shower,” Henry murmurs, watching Alex’s head snap towards him at a speed that might make someone suggest he undergo an exorcism. “I’ve really ruined you now.” “Confessional sex is definitely off the cards then.”

Alex swallows audibly, eyes darting all over Henry’s face. “Your Ro— Henry.” And oh, that’s the timbre with which Henry wants to hear his name come out of Alex’s mouth; it’s low and a little frantic, and it tugs at something in Henry’s navel. “I’m twice your age.”  “Do you think I’m twenty?” “Jesus Christ, I rounded for dramatic effect.” Alex fixes him with a look that’s half frustration, half something Alex is trying very hard not to let show. The thing is, though, that Henry became an expert at covert glances and hidden signals during his time at Oxford, and he’d bet his entire ridiculous Crown allowance that Alex wants him as badly as he wants Alex.