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Alex’s satchel dropped carelessly to the ground by his desk at 9:01 as he made a beeline for the coffee pot in the break room. He pours the sludgy, bitter dregs into his mug and sets to brewing a new pot for his next cup. While he waits for the percolator, Alex pokes his head around the doorway, immediately spotting hunched shoulders in a brown knit sweater.
Henry Fox, head bent over an expense report, is Alex’s nemesis. Everyone at the office adores him, except for Alex. Alex’s best friend, Nora, asked him once why he dislikes Henry. Alex has a list. He hates the ugly wool sweaters he wears over his button-ups and the curl of his neat handwriting. His stomach cartwheels at the photo framed on Henry's desk of him and his beagle—an adorable creature that has been shamefully named David—in matching Christmas pajamas, his hair gently rumpled, eyes crinkled with a genuine smile. He hates the way his stomach drops when Henry's British accent clings to his name. He hates how perfect Henry looks now, how calm, cool, collected, not a hair out of place. Alex wants to rip him to shreds, push him to the edge, make him snap.
Nora called him an idiot. His older sister June, overhearing the end of the conversation, jumped in, teasing him for the effort he puts into noticing Henry instead of ignoring him. Alex invited them to mind their own business.
Alex’s feet carry him to Henry’s desk before he consciously makes the decision to approach.
Henry looks up from his paperwork and catches Alex standing over him. “Good morning?” He cocks his head slightly, like a confused dog. His eyes, despite being the bluest blue on the planet, do not have the creepy husky-like stare. His blond hair, turning to spun gold in the fluorescent light above them, remains neatly in place. Alex wants to mess up his pomade-formed coiff.
“Busy writing off all your new button-ups as business expenses?”
Henry scrunches his nose. “No, I would quite like to keep my job, thank you very much.”
“Otherwise you’d have to sell feet pics on OnlyFans to afford your Jane Austen collection,” Alex drawls. “Wouldn’t that be a shame.”
Henry bites his lip as if holding back a smirk. “Would you like a picture of my feet, Claremont-Diaz?” he asks dryly.
Alex huffs, feeling heat flood to his cheeks. “Your middle toe is probably longer than your big toe. Like those aye-ayes. Now that I think about it, you look like an aye-aye with those large eyes of yours.”
“And you act like a red panda, so I guess this firm is used to hiring Boreoeutheria.”
“Of course you know the closest taxonomic relations of two random mammals, you sweater-wearing dork.”
Henry’s cheeks flush. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be cozy and professional at the same time.”
“It’s May, Fox, you’re going to have a heatstroke.”
Henry rolls his eyes. “Well, this has been an enlightening conversation, Alex, but some of us are trying to do our jobs. Please enjoy your battery acid at your desk.” Henry makes a shooing motion as he turns his attention back to the expense report.
Alex stalks back to his desk, feeling the telltale rush of adrenaline after prompting a reaction from Henry. He doesn’t know why riling Henry up makes him feel so good, and he doesn’t care to analyze it, despite June and Nora’s prodding.
He grins to himself as he glances across the desk and sees the red mottling of Henry’s cheeks. He takes another sip of coffee.
The day passes by much like any other, with Alex trading snipes and barbs with Henry anywhere and everywhere.
Alex sticks a crude sticky note to the back of Henry's monitor, and Henry passes it back across the desk with grammatical corrections in red pen.
When Henry went to the break room, Alex’s long-empty coffee mug needed to be refilled. Alex, watching Henry add three teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk to his mug of Earl Gray, makes a jab about his sweet tooth. Henry counters that only psychopaths drink black coffee with just cinnamon and that while they were on the subject, wasn’t Alex complaining about needing more coffee just a minute ago, so where was his mug?
When Alex needed to print a contract for a client and noticed Henry left a business card on the output tray, the only reasonable thing for Alex to do is to deliver them to Henry’s desk and make fun of him for using Verdana, to which Henry responds that Verdana was a respectable font and that it wasn’t like he used Comic Sans during a quarterly presentation like a certain someone he could name.
Alex likes it when he pushes and Henry pushes back. He likes it when Henry comes back with a witty remark that Alex can’t counter and he has to cede his point almost as much as he relishes the rare occasion that he manages to leave Henry speechless, the other man blustering as Alex walks away.
Five o’ clock rolls around, and most people start shuffling around their things. Alex stays put, continuing to work through the noise. To his surprise, Henry is doing the same across the room.
Alex’s eyes bore into him quizzically. Typically, Henry practically runs out the door while Alex is the lone straggler, knowing he won’t be able to sleep if he leaves a project unfinished. Why is Henry still steadfastly typing away?
Nora walks past Alex’s desk as she heads to the door. “Don’t stay too late, Alejandro,” she says as she leans into his personal space and ruffles his dark hair.
Alex bats her hand from his head, protective of his curls. “Don’t tell me how to live my life,” he shoots back.
“I’ll get June involved,” Nora counters, turning toward an unsuspecting Henry. “Hen.”
Henry visibly startles, head whipping up from his laptop screen. “Yes?” he asks as Alex dies of laughter.
“You’ll make sure he leaves when you do?”
Henry side eyes Alex, who sticks his tongue out at him. “I’ll do what I can.”
“You’re a gem,” she says, blowing them each a kiss. “Don’t kill each other. Or do and solve about a third of my problems.” With that, she strides away and out the door.
With Nora’s departure, the air shifts. Alex is suddenly aware it is just the two of them on the floor, working silently save for the sound of pencils scratching on paper and the clacking of typing. He does his best to not glance over at Henry while he finds his groove among the ordering forms, failing more often than he cares to admit.
Around seven, Henry finally looks up from his laptop. “How much more work do you have to do?”
Alex doesn’t glance up from his paperwork. “Probably another twenty minutes’ worth.”
He doesn’t think much of it as he gets back to his work, but he’s surprised when he finally resurfaces from the file to see Henry, still at his desk, knee bent over his other leg, reading a paperback. “What are you doing?”
Henry looks up and gives him a dry look. “Reading. I know you’ve heard of it.”
Alex huffs. “No shit. Why are you waiting for me?”
Henry shrugged. “I’d rather not be on Nora’s bad side. She’d probably ransom my dog.”
“David,” Alex supplies. "Because he's an accountant."
“It's after Bowie,” Henry shoots back, incredulously.
Alex huffs to disguise a laugh while he packs his satchel. When he’s finally done, he finds Henry standing behind his desk, bag slung across his shoulder.
“Well then?” Alex prompts, giving a dramatic hand roll towards the door.
“After you.”
Alex rolls his eyes and strides out the door towards the elevator. He pushes the call button, and the two stare at each other in awkward silence before it arrives with a ding.
They step inside and Alex pushes the first-floor button. Alex is not exactly known for his impulse control. So, when the idea of pushing the stop button and pretending the elevator broke to spook Henry comes to fruition, he doesn’t think twice before complying.
The elevator lurches to a halt. The indicator light shows that they are between floors 4 and 3.
“Shit,” Alex curses. He makes a show of going to turn on his phone, but the screen remains black. “Double shit. I forgot to charge it. What about you, Fox?”
He turns around to face Henry. The man in question has removed his sweater to reveal an unknotted grey tie and is popping a button on his white dress shirt. “Fox?”
“What?’ Henry asks.
“Your phone?” Alex prompts, ignoring Henry’s aloofness.
Henry stares at him for a beat before the words seem to catch up to him. He pulls his phone out of his pocket with trembling fingers. “No signal.”
“Great,” Alex mutters, biting the inside of his lip to hide his smile. He’ll let Henry sweat it for a few minutes and then hit the button and send them on their merry way.
He doesn’t expect Henry to stagger backwards, legs moving as if through jelly.
“Fox?” Alex asks. “Are you alright?”
Henry nods, his back pressed into the far corner of the elevator, eyes squeezed shut. “Yes, fine, everything’s fine.”
“You don’t sound fine,” Alex says, approaching cautiously.
Henry unceremoniously slides down to the floor, looking small in a way Alex has never seen him look before. His breathing is coming in great, shaking heaves.
“Woah, hey!” Alex drops down next to him. He is starting to realize this perhaps was not his best idea. “It’ll be okay.”
He opens his mouth to continue, but Henry beats him to it. “It is not going to be okay!” he snaps. Alex is too stunned to speak. The other man continues like a steamroller. “We are stuck here, with no cell service, at almost 8PM on a Friday! No one is going to come looking for us! We are going to be stuck here all weekend and probably die in this elevator!” Henry’s breathing turns sharper.
Alex shakes himself from his stupor. Desperately, he grabs Henry’s hand and squeezes tight, hoping to ground him. “Henry, I know it’s hard, but you’ve gotta breathe.”
“I-I can’t,” Henry gasps, tears streaming down his face, thick droplets clinging to his eyelashes.
“Yes, you can,” Alex said patiently. “Come on, H, follow my breathing.” Alex pulls the taller man awkwardly into himself, putting one of Henry’s hands on his chest. “Breathe in for one, two, three, four and hold it for four, three, two, one. Let it out. One, two, three four, hold it four, three, two, one.” After a few repetitions, the other man shakily follows the pattern, and Alex pulls him tighter.
Eventually, Henry’s breathing slows and he tries to pull back. Alex stops him. “Are you alright?” he asks.
Henry nods, wiping at his face. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice pitifully small.
“Hey, none of that now,” Alex chides gently. “It’s a normal reaction to have. This is a very stressful situation, but it’s gonna be even worse if you spiral.”
Henry scoffs an incredulous laugh. “What else am I meant to do? The prospects of someone deciding to come back are relatively small. Sure, Nora knows that we were still here when she left, but it will take her and June a while to cotton on to the fact that you never made it back. David is going to worry where I am if I'm not home soon and I'll stress him out. We’re going to run out of air in here, or die of dehydration, or perhaps I’ll die and you’ll cannibalize me, and—”
“Stop!” Alex says, wanting to cut off that train of thought as quickly as possible. “I’m not cannibalizing you, and we aren’t going to die. I hit the stop button to be a dick.”
Henry goes rigid. “Oh.”
“I thought you’d get annoyed. I’m sorry. I would’ve told you sooner, but you were a mess, and I wanted to comfort you first.”
“I have been told I’m an ugly crier,” Henry says with a sheepish laugh, pulling away.
“Shut up, you’re a beautiful crier.”
Henry’s mouth is partially open, his cheeks rapidly turning red. Alex flashes back to all his attempts at getting under Henry’s skin to earn the same color change. He finds he likes this way of achieving it better. He also realizes with a jolt that Henry is beautiful, and that this isn’t the first time he’s thought so. Looking back, he sees that angrily ranting about his infuriatingly nice physical features was probably not about anger. “Once we get out of here, do you want to get dinner?” Alex asks.
Henry blinks owlishly. “What?”
Alex has to bite back a grin. “Dinner, Fox. I’m asking you to dinner and see where it goes. If you’d like that.”
"Well, I have to get home to David," Henry says.
Alex deflates. "Right, yeah, of course."
"We can pick up take out on the way to my apartment," Henry blurts. He clears his throat, blushing, and adds, "If you're amenable to that."
Alex grins. "If I'm amenable, he says. Lead the way, baby." Henry turns bright red, and Alex's grin widens. "Oh? So that's a thing."
Henry swats at his arm. "Hush you. You’re paying for making me think we were trapped in an elevator.”
“Deal,” Alex says with a grin. “Let’s get out of here.” Alex pulls Henry up to standing and pushes the emergency stop button again with the hand not holding Henry’s. The elevator continues to the first floor.