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The official order came down from his neurologist, Dr. Chen at 1:00 PM: Alex was scheduled to have a sleep-deprived EEG, scheduled for 2PM the following day.
It all started when a migraine that had hit Alex just after he had awoken around 7am that morning, complete with a terrifying, shimmering aura that he always dreaded, this one much more than normal as it appeared less like a light show and more like a textbook description of a focal seizure.
Alex didn’t even really need to explain it to Henry, he had seen the sheer panic in his expression as it happened, and wholeheartedly agreed the experience was more than enough to warrant a deeper look.
"No sleep for 24 hours before the appointment, Mr. Claremont-Diaz," the Neurology resident had instructed, her tone clinical but kind. "And absolutely no caffeine. None at all. That means no coffee, no soda, no tea, no chocolate, nothing."
Alex had stared at the wall, already mourning the coffee he hadn't even had yet. "No coffee. For twenty-four hours?! You realize you’re talking to a man whose bloodstream is roughly 90% espresso, right?"
Henry had squeezed his shoulder. "We’ll get through it, darling. I’ll sleep for a few hours into the evening, and then wake up by nightfall, so I can keep you awake for the full 24 hours until your appointment and still be rested enough to drive you.”
“Thanks, H.” Alex mumbled half-heartedly. He was grateful for his fiance’s willingness to take care of him, but he knew it was going to be a rough 24 hours. He just hoped he didn’t fuck everything they had up.
Henry noticed his sour expression right away and was able to get Alex to open up about his anxiety of being too irritable or pushing Henry away and irreparably damaging their relationship.
“It’ll be okay, love. I’ll take everything with a massive grain of salt. I know this isn’t going to be the best time we’ve ever spent together, but it might not be as horrible as you think either. Let’s just try to think of it as a very serious and perhaps boring date."
Alex had reluctantly agreed, still wary but feeling much better since airing his feelings, and he busied himself with setting up their new printer, cleaning up the house, and making a grocery list for their shopping trip this upcoming weekend as the evening hours faded into night and Henry slept, just like they planned.
****
Now, at 11:00 PM, the "serious, boring date" had transformed into a surprisingly enjoyable time as they lay sprawled on the living room floor of their brownstone, controllers in hand, locked in a ferocious and largely ridiculous Mario Kart race.
"Oh, you absolute bastard!" Alex yelled, narrowly avoiding a blue shell aimed straight for Henry, only to immediately drive off a cliff. "I hate this game! And I hate you!"
"I am simply better than you, Alex," Henry replied, his voice smooth and slightly smug as he crossed the finish line. He leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to Alex's temple. "And we both know how much you love me. Now, hand over the player 1 controller so I can pick the next track.”
Alex did just that, but not without an eyeroll followed by a random political scandal that randomly popped into his head from when he was in middle school.
"H, did you know…" Alex yawned, rubbing his eyes. "There was this one time—around 2008—when a Texas state senator tried to expense a gold-plated toilet seat. And he claimed it was for 'constituent comfort.' The roasts were legendary. I swear my mom and dad laughed about that one for nearly an entire year."
“That’s quite something, darling…” Henry blinked his eyes in a mix of confusion, humor, and surprise, more than a little unsure what had caused such a seemingly trivial memory to cross Alex’s mind when it had absolutely nothing to do with getting his ass kicked at video games, but whatever.
He supposed that was just something that could happen when your caffeine addicted brain was forced to endure consciousness for just shy of twenty hours. Henry checked his phone, it was nearly 2am, and somehow they still had a full 12 hours left to go.
Less than thirty minutes later, a noticeable shift began as Alex’s laughter became forced, the usually easygoing energy surrounding him growing brittle and then when he was mid-sentence ranting about the idiocracy that is the electoral college, suddenly trailed off and his head bobbed forward.
Henry caught his arm immediately. "Alex! Eyes up here, my little political rebel. Talk to me."
Alex blinked, extremely confused. "Wha—? Oh. Shit. Sorry. I wasn’t sleeping though, I just needed to rest my eyes for a second."
"You were snoring a little, actually," Henry said gently, pulling Alex up onto the sofa. "How about we move around a bit? I’ve got an idea. Operation: Whoever folds the most laundry gets to pick our brunch spots for the next two weeks."
But despite Henry’s enthusiasm, Alex groaned. "Henry, no. My brain is soup. I can’t fight static cling and my ADHD laundry demons right now.”
But Henry wasn’t giving in that easily, instead he pulled Alex gently up from the floor and into a standing position, keeping a hand on his waist to catch him when he swayed.
"Think of it as physical therapy for your attention span," Henry insisted, already heading in the direction of their laundry closet.
And so, they spent the next few hours doing ridiculous, mildly active things: folding laundry as promised, Alex won, only because Henry let him.
Then doing simple yoga poses, which Alex mostly just did to try and nap on Henry’s shoulder, organizing the spice rack, and finally, a surprisingly intense round of twenty questions.
Henry was magnificent—patient, inventive, and utterly focused on Alex, only slipping away once to grab a cup of tea, which he made sure to drink quickly in the privacy of their large bathroom, so as not to rub it into Alex’s face that he couldn’t partake in his much coveted caffeine.
But by 5:00 AM, Alex was utterly miserable and undeniably spiraling.
"I hate this. I hate Dr. Chen and I hate your beautiful and well-rested face," he muttered, swaying on his feet and bouncing lightly off the side of the wall as he tried to pace the kitchen floor.
"I know, darling, but you’re doing brilliantly. Only nine more hours until the test," Henry said, biting the inside of his cheek as he fought to keep his tone optimistic for Alex’s sake, nine more hours sounded like torture and they both knew it.
"Nine hours? That’s like, seventy-two coffee cycles, H! My body is literally vibrating with the need for sleep and caffeine."
Alex stopped pacing, staring at the coffee maker. It was pristine, mocking him with its empty carafe and in a moment of weakness, he walked over, opened the cabinet, and grabbed a fresh bag of coffee grounds.
But before he had even made it three steps, Henry was on him. Grabbing the canister out of his hands and blocking his path to the coffee machine. "No, Alex. Stop." He reminded, his tone firm, but sympathetic.
"Please Hen, just a little bit? A teeny tiny cup? Please give it back, maybe just the smell will keep me sane."
"No," Henry said, his tone unrelenting as he placed the canister on the highest shelf of their pantry before doubling back to slide the carafe out from under the machine, just for good measure.
When Alex pouted, Henry pressed a kiss to his temple, his tone gentle as he reminded, "I’m sorry, darling, but coffee will ruin the test. It will stimulate your brain, which is the exact opposite of what the EEG needs. Remember we talked about this?”
Alex pulled back and snapped, "I know! God, I know! But I’m so tired, Henry! And you’re just standing there, looking gorgeous and caffeinated and telling me what I can’t do!"
The words were sharp, fueled by sheer exhaustion and frustration, but even still he immediately regretted them, seeing the faint hurt flash in Henry’s eyes, quickly masked by that practiced royal composure he felt so guilty for being the cause of.
"I am trying to help you, Alex," Henry said, his tone still perfectly even. "I know you’re exhausted, and I know this is the hardest thing in the world for you. I understand. But we need this test to be accurate. So please. Come sit down. Let me rub your shoulders."
Alex slumped against the counter, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I’m really sorry. That was awful. I’m just… I feel like I’m going to die or burst into tears at any second."
"Well, the former isn’t an option because I forbid it from ever happening… and the latter is entirely understandable and even warranted given the circumstances, so by all means, go for it.”
Alex looked like he might just take him up on that offer for a solid minute, until Henry sighed loudly, “though crying may not be the best option either, since it usually makes you quite tired and that leads back to the entire reason for the breakdown in the first place…”
Alex seemed to consider this logic for a few seconds, his eyes watering as he yawned repeatedly and enormously, before managing a sniffly, “this fucking sucks.”
To which Henry could only nod his agreement, and encourage, “You won’t hear any arguments out of me. But maybe we could shoot for ‘grumpy and cooperative.’ How do you feel about that?"
“Fine.” Alex grumbled before beginning to do toe touches and jumping jacks to stave off the inevitable.
Henry bundled a barely conscious Alex into the car around 1:30pm for their ride to the Neurological outpatient practice, but as much as they both wanted a silent journey, it wasn’t going to happen.
They hadn’t come this far for Alex to fall asleep for twenty minutes now and have it all be for nil, so Henry put on the most aggressive metal music he could find on their Sirius XM and turned it up louder every time Alex dared to close his eyes for longer than a single blink.
By the time they got to the medical building and parked in the winding garage that made Henry’s chest tighten with claustrophobia, the speakers were maxed out and Henry had a pounding headache, but Alex was still awake.
Mission accomplished! He had made it a full 24 hours without both sleep and caffeine, something neither of them ever wanted to experience again, but were still oddly giddy about.
As they made their way into the building, Henry kept a tight grip on Alex’s hand and waist in case he faltered, his balance unsteady at best in his beyond exhausted state. He was twitchy, shaky, and the slightest bump in the sidewalk and then the tile floor made him stumble, as he used every last bit of resolve he possessed just to keep his eyes open.
****
The test itself was surreal. He sat in a recliner, with more than 30 thick wires glued to his scalp, the gel made him shiver even though the layers of his sweater and winter coat.
Henry sat in a plastic chair just off to his right side in the small room, he had given Alex a soft kiss and a whisper of, “be good” before they had begun and kept his eyes on his fiance’s unusual form as all his curls were pushed and clipped every which way and his forehead and scalp were marked for the placement of each electrode, before the gel was layered on and the sensors stuck down with a powerful suction.
Meanwhile, Alex rested his chin against his shoulder and rested his eyes at last, he wondered if they did these things sleep deprived so you just didn’t care about anything they were doing to you and just went along with it, because it was definitely an experience unlike any other.
Just when he was truly about to drift off, he heard the technician’s voice once again as she asked him all sorts of questions, the funniest of which was “who is the President?”, as if he wouldn’t know his own mother’s name.
"Okay, Mr. Claremont-Diaz, we are about to begin the EEG. We're looking for any unusual activity so we need you to be very relaxed, and try to fall asleep," the technician, an older woman with gentle hands, instructed.
“Okay.” Alex agreed, and the technician helped him lean back all the way until he was fully horizontal, then gave him a pillow and a blanket and turned out the lights.
Just before he drifted off to sleep, he could hear Henry’s whisper, “sweet dreams, darling.” in his ear and the next thing he knew all he could hear was the soft nature sounds that had been turned on for white noise.
Try to fall asleep. Alex scoffed internally. After all this effort to stay awake? He closed his eyes. The room was dark, quiet, and warm. For a blissfully short little while, Alex felt himself slip into a deep, heavy state, the perfect reward for his ordeal.
Then, only twenty minutes later, the technician's voice startled him from his well-deserved sleep. "Okay, Mr. Claremont-Diaz, please open your eyes and look at the strobe light.."
With a grumble and a lot of blinking, Alex slowly sat back up as the room lights flashed back on without warning. He was groggy as hell and possibly even more irritated than he had been before getting to sleep at all, but when he felt Henry’s light touch on his thigh, he knew he would be okay.
The flashing strobe lights were disorienting, to say the least. They flashed so bright he couldn’t escape them, even when he closed his eyes tight, like instructed, all he could see was white and swirling colors that made him nauseous.
Nevertheless he endured through ten excruciating rounds of the test, hoping it was working as designed in order to stimulate the brain and essentially make it throw an error code so he never had to do any of this again.
Once the strobe test was finally done and his head pounded and his vision swirled, he was instructed to breathe deeply and rapidly for several minutes, and given a brightly colored pin wheel to help him do it.
Usually he would have found a pinwheel a bit fun, in a childish whimsical way, but in his groggy, grumpy, and now lightheaded from blowing the stupid swirly piece of plastic for four minutes straight mood he was in, he just wanted to go home.
All told, it was two and a half hours of torture, and once the test was nearing its conclusion, he was once again losing the battle against his dire need for sleep.
When the EGG was finally done and no apparent reaction had been triggered, at least to the untrained eye, the technician finally got to work peeling the electrodes off- each one releasing with a mildly unpleasant tugging sensation and then a tiny sting.
He watched as the electrodes, he had counted 36, plus one on each side of his chest, were gathered up and placed in the large sink basin to be cleaned.
He was more than ready to go but the technician was just getting started roughly scrubbing the gel and marker off of each of the 36 electrode sites all across his scalp, forehead, and way too close to his ear canals for his liking.
Once he was finally clean, and refused her offer to restyle his curls, Henry offered him a hand to help him back onto his feet and with a short, “good-bye” from Alex and a “thank you” from Henry, they were off.
"You are very welcome. We’ll send the results to Dr. Chen," the technician replied as she led them back down the maze of hallways to the main lobby. "You did great. Go home and get some rest, Mr. Claremont-Diaz."
The late afternoon sun was blinding as they stepped outside, hand in hand, and closing his eyes and resting his head against the window, in a first of its kind move, Alex didn’t speak for the whole drive home.
Henry drove slowly, carefully avoiding potholes, and meandering through the rush hour traffic, with one hand resting lightly on Alex’s thigh.
"You did so well, sweetheart," Henry murmured, as he pulled up to the curb next to their Brownstone. "You were a bit of a grouch, but got nearly as bad as one could have predicted, given your sudden withdrawal from your coffee addiction.”
Alex only grunted, already fumbling with his seatbelt, which Henry rounded the car and undid for him, as he murmured, “Okay, enough of my teasing, those tests looked like torture and you took them all in stride. You are amazing, Alex and I am so insanely proud of you.”
Alex responded with what he intended to be a chaste kiss, but he suspected turned into more of a half-hearted fishy face as Henry helped him out of the car.
Nearly the second Henry got the door open, Alex pushed into their home, anxious to get to bed for a proper night’s sleep.
Henry left him to his own devices for several minutes before appearing in their bedroom, just as Alex finished pulling on a pair of pajama pants, too exhausted to even bother with a shower, before collapsing into bed.
A small, relieved smile graced Henry’s lips, "Coffee’s brewing, darling," he whispered, pulling the duvet over Alex’s shoulders.
"Thank you, baby," Alex mumbled into the pillow. "I luv you so mush..." he attempted as he burrowed his head tighter into the soft pillow and his eyes fell closed.
Henry chuckled softly, kissing Alex’s brow before sitting down at his side and slowly combing through his messy curls.
Alex wasn’t sure how long he slept, just that he was comfortable and safe, with Henry at his side, and when he awoke it was to the scent of freshly brewed coffee and the touch of Henry’s lips on his cheek.
“Hello, love.” Henry breathed when Alex stirred and Alex wasted no time connecting their lips in a move that was far more successful than he had been hours before, amazing what sleep can do for the human brain and body.
They traded lazy kisses and cuddles for a while, just enjoying each other’s warmth and company, before Alex’s need for caffeine became too strong to deny.
As if somehow sensing it, Henry rolled over and sat up against the headboard, waiting for Alex to do the same before reaching out and grabbing his favorite mug and handing it to him carefully.
Alex held the simple ‘History Huh?’ mug like the holy grail, and took one long, deep gulp, and then sighed—a sound of utter, soul-deep contentment.
He took his time savoring the bitter goodness of the entire mug of liquid life before setting it back on the nightstand with a slight thump.
Still completely wiped out, despite the power nap and the coffee, a heartfelt "I love you," fell from Alex’s lips as he lay back down, his eyes already half-closed again.
"I love you too. Now let’s get you to sleep, and when you wake up, it’s shower time." Henry murmured, his own exhaustion catching up with him at last as he found himself curling up right next to his fiance.
It took less than a second for Alex’s hand to find Henry’s, and he held it loosely, letting the caffeine finally hit his system just as his exhaustion finally claimed him.
He was asleep before Henry could even close his own eyes, so instead he watched him for a long moment, a fond, tired smile on his face, before gently detaching his hand, pulling the blinds, and settling into the armchair beside the bed, pulling out a book.
He was still tired, but seeing Alex finally at peace made every grumpy, challenging hour more than worth it.
And he would wait here, right here, until Alex woke up.