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"If you wish for me to call you Harry," McDonald says, lightly, "then you ought to call me Alexander. It's only fair."
Harry startles, looking up from the medical volume he's been pouring over for at least a half-hour, and blinks in McDonald's direction. "I'm sorry?"
McDonald chuckles, and it's a pleasant sound. "Alexander. My name, Mr Goodsir—Harry, if you'd still like us to be on those terms."
"I would, yes, I would—I would like that very much," Harry stammers, surprised. He'd thought that McDonald had forgotten their conversation, or at least that he'd elected to pretend that he had. "Alexander. Yes. Thank you."
McDonald—Alexander—smiles softly at him, and slowly crosses the room. Harry stills, his breath quickening. "You know," he starts again, in a quieter voice, "Stephen's told me quite a lot about you."
"Has— has he?" Harry does not need to ask what sort of topics they have discussed, in reference to him. There is only one that can be broached in this way—in private, in the dark, in hushed tones, and with Christian names on their lips. "He— he did tell me that it was okay, but I didn't— it was okay, wasn't it?" Despite Alexander's gentle expression, he is starting to panic, and he does not like it.
Alexander takes Harry's wrist in hand, feeling his racing heart with one practised thumb, and Harry gulps. "Of course it was okay," Alexander reassures him. "Do you think I would be speaking to you, now, like this, if it wasn't?" His expression dips, for a moment, and Harry catches the briefest hint of a frown. "Stephen… did inform you of the terms of your—our—arrangement, yes? This… shouldn't be a surprise to you."
"Yes— no— I mean, he did, I simply—" Harry takes a half-step back and winces at how his words fail to coherently come out of his mouth. "I— I thought that it was just— I didn't think—"
Alexander lifts his other hand to Harry's chin and holds him steady, forcing their eyes to meet. "Harry," he murmurs, "I am not, and will not be, angry with you. Speak the truth."
"I assumed it was for… fairness," Harry admits, breathlessly, and hopelessly captured by Alexander's warm gaze. "And that you would not actually… pursue such things, with me. That you were simply agreeing to… to make Stephen happy."
"Oh, Harry." Alexander says his name like a prayer, and with such tenderness that Harry feels as if he might cry. He has made a mistake, and he's mortified, and now Alexander is going to send him away—to his temporary cabin, perhaps even back to Erebus, and he will have to halt his dalliances with Stephen, as well—and Harry cannot breathe. "Is it alright if I kiss you?"
Harry's thoughts screech to a complete and utter halt. "What?" he squeaks, deeply taken aback and unable to reorient himself.
Alexander studies him for a moment, then rephrases. "I'm going to kiss you now," he states, simply, "and if you do not want that, turn your head away, or say 'no'." He leans in carefully, with plenty of time for Harry to do either of those things; he does not take advantage of it, and accepts the embrace.
Kissing Alexander is different from kissing Stephen; he is endless warmth and care to Stephen's chilly and calculated detachment, and Harry instantly does not know how he has survived thus far with one and not the other. The hand on Harry's face moves to cup his cheek, leading him gently through the movements, and the other releases his wrist and slides to his hip, instead. The kiss remains muted for another moment, until Alexander breaks away to breathe and search the obvious novel of Harry's face.
Harry cannot find words, and he does not try, but it turns out to all be very simple, once his mind is functioning again. He is cold. Alexander is hot. And with all that has happened, Harry needs him now more than anything.
Awkwardly, Harry flings his arms around Alexander's neck and closes the gap once more. Alexander is eager, then, when he kisses back, and once they must separate again, the air is heavy and thick with something unnameable and stifling.
"Perhaps," Alexander says, panting, "we ought to continue this conversation in my cabin, and with less clothes on."
Harry blinks twice, head fuzzy with desire. "Ah— yes. Of—of course, Doctor." He catches his slip immediately, and rectifies his statement with a simple, "Alexander."
Alexander simply gives him a good-natured smile. "Well. After you, then—Doctor." He lets it hang for a moment, then adds, teasingly, "Harry, I mean."
Harry flushes bright red, and does not bother to correct him.