Inescapable History, Inescapable Fates

For spying purposes!

After dinner, he and Pez met up in Pez's room to continue their investigation and get stupid drunk, a supremely unproductive combination. Henry had avoided his room all day. If the boy was a spy, Henry liked making him worry that he had fucked up part of his assignment already. And if he wasn't - this whole investigation felt perfectly absurd - Henry didn't like the mushy butterflies that beat around his chest every time he saw the boy. Alex. Alex Claremont-Diaz.

Pez had learned Alex's last name from Shaan and that he was born in a former British colony and had acquired British citizenship through his mom. They couldn't get any information beyond that, and even that was just what Shaan had learned by talking informally to the bursar. After listening to a few dozen samples of American accents on Youtube, Henry figured out Alex's: Texas. Texas, but the girl he spoke to had an east coast accent that Alex could copy that incredibly well. So he was born in some British colony, his mom had some connection to Britain, he had spent time in Texas, and he must have spent some time on the east coast learning that accent and probably fucking that girl (which did not make Henry jealous at all).

Basically, they had no leads. The United Kingdom was not currently at war with the US, nor any of its former colonies, nor anyone really, except the Russians, Iranians, and extreme Muslim terrorist groups that were funded by the Russians and Iranians. An Iranian proxy had blown up the British embassy in 2015, three years before, killing Henry's father. Murdering Henry's father.

Alex is not an Iranian spy, Henry thought, he is just an angry boy with a sunny accent. But Pez had already found a pinboard, so it wasn't like Henry was going to be able to stop this now.

He didn't completely understand the purpose of him living with Alex.

"For spying purposes!" Pez had said when he had asked. Henry thought Pez might have alternative matchmaking motives; Pez hated every single one of Henry's clandestine hookups for different reasons.