Truth be told, Alan knows.

It's the one secret he'll take to his grave, the thing he'll never admit to, even once he's able to look back on everything and joke fondly about it, perhaps in one of those double dates Wen and Gaipa will doggedly make happen, and that Alan will discover he enjoys.

He knows. He'll forget that he knows, at some point, too caught up in the endless, hope-stricken task of making it work, of believing in them. It will be drowned under there's leftovers in the fridges and your side of the beds; where were you last nights and because I felt sorry for you. He'll forget, and everything will feel awful and absurd and incomprehensible, but before that happens, he knows.

He knows and he'll wonder, much later, when he'll remember that he did, if admitting it would have made things smoother, easier. Would have prevented the pang of bitterness that still comes sometimes, watching Wen watch Jim. Probably not. It was not a clean break, but it has healed healthy, for the most part. Under the balm that is everything Gaipa, it almost never hurts.

Alan will confess to the bitterness, once (Gaipa will laugh, you too? what a relief, and jerk him off in front of the mirror right after, muttering preciously awkward praises into his skin - nothing like what Wen's reaction would have been), but he'll never tell him he knew.

Yet he does. He's an intelligent man, he's not unobservant - it doesn't take a genius. He knows. He's known for a while. He's been waiting for the axe to fall.

It's because he knows, that the "you're not even gonna kiss me goodbye?" that he'd meant to be playful and light, teasing, comes out a misshapen, too sharp thing. Wen startles at the breakfast table.

"Sorry." His smile a vague imitation of the real thing. "I was miles away."

He angles his face mostly right, so Alan takes his chin in hands to angle it perfectly, fingers clammy like years ago, when he'd asked Wen out - even though back then it was obvious Wen would say yes.

Wen is still as obvious. Alan knows, and doesn't want to know.