I have no real idea why this happened, but it did. In case it isn't already clear, Henry is Jeff's uncle. If you ever read any of my other Niff stuff, he pops up from time to time.
If you were to ask Henry Sterling when exactly it was that Nick started to become a fixture in his life, he'd probably say that it was during Jeff's junior year of high school.
But then he'd pause, stroke his hand over his hair (there isn't really much up top any more, and he's fairly certain that he can blame Jeff for how early he started losing hair), and click his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Nope," he'd say, "That's not quite right." And he would go on to say that it was actually during his nephew's freshman year at Dalton, since that was when Nick and Jeff met.
It started out as nothing, really. They were friends, Henry would recall, Nick was one of the first friends that Jeff made at Dalton. In the beginning, Nick's name got lost in a sea of other new names that Henry was hard-pressed to remember, from Wes to David to Thad to Flint and who in the heck knows who else?
But eventually, he'd tell you, Nick's name started coming up more than the others. It wasn't anything that he really took much notice of, but by Jeff's sophomore year it was clear that the two were best friends.
Henry only started to think anything of it during Jeff's junior year, when he started to get a little bit… awkward. He'd look at him and look like there was something that he wanted to say, but he never quite opened his mouth, just shifted a bit uncomfortably instead.
"And I'd tell him," Henry would say to you, "'Jeff, you know who you're talking to. You can tell your cool uncle anything.' Because, see, I'm his cool uncle."
(Henry liked to make things abundantly clear like that. It drove Jeff crazy, though he would admit that, yes, Henry was his cool uncle.)
Henry started to get a bit concerned for Jeff, until one day the teen burst into his house, looking flustered with his hair mussed and cheeks flushed, and sat down on his kitchen table and took in a deep breath. Before he could say anything to greet him in any way, Jeff said quickly, "Here's the thing, Henry, I'm gay and I really hope you don't hate me but if you do that's your problem not mine because I'm kind of absolutely in love with Nick and I had no idea I could even feel like this."
Jeff stopped then, biting his lip and looking down at his knees. In that moment, Henry would tell you, Jeff seemed smaller and more vulnerable than he ever had before. And that was saying something, because Henry had been there the day his nephew was born.
He took a moment to stop and think about what exactly it was that Jeff had just told him. Not a long moment, though, because he looked like he would be shaking like a leaf if he wasn't so tense, and Henry knew exactly why. There wasn't a doubt in his mind: this was the first time that Jeff had told anyone the truth about his sexuality. Not only that, but he'd just told his pastor uncle he was gay after growing up with the knowledge that most people out in farm country Ohio, especially religious people out in farm country Ohio weren't particularly receptive to the gay community.
"He must've been terrified," Henry would tell you, shaking his head slightly. "I can't even imagine. But I tell you, I've never been more proud of him than I was right then."
Henry just stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Jeff, ignoring the way his nephew flinched slightly before relaxing against him.
"Tell me more about Nick," he said, and Jeff leaned back slightly to look at him curiously as if he wasn't sure that he was being serious. "Really, tell me. I've heard stories with him in them, but clearly this boy is something special. Tell me more."
Jeff started to tear up then, and Henry just stroked his hair a couple of times as he listened to him mumble things like you're not mad? and thank you, Henry. And then he started to tell him about Nick. He told him how his hair was so soft and how his smile could probably stop wars and how he was a terrible dancer but his laugh made Jeff so happy that it didn't matter how many times he messed up because Nick seemed to think that messing up was the funniest thing he could do.
"He went on for hours," he'd tell you. "I had no idea what I was getting into."
It wasn't too long after that that Henry finally actually met Nick Duval.
The funny thing was, Jeff was so nonchalant about it. He'd oh so casually told Henry, "Oh, Nick is coming over later. Is it okay if he stays for dinner?"
And Henry had made a comment reminding him that he didn't actually live here, despite the fact that whenever Jeff came "home" for weekends or evenings he always chose to come to Henry's house instead of his own. Jeff had laughed and rolled his eyes, pointing out that Henry had kind of been hinting that he wanted to meet Nick anyways. Henry shrugged and left the room then, knowing that his nephew was right.
Henry would pause right there and point a finger at you almost accusingly. "Alright, I'm not too proud to admit it. I went into the bathroom and gave myself a pep talk." He looked in the mirror and coached himself, reminding himself that this boy was really special to Jeff and he would never forgive him, cool uncle or not, if he scared Nick off or made it too obvious that Jeff had feelings for him.
Before Nick arrived on Henry's porch, Jeff grabbed his arm and asked him to "please, god, Henry, don't do that overprotective father thing. Does that even go for uncles, too? Anyways, if you so much as think about pulling out your shotgun…" Henry laughed and told him that he made no promises.
As it turned out, it wasn't necessary at all. That evening over dinner with Nick, Henry learned a few things: 1) he was absolutely perfect for Jeff, 2) he was absolutely perfect in general, but not in that fake 'gotta make a good first impression' way, and, perhaps the most important, 3) he was clearly head over heels for Jeff, as well.
It was kind of funny, really.
After that first evening, Nick started coming over to Henry's house with Jeff more and more often. With each encounter, Henry became all the more aware of just how painfully in love (and oblivious) the two were. But he also became increasingly aware of how they were, well, made for each other.
Nick was kind of a shy boy; he'd blushed a bit and looked down when he was first introduced to Henry. And Jeff? Well, he was most decidedly not shy. He was bright and vibrant and very much out there. They complimented each other well: Jeff brought Nick out of his shell, while Nick acted as an anchor for Jeff, helping him keep his feet firmly on the ground. They brought the best out in each other in a way that Henry wasn't really aware that two people so young could do.
Then, finally, it happened, just a couple weeks before Nick and Jeff's summer break started.
"I knew that something was up when Jeff sent me a text message," Henry would tell you. "I've never been too good at that sort of thing."
It was a quick text, just asking if there was any cake mix in Henry's house, with no explanation whatsoever. When Henry replied that yes, there was, Jeff sent back a request that Henry start baking.
All of his questions were answered when Jeff practically flew into the house shortly after, hopping up on the counter and grinning widely at Henry, who just raised an eyebrow at him. "He kissed me," Jeff said, his grin getting impossibly wider as he said the words.
They spent the next few hours were spent making, decorating, and eating a cake—a celebration cake, Jeff insisted on calling it—, all the while Jeff explained the story in more details than Henry really needed about how exactly Jeff had become Nick's boyfriend.
And the thing was, by this time, Henry would have already told you more than enough to answer your question. But once he got started, he didn't like to stop and he was the sort of guy that was great at telling stories so you didn't really mind it. And the story of Jeff and Nick was one of his favorites to tell.
That summer, the one after Nick finally made the first move, was marked by a number of occasions on which Henry walked into his home to find it occupied by two kissing boys. It was awkward, of course it was, and if you were to ask, Henry would tell you that it was about the most annoying thing he'd ever experienced.
But if you asked him again, he'd sort of shrug and admit that it was completely worth it to see his Jeff so happy, with a boy that he so clearly belonged with.
And then, near the end of the summer, Henry and Jeff were sitting out on his porch, listening to the frogs croak as the night fell, and his nephew looked over at him and said, "Henry?"
"Yes?"
"Is it silly of me to think that Nick might be the one?"
That question gave Henry pause. The thing was, the answer should've been obvious: Nick and Jeff had only been together for a few months, and they were so young. Of course they were going to think that they were going to last forever, teenagers always did think that with their high school sweethearts, but the fact was that most teenage couples didn't last.
But the way Jeff looked at Nick, the way they interacted with each other…
It was with an odd mix of sincerity and desire to not hurt Jeff's feelings that Henry answered, "No, it's not silly."
The thing was, though, when the words came out of his mouth, he found himself meaning them more than he thought he would. If you were to ask Henry when exactly it was that he started to think that his nephew and Nick were really meant to be together, he'd probably tell you that it was right then and there.
And that was probably why, when Jeff bashfully admitted to him that he was thinking about going all the way with Nick, Henry offered him condoms and told him he'd give them a night alone in the house as long as he got some sort of warning to make himself scarce.
Over the next few years, Nick became more and more present in Henry's life. He almost never came by without Jeff, but still, he was developing a bond with him that Henry had never made with any of Jeff's other friends. They'd watch sports together and they'd swap book recommendations and they'd talk about Jeff and, well, how great he was. Henry found that he didn't mind being only the second most important person in his nephew's life, as long as the number one spot belonged to somebody like Nick.
And somehow, without realizing it, Henry became Nick's cool uncle in addition to just Jeff's.
He didn't mind it in the slightest, though. It was interesting to him, watching the boys grow, as individuals and as a couple. He watched with pride as they graduated Dalton together, went to college together, started making a life together. He didn't even hesitate to cosign their lease for their first apartment when they asked him to.
Which was why it was such a big surprise to him when, after four years of dating without so much as a real fight (or at least one that Henry heard of, but Jeff tended to overshare with him, so he was fairly certain he would have heard about a fight), they broke up.
Jeff spent three weeks sleeping on Henry's couch, barely getting up to eat and go to the bathroom.
You would have to urge Henry to go on at this point. It was his least favorite part of Jeff and Nick's story. "He honestly looked like he wanted to die," he'd say with a long sigh. "I'd never seen him so down."
Henry never really found out what it was that had happened between the two of them. Not even a week before Jeff showed up on his porch, eyes red and puffy, the pair had come by to have dinner with Henry. They hadn't shown a single sign of trouble at all. Whenever he tried to ask Jeff what had happened, the blond just curled up in a ball and started to cry again.
Until one day, when Henry came home to find the couch empty and the back door open. He was a bit concerned until he peeked out the open door to see Nick and Jeff curled up together on the porch swing, sitting close under the same blanket.
Never did Henry get any sort of answer out of either of them about anything to do with the breakup or how they got back together. They seemed to be pretending that it had never even happened, which didn't strike Henry as particularly healthy, but still, they seemed to be stronger than ever.
He was just glad to see Jeff smiling again.
The next time that Henry saw Nick alone, standing on his porch with his gaze cast at the ground as he shifted from one foot to the other nervously, he was sure that something had gone wrong again.
Until, of course, Nick started to babble.
"That was the most I have ever heard that boy talk when he wasn't drunk or Jeff wasn't working him up over something," Henry would inform you.
"I need to... Um, wow, okay, I need to talk to you about something," Nick had started, rubbing his hands on his pant legs. "I know that this is traditionally a father of the bride, or, rather, potential bride sort of tradition—"
And that was when Henry's eyes went wide and he realized what Nick was about to say.
"—not that I'm saying Jeff is a girl because he really isn't, trust me, and I feel like he'd probably judge me for asking anyone for permission to do this, much less two people, but I really can't not. I was going to just ask you, since you're basically Jeff's dad—" Nick cut himself off there, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair. "God, no, that isn't what I meant. Jeff's dad, er, your brother, is really great. He's a really great guy, and I actually did go to him first and I have his blessing, but I really need yours too and I really, really love Jeff and I want to marry him and please tell me you think that that's okay."
He was giving Henry the same sort of deer in the headlights look that he hadn't seen since Jeff came out to him what feels like ages ago, and he just laughed and shook Nick's hand. "I've considered you part of the family for a long time now," he said to him, "and it's about time you make it official."
The next few months were practically torture for Henry. By then, since Nick and Jeff had graduated college and moved away to Chicago and weren't popping by to visit him as much as they used to, he didn't hear from them as much as he used to. Every time Jeff called, he got a little bit anxious, hoping that maybe this time he'd make the announcement. But time after time, their phone calls lacked any mention of romantic proposals of any kind, to the point that Henry almost wanted to drive out to Chicago and demand that Nick explain why exactly he hadn't put a ring on it yet. At the same time, of course, he didn't want to rush it. He knew a few things about them, enough to know that waiting wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Jeff would wait forever for Nick, content to never get married even though that was clearly the kind of guy that he was. And Nick was a planner; everything had to be perfect for him. So Henry was willing to wait to see what it was that Nick was coming up with, knowing that his nephew deserved nothing but the best proposal the love of his life could come up with.
Which is why it was kind of funny when Jeff finally did call to tell him that Nick had proposed.
When he asked after their engagement story, Jeff chuckled and said that Nick had asked him to marry him while they were curled up in bed, deciding to forego all of his big plans.
Henry can't find it in himself to be disappointed when he hears the fondness and excitement so clearly in his nephew's voice. Jeff is finally marrying the boy of his dreams, just like he'd cautiously said he thought he might just a few months into their relationship.
In his lifetime, Henry officiated too many weddings for him to count. None of them mattered as much to him as the one when Jeff Sterling and Nick Duval became Jeff and Nick Duval-Sterling.
"I probably shouldn't have agreed to that," he might be willing to admit. "I was an emotional wreck. But they got married that day, and I think that that's what really matters, at the end of the day."
It would be then that Henry would reach over and pick up a frame from the side table. "Would you look at that," he would say as he handed it to you. Inside the frame is a picture of the two boys—two men—shoving cake into each other's mouths. "Nick hates this picture, but it makes Jeff laugh. It suits them, better than any of those other wedding pictures ever did. Don't get me wrong, I've never seen two people so in love, but… Let's just say that I wouldn't have been surprised to hear that they'd snuck off to Vegas one night and eloped instead of having a wedding."
He'd laugh and go on for a little bit about how happy they were for a couple years after their wedding. They went on trips together, and Henry would receive postcards from places that he knew Jeff had always dreamed of going to and that Nick was finally taking him to.
The thing with the honeymoon phase, however, is that it has to end.
As it turned out, Nick and Jeff weren't always on the same page like Henry thought that they were. Which was how he ended up on several late night phone calls with Jeff, the words 'separation' and 'divorce' coming up far too often for his liking.
He spent several nights during that time laying awake, praying for any sort of answer to fix this and hoping that things wouldn't get worse.
Things got worse before they got better, the way it always seems to work out. Jeff didn't file for divorce and neither did Nick, thank God, but their constant fighting did get the better of both of them. Nick stayed in Chicago, living in the apartment they'd shared for years, while Jeff ran off to San Francisco.
"Now, I don't like to pick sides," Henry would tell you with a long sigh. "Especially not when it means I have to side against my own blood, but… You should have seen Nick."
The first time Henry saw him standing there on his porch after he heard about them actually separating, he wasn't sure what to do. He loved Nick, of course he did, but… He still wasn't even sure who was supposed to be the "bad guy" in this situation. But then Nick had opened his mouth and, instead of words, a harsh sob fell from his lips.
Living in Chicago, a city that he'd never lived in without Jeff and that was so full of their relationship, was hard for Nick. Their apartment was their apartment and living in it without Jeff made him feel sick to his stomach. So he went to the only place he could think of where he could still be close at hand if Jeff wanted to come back but he still felt safe and loved in: Henry's house.
Every weekend and whenever he had a day off from work, Nick would find his way back to Ohio and crash on Henry's couch.
They didn't talk about Jeff, or the separation, or anything like that. They just sat around and watched sports and tried out new recipes and rented movies that they'd always meant to watch but never actually had.
One night, Nick climbed out onto Henry's roof and smoked a cigarette. Henry walked out onto his lawn and stared up at him. "What are you doing?" he called up to him.
"I hate it when Jeff smokes," Nick shouted back. The words hung had between them thickly for a long moment, Henry would recall to you, the forbidden word finally spoken. No one said anything until Nick took another drag and said, "I'm trying to be understanding."
The next morning, they talked about it. Or rather, Nick talked. Henry mostly listened, offering water and tissues when it felt appropriate.
Jeff and Nick had been changing, like all people did. Nick was becoming more work-oriented, spending more time at work or doing things at work. It put a lot of stress on him, stress that he had started to take out on Jeff. In spite of his best efforts, Jeff hadn't been able to do anything about it, feeling like 1) he had failed as a husband and 2) he was losing the love of his life to a "ridiculous fucking desk job."
Because Jeff had felt like that, he had started to pull away. Nick hadn't realized it at the time, but with the time he'd been given to think it out, he realized that that was exactly what had happened. In order to protect himself from the pain of potentially losing Nick, Jeff had started to pull away, which in effect brought them further apart.
Nick had felt like he had no idea who he was married to anymore, felt like there was an insurmountable wall between them. They were both leading entirely separate lives after being so closely intertwined for so long, and neither of them knew how to handle it. So they fought. A lot.
And Jeff panicked, and ran off to San Francisco.
"I think that Nick needed to let it all out," Henry would tell you. "There was a lot of crying, but I think he realized as he was telling me how ridiculous they both were being. It happens, all the time, and shit, they were just kids. The important thing is that he got it eventually."
It wasn't long after that that they were back together. Jeff returned from out west with a tan and a handful of regrets that Henry was equal parts relieved and uncomfortable to hear never involved getting, well, involved with anyone other than Nick.
And just like that, the pair was right back on track.
Their next milestone, well, Henry saw it coming from miles away.
It started when Jeff's sister had a baby. Jeff and Nick came back to Ohio to come see the baby, and every time that Nick held the little boy, Henry could see the telling look in Jeff's eyes. He'd always known that Jeff wanted to have kids, and he knew that he'd be an amazing father when the time came. The only thing that Henry didn't know was how Nick felt about starting a family with Jeff. It almost made him worry that another fight was on the horizon.
As it turned out, it was a non-issue. Nick was just as much into the idea of having kids as Jeff was, and meeting their own nephew had served as a catalyst for that conversation.
On their next visit to Henry's house after that, he woke up early to find Jeff already up, sitting on a laptop and reading intently. When he asked what he was doing, Jeff simply answered, "Researching."
Instead of researching adoption agencies like Henry had thought he would be, Jeff was looking at real estate pages. At the questioning look he got, he simply answered, "Ducky and I agreed that our apartment is in no way a place for us to raise our kids. So we're going to move to the suburbs or something before we actually look into that."
At this point Henry would laugh, shake his head, and make some comment about how it was almost comical, how quickly they managed to find a house. It was a nice one, too, close enough to their workplaces to not cause a problem but not in the middle of the city like their apartment had been. It was, admittedly, the kind of place where you could just picture settling down and living out a life with that special someone.
Just a couple of months after they had moved into their house, Jeff and Nick introduced Henry to Nick's sister, with the news that she had agreed to be their surrogate.
"Jeff looked like he was about ready to explode with happiness, let me tell you," Henry would tell you. "Brooke Duval? Looks exactly like her brother. That was just about as close as they could get to having a baby of their own without something really weird happening."
Henry went out to Chicago and spent the next year living some sort of sitcom, although some days it felt like it might turn into one of those crime dramas.
But all of the threats from Brooke if one more person touches me and arguments over nursery colors and furniture all lead to a tiny pink blanket wrapped around the most beautiful girl in the world.
(For a while, Henry might joke, he was pretty sure that that was what her name was. Not Audrey Duval-Sterling, no, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.)
Jeff and Nick were made to be parents, not that Henry had any doubt in them.
They were first-time parents, so of course they acted like it. They held Audrey so carefully in their arms like they were afraid that she was going to break, they showered her with attention, they both leapt to their feet whenever she so much as whined.
Henry probably wouldn't tell you this, but one night Jeff sat him down and thanked him for doing such a good job helping to raise him all those years, since it was helping him to be a better father for his own daughter. Henry cried more than he had in years.
The thing is… Henry would probably use his last breath to tell you about Nick and Jeff if you asked him.
Henry Sterling died of heart failure a few weeks after Audrey's fourth birthday.
It's been a few years since then, and Nick walks through a cemetery in Ohio with one hand holding a bouquet of flowers while the other holds his daughter's hand.
They stop in front of a stone and he sits down, cross-legged, in front of it. "Hey, Henry," he says and lays the bouquet down on the ground before pulling the brunette little girl into his lap.
This is a fairly regular thing for them; either Nick or Jeff or sometimes both of them bring Audrey out here, and they just talk. They tell stories about Henry and show her pictures of him and do their best to make sure that she remembered him.
Of course they tell their younger two about Henry as well, but never as much as they stress him to Audrey.
Making sure that Audrey remembered her great-uncle is never something they talk about, never something they planned. It was silently agreed upon after his funeral, after Nick saw how it destroyed Jeff to think that she might forget him if they don't try to stop it.
And really, Henry is more than important to Nick, too.
Nick knows that he and Jeff are soul mates, that they were always meant to be together. He believes right down to his very core that that could survive anything. But at the same time, he also knows better than to discount the fact that their relationship essentially had a guardian angel in Henry.
So no, Nick doesn't think that he'll ever be able to let go of Henry's memory, and he will never want to. The man helped bring Jeff and Nick to each other and back to each other in more ways than he thinks that Henry ever knew, which is kind of sad to think about.
"Is Henry named after Uncle Henry?" Audrey finally asks.
Nick nods and strokes her hair, because naming their youngest son after him was really the least he and Jeff could have done.