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Alex sat in the metal folded chair, arms and chest wrapped in wires, and bright lights blinding his eyes. His legs wouldn’t stop buzzing as anxiety coursed through his veins. The cold metal sent shivers up his spine every time he shifted even the slightest bit and all he wanted was to put his suit jacket back on.
“Did you, in 2009, steal all the skittles from my Halloween trick-or-treat basket?” A voice sounded from the right of him. He swallows.
“No.”
A different voice, this time unfamiliar and from his left, “That’s a lie.”
June immediately screamed so loud that Alex can feel his right ear ringing for the next four days. “I FUCKING KNEW IT!”
“I didn’t! I swear!”
Nora, who is behind the camera with the camerawoman, laughed. “You got caught bitch.”
Alex turns his attention to the guy behind the computer to which he’s connected. “Check that again. I did not steal her candy, it was our dad.”
“Lie,” The man stated again. Alex groaned.
“Okay, my turn to interrogate the boy,” Nora said as she jumped in front of the camera, flashing it and him a wicked smile. She had her hair hidden behind a blonde wig which she was sporting with a pink dress. He wasn’t aware that they were doing costumes, but Halloween is next week and so is the post day of this video they were told to do, so it makes sense. Even June dressed up as Wonder Woman, but it was hard to tell with his suit jacket thrown over her shoulders. He’s just upset he wasn’t included, however. And that he’s cold. “Do you, Alex Claremont-Diaz, believe that your mom can really become president in a few days?”
“What? Of course, I do. I think she has a great chance of not only winning but of doing good. Doing great. We are witnessing history being made this election. Vote Claremont November 8th, 2016!”
“True.”
5 Years Later
“What the fuck do you mean no?”
Alex sighs, falling back into one of the chairs in some White House conference room Zahra had pulled him, June, and Nora into. “I mean that I don’t want to do the interview.” He spins the chair around and when he comes to face Zahra after a full rotation, she is less than impressed.
“You’ve done it before,” she says, holding her phone in front of his face with the preloaded video already there as if she prepared for this conversation. Which, after months of Alex attempting to refuse interview and interview, it’s not a stretch to think Zahra had put some thought into her persuasion tactic. “Don’t make me have Cash take you kicking a screaming.” Or not.
Beside him, he hears June and Nora discussing Halloween costumes in hush voices. He hears them throw around WandaVision, Squid Games, and something that sounded eerily like The Wiggles, but Alex has no intention of questioning it.
“Why don’t the girls just do it without me.”
“Let us interrogate you!” Nora cuts in, eye wide with a pout of her lips. “It’s more fun when you are in the chair. June can’t lie to save her life and you two don’t know how to ask fun questions.”
Alex turns his attention to his sister, who despite claiming she wants always be there for him, agrees with Nora. “She’s right. And you know how often I see people posting screen recordings of that video? Like once a month that clip of you refusing to admit you stole my Halloween candy goes viral.”
Alex takes a turn to pout, “I did not steal your candy.”
“I barely had any candy that year I could eat.”
“You were 14, you could have easily gone to the corner store and picked up peanutless candy.”
“It’s not the same as free Halloween candy. It’s just not the same.”
Zahra groans, “You three are a pain in my… everywhere.”
“You love us,” Alex replies with a shit-eating grin. Zahra simply shoves the phone back in his face and, somehow, narrows her eyes at him even more. “Okay, I get it, but have you considered that… I don’t wanna.”
“Wednesday, October 20th. 10 am. Be there or I’ll have Cash and Amy drag you there.”
“Yes ma’am,” Alex mumbles, giving in to her demands while taking his agreement as a pass to leave. Nora laughs as he makes his way out of the room, but the middle finger Alex gave her was not satisfying enough.
Henry catches Alex’s mood the moment he steps through his old bedroom door, which normally - if Alex wasn’t so crumpy - would have made Alex melt into the floor. Henry had been reading on Alex’s old White House bed. Pride and Prejudice and by the looks of where he put his bookmark, he only just started this reread.
“What’s wrong, love?”
Alex lets out a low, almost painful, groan as he throws himself face-first onto the bed right in front of Henry. “We came here to celebrate my sister’s birthday and now I have to do some PR shit.”
Alex feels Henry’s hand start to card through his hair, scratching softly at his scalp. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is there no way for you to get out of it? You could always claim you are busy with an assignment.”
“Who knew Prince Charming could be so deceptive.”
“Twenty-three years of practice,” Henry laughs out. Alex smiles against the comforter pressed uncomfortably against his face. He has no plans on moving if it means Henry stops his ministrations.
“Think you could write Zahra a note claiming you had a family matter in England we both have to attend?”
Alex feels a small, but rather sharp, tug on his hair causing him to yelp in surprise as Henry says, “That’s not funny, and you’re a fool if you don’t believe that Shaan wouldn’t expose us immediately.”
Finally rolling over, Alex stares up at Henry’s face. Even when upside down, Henry’s face was still the most beautiful in any room at any given time. “I hate that you’re right.”
Henry smirks, and with his worst impression of an American accent says, “Welp.”
A laugh blooms in Alex’s throat, “correction, I just hate you.” But he twists around, reaching for a kiss anyway. It’s soft and Henry’s mouth tastes like Earl Grey and home.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Henry asks resting his forehead against Alex.
The thing is, while he trusts Henry with everything that he is, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to talk, or simply think about any of it. After the leak of the emails, every time someone came up to him, Alex was gambling on whether or not they would bring it up. After a while, it just became easier to ignore everyone else and stick with those he knew wouldn’t say anything. His family. The leak was over a year ago, but the anxiety surrounding it still felt fresh.
When Alex didn’t respond, Henry moved to press a kiss onto his forehead before bringing Alex into a hug. Immediately, Alex finds solace in the crook of Henry’s shoulder and the warmth of his breathe on the side of Alex’s face as he talks. “What exactly do they want you to do?”
“A youtube video where me and the girls take a lie detector test. We did one 5 years ago and apparently, the company wants us to do it again.”
“Oh, I think I’ve seen that video.”
“Not surprising. June says it tends to viral every now and then” Henry doesn’t say anything for a few moments and when Alex pulls away to ask what he’s thinking about, he can tell immediately. “Oh, my god. You’ve seen it multiple times because you wanted to, huh?”
Henry shrugs sheepishly. “It looked like a fun way to do an interview and you always looked the happiest when you were having fun with June and Nora. I never had an interview that was fun before. Every interview, even ones I did for some Youtube video, more often than not, felt like a press conference.”
Alex can feel himself smiling like a fool.
Henry groans, “Oh, no. What?”
“How many times did you watch it?”
“You can’t make fun of me, need I remind you of the magazine.”
“I forever hate June for telling you that,” Alex says, but he’s still smiling. He reaches up to hold Henry’s face in his hands. “How many times?”
“I don’t remember. Too many times, but I did watch it the night came out.”
“Didn’t have any Halloween plans?”
“Oh, I did. I was quite busy pining for some guy who hated me.”
Alex rolls his eyes. “What a fool,” he mutters as he pulls Henry in for a heated kiss.
A few hours later finds Alex on his way to the kitchen. Nora walks out of June’s room about the same time as he leaves his own and she falls into step with him.
“Where’s your better half?”
He ignores the obvious dig. “In my room with his nose in a book.”
“Oh, Henry and his James Bond nose.” Nora jokes.
Suddenly distracted, Alex says in a trance-like voice, “His nose comes from his mother’s side. It most closely resembles his royal family, not Arthur.”
“Did you memorize that from his wiki?” Nora asks, blinking at him.
Alex shrugs, snapping back into the moment. “Probably.”
“So, are you going to tell me why you don’t want to do the video? June’s been worried about you and, to be honest, I’m about to start.”
Alex shrugs again, this time allowing himself to distance himself from the conversation, instead of focusing on the patterns on the rug or the paintings on the walls.
“You get like this every time an interview is mentioned. You know something like this is low pressure, right? June and I were thinking about dressing up as The Wiggles and somehow convincing the computer person to be the fourth.”
“Veto.”
“Fine, you can be Quicksilver to June’s Wanda while I’m Vision.”
“You as Vision is a scary prospect.”
“Exactly.” She says, a bit too loudly as they step into the kitchen. Alex grabs two glasses and fills them with ice as Nora looks through the fridge. “All I’m saying is that it’s going to be fun. We had fun last time.” She hands him a pitcher of water.
“Yeah, but last time was before Henry,” Alex admits before he can stop himself. He watches his glass fill before switching to the next glass. “Which means it was before the emails and before the world knew everything about me.”
“Alex!” Nora yells with wide eyes, ripping the pitcher from his hands. Without him noticing, he had overfilled the cup letting the water cover his hands, the counter, and his shirt.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Still waters, deep dicking?” Nora asks, handing him a handtowel.
He takes it with a simple, “Shut up.”
Nora grabs another towel and helps Alex clean up a little. “I hope you know that we would never ask questions about that. Even if they attempt to give us prewritten questions that weren’t approved by Zahra, we would never say them. We can’t control what other people say or think, and I know that’s hard for you, but this is me and June we are talking about. Let yourself have fun. You used to love this type of shit, let yourself have that again if only this once.”
Alex glances down at his soaked shirt then back up to Nora. “Just promise me that you won’t mention anything too embarrassing.”
Nora smiles, “as long as you agree to dress as The Wiggles with us.”
Alex is sitting in the metal folded chair, arms and chest wrapped in wires, and bright lights blinding his eyes. His legs aren’t buzzing with anxiety coursing through his veins like last time, but he was asked to act as if they were. Now, five years removed, he’s having a hard time remembering what stressed him out so badly the first time. Maybe the cold metal sending shivers up his spine every time he shifted was a bit too much for him. Or maybe it was the fact that his mother’s presidential election was just around the corner. All in all, it feels like nothing compared to what he’s been through now.
June stands next to him, dressed in a purple long-sleeved shirt and black pants. Alex is still wrapping his head around the fact that he agreed to this. “Let’s start off easy. To calibrate the machine. What is your name?”
“Alexander Claremont-Diaz.”
The man behind the computer gives a simple, “True.” He’s wearing a yellow shirt which Alex isn’t quite sure how Nora managed that, but he’s almost positive it’s not a part of the man’s job description.
Nora in red, on the other side of June, asks, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“True.”
“What color Wiggle are you?” June says, smiling in delight.
“True.”
Alex sighs, “Blue.”
“Okay, it’s time for things to get a bit more challenging,” Nora speaks, looking directly at the camera in front of them. “Every time Alex attempts to lie, the kind gentleman behind the monitor - to which Alex is connected - will be able to alert us.” Nora rounds June so she’s directly next to Alex. He can feel her heightening the dramatics for the camera, and if knows anything about Nora, it’s that the people love when she does so, especially when Alex joins in.
“Who do you like more, me or June?”
“Easy, June. Try harder next time.” Alex smirks, and when the man confirms his statement, he laughs at Nora’s faux offense.
June takes the spot next to Alex once more, “Okay, Alex. I want you to think really hard before answering this. Did you, in 2009, steal all the skittles from my Halloween trick-or-treat basket?”
“No.”
“Lie.”
“It’s not a lie!” Alex yells.
“Just admit it!” June yells back before the two of them fall into a fit of laughter.
At 9 pm on Sunday, October 31, Alex and Henry are dressed up in matching footed Chewbacca onesies sitting on the couch when Alex gets a google notification.
White House Trio are back at it again!
After almost five years, the group now known as the White House Trio (or half of the Super Six) join up for a sequel to one of the most popular videos they’ve ever made! Watch the three of them find out who each other really are here in the video: White House Trio Takes a Lie Detector Test… Again.
Alex looks over at his boyfriend. Currently, he was on his laptop writing, but the image that five years ago, he was watching Alex have fun with his friends through a screen makes Alex feel a little dizzy. Despite all the anxiety and trauma (though it would have been nice to go without them), he’s glad they are here together.
“Hey, baby. Do you want to watch something with me?”