Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alex is smiling and circulating around the large banquet room, soaking it all in. His mother’s second term is almost over, and he decided months ago that he was going to make an effort to slow down his stupid brain and really experience things like tonight, rather than just getting through it and planning on the next thing. It’s December 22nd, and tonight is the final official Christmas dinner that his mother will be hosting before her successor is elected next November. They’ll still be here next Christmas, but things will be different with the new POTUS elect in attendance. This is the last one that’s truly just his mom’s, and Alex is determined to soak up every moment he can.

For the first time in longer than he likes to think about, his smile comes easily; it’s genuine as he savors the moment rather than forced for the sake of making those around him comfortable. He’s spent most of the night close to June or Nora – who have both been more than patient with him these last few years – making small talk with many of the most powerful people in the world. He can’t help idly wondering how many of them will still be around when he’s ready to make his own bid for the Oval Office. Realistically, a good number of them will be dead and most of the rest will be retired, but there are a few younger ones who might still be factors by then. Best to make nice with as many of them as he can while he’s got close to unlimited access.

He’s speaking to the Canadian Prime Minister - who is annoyingly attractive, recently single, and regrettably straight - and his son, when a shock of golden blond hair near the door catches Alex’s eye. Before he can stop himself, he’s staring, trying to see who it is that’s entered the party, because it can’t possibly be who he thinks it is. As though on cue, the couple who were blocking the individual’s face from his view shift to the side and he feels like his heart falls out of his ass. Standing there smiling and shaking hands, tall and perfect and beautiful as ever, is Henry.

Apparently, Alex’s heart hasn’t actually fallen out of his ass, because suddenly it’s both racing and aching in a way he hasn’t felt in more than three years. There've been echoes of the pain that have cropped up over these past few years – typically triggered by spotting him in a magazine, online, or on TV – and the numbness that settles around his heart between those bouts of yearning ache, but the violent wrenching sensation he’s feeling now is something he’s not felt since the days immediately following Henry’s departure from the lake house.

Alex can feel his breath starting to come in short, shallow gasps and knows there’s a panic attack building within him. He excuses himself, moves toward the closest door, and slips into another room without registering where he is. He’s oblivious to the red walls and gilded portraits whose eyes follow his pacing form as he attempts to calm himself by practicing one of the breathing techniques his therapist has insisted will help. He stops abruptly and puts his hands on the edges of a table, closes his eyes and tries to count out the measured breaths.

His memories unwillingly flash back to that morning in Texas; waking up alone in the bedroom, the other bunk smoothed and made as though he’d never been there in the first place, the desperate search through the house clinging to the hope that the anxiety building in him was wrong, finding the note that confirmed his fears… He’d texted Henry five times throughout the day. The agonizing silence which followed each text was hard enough, but it was sharpened to excruciating by knowing that Henry had been reading the messages, his Read Receipts giving him away.

By the time they packed up the Jeep and got on the road for Austin, he was on autopilot. He’d driven the hour and a half in silence while June and Nora sat in the backseat, barely talking to each other and exchanging worried glances which he pretended not to notice in the rearview mirror.

The following day he’d focused on his classes and taking meticulous notes during lectures. He’d messaged Henry twice more with the same lack of response to show for his efforts. That night as he lay in bed, curled on his side and staring at the space beside him where he remembered Henry laying as they caught their breath that night after the state dinner, the realization settled in that he could send a hundred more texts and there would never be any answer. There would only be the tiny, tattletale checkmarks which showed that what he was sending was being seen, but didn’t matter enough to warrant a reply.

He'd rolled over, turning his back to the empty space, and cried silently until he’d eventually fallen into a fitful sleep plagued by dreams of the future he’d finally allowed himself to envision. Images of himself and Henry laying side-by-side on a sun-soaked beach, strolling hand-in-hand through downtown Austin, steaming mugs of coffee and tea on quiet, rainy mornings, matching bands of gold, kissing every summer on the porch swing at the lake house, Thanksgivings and Christmases and birthdays, the two of them old and curled together on a sofa in front of a fire… Having it ripped away was what made him understand just how deeply he’d wanted it.

The first week had been the worst. Everything seemed to somehow emphasize the absence of Henry and his ongoing silence. Then he’d found the fucking note in the pocket of the kimono he’d been wearing at the bar that night in LA… He’d still had it on when they’d made their way into the suite, and he vividly remembered every detail of the hours which had followed him slipping it off.

     Dear Thisbe,
     I wish there weren’t a wall.
     Love, Pyramus

The note must have been put in the pocket the next morning, while he was in the bathroom drying his hair and Henry had stepped into the bedroom to get dressed. He’d looked up who Thisbe and Pyramus were – because of course that over-educated ass had used a reference he didn’t recognize – and when he’d skimmed over the synopsis of their story, something inside him had snapped.

He spent most of the day trying to pretend the note didn't matter, but it did. Henry had written it and tucked it into the pocket of the kimono the morning after they’d made love for the first time, after everything in Alex’s world had shifted... He recognizes now that he'd been falling for Henry before that night -- hell, he'd been falling for him for years -- but that night had forced him to confront his feelings head on. They'd been so open with each other; their hearts and vulnerabilities as bare as their bodies, typically hurried hands turned soft and gentle as they surrendered themselves to the intense intimacy of the moment which went so much deeper than their physical connection. No matter how much coffee he drank or how hard he focused on his lectures or how many shots of Maker's he had in his room that night, he couldn't stop thinking about that fucking note.

The email he’d sent that night had been cutting, probably far more dramatic than was strictly necessary, and – though he wasn’t proud of it – bordering on cruel. Of course, given how heartbroken he'd been and the amount of whiskey in his system at the time he’d written it, he knows it could have been much worse.

     dear pyramus,
     i tried to break down the wall for you – for us. i beat at the plaster and stone until my hands were ruined, clawed and pried the pieces away leaving my fingers torn raw. but the blood and pain were worth it, because the crack widened enough that at long last i could see you. only, i realize now it wasn’t you; it was a mirage, a manifestation of the man i thought you were rather than the one you’ve since proven yourself to be.
     i understand now that you needed the wall, wanted it even. for you it was never just a wall; it was the armor you used to keep me from ever being able to touch your heart. i know that's why you shored up the space with the razor-sharp thorns of your silence. you were making sure i couldn't reach you even if i kept trying.
     you have condemned me to kneel in the wreckage of my efforts, bleeding and broken and alone; a yearning postulant before your abandoned alter, evermore. you showed me a glimpse of a life i was too naïve to envision for myself, then took that promise with you, leaving me hollow and lost in the darkness of a world without your beaming light.
     despite this anguish, i would suffer it all a thousand times over to hold you even a moment longer. i wish i could hate you for what you’ve done, but i can’t. i don’t understand how a heart so broken can still long for the one who shattered it, but it does.
     my traitorous heart remains yours, now and always.
     thisbe
     p.s., fuck you.

After he’d sent the message, he moved the entire folder of their emails from the previous months into an archive file. He’d been intending to delete everything, but he’d found himself unable to and decided in the moment that banishing him to an unseen archive space was sufficient.

After a few days of stewing – which included a couple of nights getting blackout drunk alone in his room – he’d spoken to his mom about what had happened over pizza and beers one afternoon. She’d commiserated with him and suggested that he might want to speak to a professional about it. He’d resisted at first, but ultimately realized she was right, and he needed more guidance than she could offer him on the matter. He’d started speaking to his therapist the next day and though it had taken time, it had helped more than he’d anticipated.

Alex draws one final steadying breath and pulls himself out of his memories. Dwelling on what happened won’t change it, and it won’t make the fact that he has to go back out there and face Henry any easier. He momentarily toys with the idea of heading up to his room, but he can’t do that. He owes it to his mother not to cause a scene or start the gossip mill spinning with speculation about why he disappeared in the middle of the evening.

He straightens his posture and turns toward the door at the same moment it opens. When he sees who steps through, his jaw clenches so fast that his teeth make an audible clack as they come together. His throat and chest go so tight that he’s not sure he’s even breathing.

“Your Royal Highness,” Alex says so coldly that he’s pretty sure the PPOs would consider it a slight against the Crown if they were in the room. But they’re not. It’s just him and the prick who broke his heart, so he doesn’t really care if he’s being curt to the point of bordering on rude. “I thought it was Her Majesty the Queen who was supposed to join us tonight.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately, she’s come down with a nasty virus and her doctors advised against travelling. She sends her regrets,” Henry explains uncomfortably.

“I hope you’ll convey our wishes for a speedy recovery to Her Majesty.” He hates himself for it, knows how badly it's going to rip his heart open, but he looks into Henry’s eyes as he continues, his tone instinctively thawing. “I was sorry to hear about your grandmother passing, it must've been very difficult to grieve with the world watching like that. Your mother seems to be adapting well to her new role as Queen.”

“Thank you. That means much more to me than you know,” Henry replies. He’s fidgeting with his signet ring the way Alex knows he does when he’s feeling nervous or anxious about something he’s about to say. “I was hoping we might be able to talk for a few moments.”

“I don’t believe we have any business which requires discussion.” Alex replies, just as emotionless as before. He needs to get out of here, now. He can already feel his resolve starting to crumble seeing the hurt that flashes in Henry’s eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness.” He crosses the room and steps around him to leave.

Henry’s hand reaches out and wraps around Alex’s wrist, stopping him in his tracks. “Please, Alex,” Henry says softly, his eyes full of something that looks like a mix of desperation with a hint of regret and maybe even the faintest spark of hope.

Alex closes his eyes and has to make a conscious effort not to flinch. There was a time when the sound of his name in Henry’s smooth, exquisite accent sent chills through him, the most cherished sound in his entire universe. Those first days after Austin, he would have given absolutely anything for it to break the silence between them, even just once. Tonight, all it does is cut through him like the sharpest flint.

He steels himself and opens his eyes, locking them on Henry’s. “Three years ago, I gave you every possible opportunity to talk. In fact, I begged you to talk to me that night before you left. I asked you to talk to me in text after text and you never replied. I waited and hoped for you to say something, anything, any response to the messages I know you were reading, and all I got was more silence.” He pauses; he can feel himself losing control and if he does, he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to get the cork back in the bottle. He cycles another measured breath then adds, “It took me a very long time to resolve myself to the fact that we meant more to me than we did to you, but eventually I did. So no, Henry, I don’t want to talk to you, not tonight or any other night. I have nothing left to say, and after this long, there’s nothing you can say that I want to hear.”

Henry stands there looking back at him, his mouth opens as though he’s going to say something then closes again. Alex almost laughs. Even when he’s asking to talk, he’s got nothing to say. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

This time Alex can’t stop the slight flinch at the words. They’re probably the only thing he’s wanted to hear more than Henry speaking his name, but he reminds himself that they’ve come about three years too late. “You shouldn't tell lies. It’s unbecoming of royalty,” he snaps before stepping around him then moving toward one of the doors that lead to the hallway rather than back into the hall where the party is taking place. He intends to go back to the party, he really does, but he knows he’s not nearly composed enough at the moment. He needs air. Without thinking about it, he goes outside and walks away from the windows which would allow those at the party to see him. He stomps across the lawn, letting his feet move him automatically until he realizes that was a mistake. In his agitation at seeing Henry, he’s walked straight to the Kennedy Garden.

Fuck.

Alex hasn’t set foot here since the night of the 2020 Gala. He’d slipped away and come to stand under the Linden tree where his entire world had changed and curse Henry’s name to a cloud-filled sky. He’d allowed himself to stand there and wallow in the ache that was still so consuming back then, his shattered heart being only a few months into healing at that point. He’d remembered and cursed and cried alone in the cold night until he felt hollow, as though he’d managed to purge everything from that previous year – all the excitement and joy and the unrequited love that had nearly destroyed him, all of it spat out on a stream of expletives. When he’d finished, he’d not felt better exactly, but he’d felt numb, and that was at least better than feeling the pain.

It shouldn’t surprise him that seeing Henry sent him running off here. Even after everything that's happened, all it took was one look into those fucking eyes and he’s right back to being in love with the bastard. Three years of convincing himself it was just a fling, that he was over whatever he’d felt, flushed down the toilet. He leans against the trunk of the tree and thumps his head back against it. Maybe he can knock some sense into himself if he keeps doing it.

“You can’t avoid me indefinitely.”

The voice comes from close enough to him that Alex actually jumps a little. He looks toward the sound and sees Henry standing less than a dozen feet away.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Alex almost groans. “You’re like my own personal demon, you know that?” He stares at Henry for a moment. “Why are you here?”

“As I said inside, I was hoping we could talk.”

“What part of there’s nothing for us to talk about did you not understand? We didn’t want the same things out of whatever we were. It’s ancient history at this point. Just... let it stay dead.”

“You’re wrong. We did want the same things.”

“Bullshit,” Alex practically spits the word at him. “I fell in love with you, Henry! I wanted a life with you. I…” he shoves off the tree and closes the distance between them, all the anger he’s tried not to feel surging to the surface. “I wanted forever with you, that’s how in love with you I am. And you walked away!”

“I wanted that too, Alex, but it wasn’t something I was allowed to want.”

“I swear to God if you start talking in riddles, I’m going to clock you and I don’t care if the PPOs taser me for it,” Alex tells him.

“My grandmother would never have allowed us to live peacefully. Whether I abdicated or not, she would have gone out of her way to ruin my life, and yours. The rumors she would have spread, the people she would have turned against you; she swore she’d destroy your career before you ever set foot in congress. I’ve always wanted to be with you, I just couldn't ask you to pay the price it would've cost you.”

“And rather than tell me that, rather than let me decide if I was willing to fight for us, you decided it was easier to just break my heart and act like I didn’t exist, like those eight months meant nothing to you.”

“Those months were everything to me!” Henry snaps. “Nothing about my situation was easy. I was trying to protect you,” he adds, his voice shaking slightly now.

“No, you weren’t. You were trying to protect yourself. You weren’t willing to stand up to your grandmother, so you walked away from us, from me!”

“It’s not that black and white, damnit!” Henry runs his hand through his hair. “You were planning for a future I couldn’t be a part of. Summers by the lake and walks through downtown, running for office… I knew I couldn’t have that kind of freedom, and I couldn’t ask you to live your life in a cage the way I have.”

“So you took it upon yourself to make the choice for me.”

“Yes, I did, because you would have chosen wrong. I love you too much to let you choose a half-life of secret rendez-vous and liaisons cloaked in shadows. I couldn’t let you do that to yourself, not for me.” Henry's voice falters on the last words, and Alex hates the way the broken sound makes him want to reach out and comfort him. He looks up at the sky for a moment and cycles a heavy breath before returning his gaze to Alex’s own. This close, Henry’s eyes are smoky sapphires in the muted moonlight, and the sheen of tears causing them to glisten doesn’t escape Alex’s notice. “You’re destined for great things. The kind of life you’re meant to lead can’t be lived in a closet.”

“No honest life can be.” Alex counters. They stare silently at each other for several seconds.

Henry breaks the silence when he quietly asks, “Did you mean it?”

Alex grows very still. “Did I mean what?”

“Did you mean it when you said you love me?”

“For fuck’s sake… Of course, I meant it! That’s what I was trying to tell you that night at the lake.”

“I know, it’s why I ran. I wanted to hear you say it, God, I so badly wanted to hear you say those words. But I was so afraid of ruining you. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make myself leave once you said them,” Henry confesses. “That’s not precisely what I was talking about though.”

“What the hell do you mean then?”

“You said ‘that’s how in love with you I am’, present tense, not past.”

Alex momentarily contemplates how big of an international incident it would trigger if he strangled a prince of England in the middle of the Kennedy Garden while the President of the United States is hosting a Christmas party 500 feet away. He huffs out a sigh that sounds more like a sort of surrender than exasperation. “I can’t just turn my feelings off, Henry. Yes, I’m still in love with you, much as I’ve tried to convince myself not to be. Do you honestly think I’m so fickle that I would just stop caring about you?”

“I never thought you were fickle. But, after all I’ve done,” Henry shrugs, “the thought had crossed my mind as a possibility, yes.”

“Yeah, well, apparently when I give my heart to someone, it’s an all-or-nothing type of thing, whether they accept it or not.” Alex looks down at the distance between their feet. They’re only a foot or so apart now and he’s speaking before he realizes it. “What about you? Did you mean it? You said you love me too much to let me cage myself for you. As you put it, present tense, not past.”

“Christ…” Henry mutters as he swipes his hand over his face. He rolls his eyes. “I’ve been in love with you since Rio, for God’s sake. Yes, I still love you.”

Alex blinks at the statement, but decides to file that away for examination later, when he can step back and actually think clearly. Henry loves him, he's loved him all along, that has to mean something... mean everything... Yet he's loved him all this time, and still, here they are. “So, we love each other, and we’re just going to keep pretending we don’t, that we don’t exist to one another?”

“What choice do we have?”

“I don’t know... Saying ‘fuck you’ to anyone who has a problem with us being together. Finding a house in the country where you can spend your days writing and I can sit back and watch you finally be happy for once in your life. Buying a brownstone in New York and taking over running Okonjo House. Moving to some abandoned castle in a remote forest of some obscure country that ends in -ania, spending our days sucking each other off and pretending the world doesn’t exist. Sneaking away to Bora Bora for a couple of months to figure this out and make up for the last three years. There are literally endless possibilities.”

Henry laughs, but it’s not the free, easy laugh Alex remembers from their times together. “I wish we lived in a world where that were possible,” he says softly.

“Why can’t we?” Alex asks. “You’ve always said you wanted to take what you were given and make the world a better place. What if being out, being honest about who we are is how we do that? What if seeing two people willing to throw convention to the wind in order to be happy is the inspiration that changes people’s mindset?”

“You know why I can’t, no matter how deeply I want it.”

Alex shakes his head and steps back as the realization washes over him. For a moment he’d let himself believe things might have changed, but now he understands that they’re exactly where they were that night at the lake. The tightness in his chest from earlier is back, and this time he’s broken his own heart by making the recklessly irresponsible mistake of allowing himself to hope.

“You can’t hide behind your grandmother being a homophobic old bitch anymore.” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. He curses at himself under his breath. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, but we both know it’s the truth. You said you broke things off with me because of what she would have done. So what’s the excuse now?”

“The reason remains unchanged. Regardless of who wears it, the Crown will always prevent me from living the kind of life you’re suggesting.”

“So you’re still choosing the Crown over your heart.” Alex says. He feels the disappointment settling into his chest. “You’ll never be able to live your own life so long as you continue to believe you have to carry the throne. The weight of it is going to crush you.” He blinks several times, hoping to disperse the traitorous tears he can feel forming in his eyes. “I won’t stand here and watch the man I love sacrifice himself for an institution that would gladly sweep his entire existence under the rug, rather than embrace the fact that he doesn’t fit into their idea of a proper royal image. I can’t watch you let them destroy you.”

“Alex, I…”

“No.” Alex cuts him off. “You’ve made your choice. There’s nothing else to say. Goodnight, Your Highness.” He turns and makes his way across the lawn back towards the White House.

Any intention he’d had of returning to the party is gone. He blindly makes his way to the residence and shuts the door of his room behind him. He puts his hands on the back of the sofa and leans forward, breathing deeply. There’s no need to try and stop the tears now, so he lets them come.

It all floods back; the confusion of waking up to Henry’s empty bunk, instinctively knowing something was deeply wrong, the shattering sense of loss, the aching desperation to hear anything, the pain and pain and more pain. He pulls at his bowtie until it’s hanging loosely, unbuttons his shirt, shrugs out of his jacket letting it fall in a heap on the floor, then makes his way to his bathroom. He strips and gets in the shower. As the water pelts down against his skin, he tries to will the pain down the drain with it, though he knows it’s useless.

He lets himself cry and wonders how it can hurt so much. It’s been years, the pain should have dulled. That’s what happened when his parents divorced; it hurt so much at first, but gradually the stabbing in his chest when he thought about his family falling apart became nothing more than a radiating ache, like the pain in his left wrist that reminds him of an old lacrosse injury when the weather is particularly damp or cold. This should be the same thing. So why does he feel like his chest has been ripped open the same way it had on that flight back from Texas?

By the time he gets out from under the scalding spray, he’s stopped crying, but rather than the numbness that usually follows a bout of pain, all he feels now is angry. After he aggressively towel dries his hair, he stalks into his closet, yanks on a pair of grey sweatpants, a black t-shirt and pulls one of his hoodies on over it. He combs his hair out quickly; it’s still damp but he doesn’t care. He checks the time on his phone then shoves it into the pocket of his hoodie. It’s nearly one in the morning. He leaves his room and makes his way to the guestroom he’s looking for. He knocks firmly on the door, has a brief moment of wondering if he should have verified which room he was going to, then decides to stop second guessing himself. He’s just squared his shoulders when the door opens.

“Alex?” Henry asks, clearly confused.

“Why are you here?” Alex demands.

“Because my mum wasn’t able to make the trip.”

“So why didn’t she send Philip? Or Bea? Why you?”

“I don’t know. I was told to come so I did.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

“I want you to tell me the truth about why you’re here.”

“Christ… You can never let anything go, can you?” Henry runs his hand through his hair, then steps back and swings the door open wider. “You may as well come in, no sense having this conversation in the hallway.”

Alex enters the room and makes his way to the couch. He knows he’s being rude, but he doesn’t have it in him to care about etiquette at the moment. He leans against the back of the couch and stares at Henry. He sees the purple shadows and the tell-tale puffiness of his eyes which betray the fact that he’s been crying.

“I offered to come in Mum’s place because I wanted to see you. I had hoped that we could talk things out. I just hadn’t anticipated how angry you’d still be with me. If I had realized, I would have stayed away. I didn’t mean to upset you as I have, I just… I miss you. When the opportunity to see you arose, I had to take it.”

Alex scoffs quietly. “You miss me.”

“Yes, of course I miss you. I miss talking to you at ridiculous hours of the day and night, I miss you sending me wildly inappropriate text messages while I’m trapped in mind-bogglingly boring meetings, I miss… God, I just miss you.” Henry’s playing with his signet ring again. “I miss everything about you.”

“You have a strange way of expressing it,” Alex quips.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means three years is along time to go without contacting someone you supposedly miss that much.”

Henry’s chin juts out the way it always does when he’s trying to convince himself to be braver than he feels – Alex tries to ignore the way his heartrate increases at how the little gesture of defiance makes Henry look even more handsome than he is. “I fully acknowledge that I’m not blameless for our estrangement, but I’m certainly not solely responsible for it. You’ve never responded to any of my emails and you blocked my number, so I don’t know what else you expect me to have done. Should I have hired a skywriter? That’d be a bit garish, wouldn’t it?”

“You haven’t emailed me since before we went to Texas. And I didn’t block your number.”

“Really?” Henry crosses the room to grab his phone from the nightstand. He taps the screen several times as he walks back to Alex then holds it out so he can see the screen.

Alex sees his own number then hears the automated recording that announces over the speaker that the number dialed cannot be reached. He pulls his phone out and looks at it in confusion. He has a good signal, yet his phone didn’t ring and doesn’t show any missed calls. Henry taps the screen several more times, pulls up his messaging app and hands the phone to him. Alex sees it’s their chat screen and there’s message after message on Henry’s side, all showing as undeliverable. He hands Henry back his phone.

“I’ve also sent you dozens if not hundreds of emails. I tried not to at first, which was damn near killing me, for the record. But then you sent that email, and I realized what a colossal mistake I’d made by leaving the way I did, and I wanted to try and apologize, but you never responded to the emails I sent. I kept sending them at first thinking maybe if I found the right thing to say you’d answer, but as the weeks passed and I got nothing back, I just kept writing because it was the only connection to you I had left.”

Alex opens the email app on his phone and scrolls through his inbox. “I haven’t received any emails from you in years,” he insists. He searches Henry’s email address and when it returns nothing, he shows him his phone.

“Well, I’ve sent them, and nothing ever comes back as a mailer daemon, so I don’t know where in cyberspace they’ve gone, but they’re out there somewhere. Maybe this is the universe telling us breaking up was the right thing after all.” Henry locks his phone and puts it down on the coffee table in front of the sofa, which he then settles onto. “I know it’s too little too late, but I did try to apologize.”

Alex stands and walks around the end of the couch so he’s directly in front of Henry now. “I’ve spent three years trying to convince myself to stop loving you because I thought I meant nothing to you.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Henry says, looking up at him with those fathomless eyes. “You were, are, and always will be everything to me. I love you, Alex. Nothing, not even you hating me, will ever change that fact.”

Before he even realizes he’s moving, Alex is leaning down, folding himself to straddle Henry’s lap, his hands finding their way into his hair as his mouth crushes against his. His body feels like he’s made of fireworks that are going off in every direction at once. He knows this is the worst, most irreversible mistake he’s ever made, and he doesn’t care one bit. All he cares about is the feeling of Henry’s lips and the taste of his mouth as he opens himself to him, the sensation of his strong hands on his waist, the pressure of Henry’s firm body pressed against his own, and the way he feels whole for the first time since he tried to tell Henry he loved him at the lake.

It feels like it did when they snuck into the Red Room during the state dinner so long ago; intense, maybe a little desperate – maybe more than a little desperate – like they’re trying to devour each other before someone catches them. But the thing is, that’s not what Alex wants this – whatever the hell this even is – to be. He pulls back slightly and Henry immediately stills. As Henry looks up at him, Alex can see the worry in his eyes. Even after so much silence, he can still read him.

“For the record, I’ve never hated you, not for a second,” Alex tells him quietly. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against Henry's. His voice is soft when he adds “I wanted to hate you; it would have made not being with you so much easier if I hated you. But I could never stop loving you long enough to hate you.”

“You should hate me after all I’ve done.”

“Stop.” Alex leans back and looks at him, his expression serious. “I’m pissed, and I want you back in my life, and I don’t know if I trust my judgement when it comes to you right now. I don’t know how to reconcile all that and I’m not sure where that leaves us, or if there even can be an us at this point. You fucked up.” He strokes his fingers through his hair. “But so did I. I gave up rather than fight for us, and that’s on me. We both made mistakes. If we have any chance at all of figuring this out, we both have to own what we did. It wasn’t you or me who broke what we had; it was both of us, and that means the only way to mend it is for both of us to want to.”

“I do want to fix this, more than anything,” Henry mutters. “I miss you so much.” He sighs. “Even if we can’t reconcile as romantic partners, I would respect that boundary if it meant having you back in my life.”

“I’m willing to try if you are.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Alex looks into his eyes and cycles a breath. “Honestly? I’m somewhere between wanting it so badly it hurts and being afraid to want it, because I don’t think I could survive if we try and end up breaking up again. But I am sure that this is the first time I feel whole, feel like myself, since you ducked under the water that night. I’m not saying that to try and make you feel bad or anything, it’s just the truth. I don’t know how wanting you and being afraid to want you fits together. But I love you, Henry. That I know for certain.”

“I love you, too. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to truly make amends for hurting you the way I did, but as you said, I’m willing to try if you are.” Henry kisses him briefly.

“Then it sounds like we have somewhere to start.” Alex runs his hands through Henry’s hair then clasps them behind his neck, leans his head forward until their noses brush against one another. “I’m scared, but I love you and maybe that’s enough.” He shrugs slightly.

“I don’t know what our future looks like, but I know I want to find out. I love you. I know I'm saying it too often, but I've been aching to say it for so long, I don't know I'll ever be able to stop now I've started.” He wraps his arms around Alex and nudges him forward until their bodies are flush, holding him tightly.

"Well, I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing it, so I think you're okay," Alex says lightly, and he realizes, he means it. Hearing Henry say he loves him sends a sensation through him that's like speeding down the highway with the roof and doors off the Jeep; it's exhilarating and a little dangerous, but so right it takes his breath away in the best way possible.

Alex feels a few tears sliding down his cheeks, but he doesn’t care. He lets them fall as he presses himself against Henry, feeling at home in a way he hasn’t since the last time he was in his arms. He can’t do the math on how this is going to work out, but for now he doesn’t care. Henry loves him and he wants him in his life, and he wants to find some way to make this complicated mess between them work. Morning is hours away and in the light of day, there might not be any way for that to happen, but tonight the challenges of who they are and the lives they have to lead don’t matter. Tonight, all that matters is that they’re both here, finally in the arms of the man that they love.

Chapter Text

Alex opens his eyes and it takes a few seconds to register where he is. He’s confused about the room he wakes up in, because it’s far too aggressively pink. But then he feels the arms flexing around him and the gentle kiss on the back of his head and reality chases away the hazy confusion of sleep.

“Good morning.”

The whispered words send a jolt through him and he has to squeeze the hand that’s holding his own to be sure it’s not a dream. He allows himself a smile as the vaguely grassy-linen scent he’s missed so much reassures him that he’s not dreaming and Henry’s really here, holding him, pressed against his back, kissing the nape of his neck... He rolls over so that he’s facing him, because he needs to see those beautiful blue eyes and as soon as he looks into them, it’s as though all the hurt and anger and pain just melts away, like how fog burns off under morning sunlight.

“Morning,” Alex mutters. He brushes his hand through Henry’s pillow-mussed hair and it feels just as soft and silky under his fingertips as he remembered. Last night he’d been too caught up in the emotion and tension between them to let himself really feel it, but as they’re laying here staring at one another, he can’t help but marvel at how it feels to finally touch it again. Henry shifts his head forward to kiss him and Alex draws back. “I have morning breath,” he mutters quickly, before Henry can misinterpret the movement. He draws the neck of his hoodie up to cover his mouth, and it occurs to him that it’s the first time they’ve ever woken up beside one another fully clothed.

They’d held each other on the sofa for several hours, talking and talking and talking until their voices were as raw as the emotions between them. Eventually Henry had stood, taken his hand, and led him to the bed. They’d stretched out and snuggled together, Alex tucked securely against Henry’s chest, the grey cotton t-shirt he wore soft against Alex's cheek where it rested on his shoulder. He’d reveled in the way Henry’s arms wrapped tightly around him and feeling the side of his face against the top of his head. He’d rubbed his hands gently over Henry’s back and pretended he didn’t hear the litany of whispered “I’m sorry”s that Henry breathed into his messy curls.

“I don’t care,” Henry whispers. He gently tugs on the front of the hoodie until the fabric slides down past his chin, then places his hand on the back of Alex’s head and presses a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. “I’ve been dreaming about kissing you first thing in the morning for too long to let a little morning breath stop me.” He rakes his fingers through Alex’s hair and smiles at the way the curls shift around his fingers. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“Of course you have, I’m awesome,” Alex quips. Henry laughs, and it’s the rare, reckless, unguarded laugh which Alex loves so much, the one that triggers a little fluttering sensation in his chest. “I missed you too, your Majesty.”

Henry shifts quickly, rolling Alex onto his back, straddling him, and pinning his wrists to the pillow on either side of his head. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s ‘your Royal Highness’?” he asks with a smirk curling his lips. He leans down and kisses him gently like he had before. When he pulls back, he shifts and climbs off Alex, laying on his side so he’s facing him.

Alex reaches for his phone and looks at the time. He wrinkles his nose then rolls to face Henry again. “I better get out of here before anyone sees me.”

“I’d rather you stay,” Henry tells him.

“It’ll raise questions. The staff here have all signed NDAs, but the other visitors in this wing haven’t. If any of them spot me leaving your room, someone might run their mouth.”

“I don’t care.”

“You say that now, but you’d regret it when you’re up to your eyeballs in tabloids splashed with our faces and accusations about being gay.”

“Well, it’s not as if the accusation wouldn’t be true in my case.” Henry expression shifts to one Alex recognizes; he's trying to decide how to word whatever he's about to say. He sits up and takes Alex’s hands in his, tugging him upright as well. “I haven’t slept because I keep thinking about what you said last night. About how no honest life can be lived in the closet. You’re right, and… I’m tired of living a lie.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that it’s about a decade late, but I’m not going to hide who I am anymore, from anyone. I’m going to come out publicly.” He forces a little crooked grin when he adds “I don’t think Mum will lock me away in a tower, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes.” The smile which curves his lips is more genuine now. “To be clear, this isn’t some grandiose gesture as an attempt to win you back. I’m not doing this for us, I’m doing it for me. It’s something I should have done long ago, I just never had the courage. I also never had someone who made me realize I wanted to find the courage to do it.” He looks down at their hands then back up. He must see how Alex’s brows have pushed together the way they always do when he’s worried about something. “Given how rarely we’ve appeared at the same events these past few years, the press shouldn’t speculate about you. However, you have my word that I’ll not say anything that’ll out you.”

“I’m not worried about being outed, I know you'd never do that to me or anyone else. Besides, you know the only reason I ever hesitated to be out was because of my mom's campaign. I’m worried about you.”

Henry's expression shifts to one of unfiltered confusion.

“Cards on the table, we both know you don’t exactly have a great support network around you, Henry. I mean, I know you have Bea and Pez, but that’s not a lot when you’re facing the world and telling them one of the most intimate facts about yourself. Especially when this fact in particular is one that there will likely be as much negative response to as there will be positive.”

“You don’t think I should do it?”

“No, that's not what I'm saying at all; if you want to and you feel like you’re ready to come out, you absolutely should. What I’m saying is… No, what I’m asking is; will you let me be there for you when you do? Even if it’s just behind the scenes.” He squeezes Henry’s hands. “I want to be there to support you, even if it’s just as your friend. I can’t make things go smoothly, but I can remind you how brave you are when you’re doubting yourself.”

Henry bites his lower lip and Alex knows he’s on the verge of tears, but holding them back. “I think I can do that.”

“Good. For the record, I don’t care if the world knows I’m bi or that you and I were in a relationship. Honestly, if someone were to walk up to me and ask about us after you come out, I wouldn’t deny it. Or at least, I wouldn’t if you were okay with it being out there.” Alex grins at him. “Our relationship was the most amazing thing that’s ever happened in my life; even if it's over.”

“I feel the same way. I’d be lying if I said there isn’t a part of me that hopes me being out will possibly be a stepping stone towards us rebuilding what we had, but honestly, it’s just time I stop hiding who I am.”

“Okay, don’t react until I finish what I’m about to say, because it’s going to kind of sound bad at first,” Alex tells him as he adjusts his posture slightly. He leans forward and looks deeply into Henry’s eyes as he brings one hand up to graze through his hair then rest against the side of his neck. “I don’t want to rebuild what we had. As amazing as it was, what we had was a disaster that was doomed from the minute I dragged you into the Red Room. We fell apart because our entire relationship was based on secrets and hiding and fear of being found out. Which, yeah, added a certain element of risk that made some things extra hot, but I think we both know it was also toxic, whether either of us wanted to admit it at the time or not.”

Henry nods but he doesn’t interrupt. Alex bites his lip for a second before continuing. “The last thing I want is to put either of us through that again. If we’re going to have any kind of a chance at a healthy relationship, which I’m pretty sure we both want and I know we both deserve, we can't go backwards. We've got to be honest with each other; no secrets, no hiding things to try and protect one another, no making decisions for each other. Last time we let the rest of the world dictate how much we were allowed to love each other and how much we had to keep hidden. If we can’t find a way to be open and transparent this time, to be who we are on our own terms, we’re going to end up hurting each other again.” He pauses and looks down at Henry’s hand which is still holding his, the early morning light of the room casting a gleam on the face of his signet ring. “As much as I miss you, I don’t want what we had before.”

“Am I allowed to react now?” Henry asks, his voice quiet but relaxed, a hint of a grin curving the corner of his mouth.

Alex chuckles quietly and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m done.”

“I don’t want to live in the past either. You’re right, repeating what we did and expecting a different outcome is foolishness. We have a lot to figure out.” Henry leans back and cycles a clearly anxious breath. “I realize you have a lot going on with family Christmas and the New Year’s Eve Gala, but would it be okay if I call you or text you after I return to London?”

“Yeah, of course. I just need to figure out what’s wrong with my phone.” Alex reaches over and grabs it from the nightstand. He unlocks it and starts tapping away, trying to figure out why he’s not been receiving Henry’s calls or messages. As far as he can tell, it looks like his phone is working. On an impulse he goes into the contacts app and goes into the settings. He taps on the word Blocked and stills. There’s only one name displayed beneath Blocked Contacts; HRH Prince Dickhead 💩. “What the hell?” he mutters. He looks up at Henry. “I swear I don’t remember blocking you.” He looks back down and quickly removes the block.

“I tried calling after I got your email. It rang until it went to voicemail, when I tried calling again a few minutes later was the first time I got the message that the number couldn’t be reached, if that jogs anything.”

Alex closes his eyes and runs his hand over his face, because it does. “I was drunk, which you could probably tell from that email, and I wanted to answer, but I was still so angry. As soon as it went to voicemail, I went in and blocked you so I wouldn’t be tempted to answer if you called again, then I drank some more and passed out. By morning, it was all a blur, I thought I had dreamed it.” He looks up at Henry. “I’m so sorry.”

“For blocking the arsehole who’d broken your heart? I think you were more than entitled.” Henry takes his phone and lays it on the bed, then takes both his hands in his own. “I’m not angry. As a matter of fact, I’m quite happy.”

“Why?”

“Because you unblocked me. And because you said I can call you after I leave. Having you back in my life, even if it’s at a distance, is absolutely a Christmas miracle in my books.”

Alex nods his head in agreement. “I’m glad you came instead of your mom. I mean, I’m not glad she’s been sick, but I’m glad it wasn’t Bea or Philip who came in her place.”

“Yes, well, about that... Since we said we’re going for honest and transparent moving forward, I should confess… Mum’s fine; I asked her to let me come because I knew it might be one of the last opportunities I had to put myself in the same room as you before your mother’s second term concludes next year. I didn’t anticipate any of this,” he gestures vaguely between them, “but I needed to at least be able to see you, to try and apologize in person for everything." He chews his bottom lip. “Are you angry with me?”

“I might’ve been if that weren’t just about the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Alex admits.

“Well, then I’ll have to up my game.” Henry smirks before his expression shifts, turns almost shy. “I want to do things right this time. Truly. Walking away from you was the absolute worst mistake of my life.”

“We both have our share of mistakes to make up for. We’re going to try to do better, to be better, for ourselves and for each other, and we’re going to take things slowly and see where it goes. We know we love each other, but we have to figure out if we can find a way to trust each other and be part of each other’s world in a way we can both live with. That’s a lot to try and work out.”

“It is, but I know in my heart that you’re worth it.”

“So are you.” Alex presses a quick kiss to his lips then pulls him into a hug. They’re still holding each other when Alex’s phone starts chirping and dinging. “Shit,” he mutters as he reaches to silence it. “I have to go get ready for an interview; June, Nora, and I have to sit down with People for a piece about the Gala. I should be done around lunch. Are you free?”

Henry frowns. “I have to leave in an hour for New York. I have meetings at Okonjo House for most of the day, then I fly out of JFK at 11:00 tonight to return home.” He shrugs briefly. “Maybe this is a good thing. The universe reminding us that we not five minutes ago said we were going to take things one step at a time.”

“Yeah. Stupid universe.” He presses his forehead against Henry’s for a few seconds then kisses him before sighing and shifting himself toward the edge of the bed.

Henry walks him to the door and places a hand on his wrist as he reaches for the knob. Alex turns to look at him, and as he does, Henry slips his other hand behind his neck and pulls him into a searing kiss. Alex swears his insides have turned molten as Henry pushes his hand up into his hair and grabs it in a way that effectively erases every boundary they’ve spent the morning talking about. He can’t remember why they said they were going to take things slowly. All he can think about his how much he wants to march right back over to Henry’s bed, rip his clothes off, and fuck him senseless.

As though he’s able to hear the thought, Henry breaks the kiss off and takes a half step backwards, putting an attempt at a buffer zone between them, but his hand is still clenched in a fist in Alex’s hair. Their eyes lock and they’re both breathing hard enough that Alex knows Henry’s reminding himself that what they have right now is fragile and needs to be handled delicately.

“Right. Taking things slow,” Henry mutters, forcing a small grin. He disentangles his fingers and drops his hand back to his side. “Right then. If I don’t have the opportunity to see you or speak to you before then, happy Christmas.”

“I’m not saying it back, because we’re going to talk, or text at least. So, I’ll say it back in two days,” Alex tells him.

Henry smiles and takes another step back. “Right.” He says again.

It’s been three years, and Alex can still read his anxiousness so easily. Alex steps forward, pushes up onto the balls of his feet, and kisses him gently until he feels some of the tension start to ebb. He settles back onto his heels and looks up at him, their height difference more pronounced this close. “Safe travels. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll message you when I get back to London.”

“You better message me before that. Like when you’re leaving for New York. And when you get to New York. And when you’re leaving New York,” Alex shoots with a smirk. “Just because we’re taking it slow doesn’t mean I’m not going to be thinking about you all day now.”

Henry laughs quietly, but it’s one of the genuine ones that washes away the tense set of his mouth and smooths out his furrowed brows. “Yes, dear.”

Alex smiles and tries not to think about the triple backflip his stomach is doing at the words. He kisses him one more time, then steps out into the hallway and makes his way back toward his room. He manages to get back without running into anyone and has just crossed his room when he hears the door open and shut behind him. He turns in time for June and Nora to slam into him and wrap him in an awkward group hug.

“Are you okay?”

“Where have you been?”

“Did you and Henry run into each other?”

“What happened?”

They’re both rattling off questions at the same time and hugging him like they’re actually trying to crush him.

“I can’t answer if you two are squeezing the air out of me,” he mutters. They both let him go but move back by mere inches only. He gestures toward his bed and they all pile on they way they’ve done so many times over the last decade. “Yes, I’m okay. Yes, I saw Henry at the party last night. I spent the night in Henry’s room and no, before you go there, we didn’t hook up. As for what happened, uh, kinda a lot.”

“We’re listening,” June says as she squeezes his ankle.

Alex takes a deep breath before he launches into a recap of the last twelve or so hours. “So, I came to get ready for the interview, he’s getting ready to leave for New York, and we’re going to try to figure things out. I don’t know if we’re getting back together, but, I mean, we’re both open to it.”

“So Henry’s been emailing you all this time and you really never got any of them?” June asks.

“No, I haven’t gotten any emails from him since just before the weekend we spent at the lake house. Is it possible I drunk blocked his email address too?”

“May I?” Nora asks and points at his laptop. He nods and she grabs it off his nightstand. Within seconds she’s tapping away and staring intently at the screen.

"She reminds me of Data from Star Trek when she gets in the zone like this,” Alex mumbles after a few moments of watching her. He chuckles when she flips him the bird without bothering to look away from the screen.

“Ugh, this is why the computer illiterate shouldn’t be allowed unsupervised access to my babies,” Nora mutters after a minute. Her expression softens when she looks up at Alex. “You archived the folder that his emails were directed to. That’s why nothing’s been showing up in your inbox and you haven’t gotten notifications, but they’re archived. He wasn’t kidding about how many emails he sent. You have literally hundreds of unread messages.” She turns the laptop around so he can see the screen.

Alex gawks at the display. Nearly 500 unopened emails sit in the HRH Dickhead folder which Nora’s now moved back to the main page of his email. He does some quick math in his head and realizes that the number of emails averages out to one every two or three days. A quick scroll through the first few pages of emails and the dates track. He’s been sending them constantly the whole time. He closes the laptop, puts both hands over his face, and leans back, his head thumping against the headboard.

“What’s wrong?” June asks.

“All this time he was trying. I was sitting here moping about how he didn’t care because he couldn’t even be bothered to call or email, and he was trying.”

“Alex, you had literally no way of knowing,” June said.

“Yeah, because I threw a temper tantrum and blocked him.”

“You reacted emotionally while you were hurting. It happens,” she tells him.

“Can you two cover the interview without me? I really can’t deal right now.”

“Of course.” She grimaces as she looks at him. “Just promise me you’re not going to spend all morning sitting here beating yourself up over this.”

“No promises,” he mutters.

“I’m serious!”

“So am I. How am I supposed to not beat myself up over this?”

“Cut yourself some slack. He could have contacted you other ways. Using someone else’s phone, a different email address, showing up at an event…” Nora points out. “The reason it took three years for you two to figure out what happened isn’t important. You guys said it yourselves; you’re all about living in the here and now, finding a future, not stepping back into the past.”

“Thank you!” June says. “See, Data agrees with me that you shouldn’t wallow. What’s done is done, neither of you can go back in time and change what happened. All you can do is learn from your mistakes and…” She stops abruptly when a gentle knock comes from the door.

June gets up and goes to answer it, Protective Big Sister mode clearly engaged. When she pulls the door open, Alex sees Henry standing there, a cozy looking blue knit sweater over a button down and a pair of dark blue jeans making him look like he just walked off the set of a photoshoot. Before he can say anything, June hugs him tightly and drags him into the room. Nora’s off the bed and across the room and now they’re both hugging him.

Alex can hear the three of them speaking quietly, but he can’t make out what they’re saying. When they finally pull apart, they all have shining eyes and hastily wiped faces. He joins them near the door and looks curiously at Henry. “I thought you’d be getting ready to leave for New York.”

“I postponed my meetings until after the holidays and pushed my return to London until tomorrow. I was hoping perhaps your offer to do lunch was still on the table.” Henry’s fidgeting with his ring and his expression is an annoyingly adorable blend of sheepish and hopeful.

“As it turns out, my morning just opened up, and I have a feeling my afternoon is going to as well, so lunch is definitely still open,” Alex tells him.

Henry’s smile is wide and relieved and Alex wants so badly to kiss him that he genuinely considers kicking June and Nora out of his room.

“Okay, we have an interview to get to,” Nora says with a clap of her hands. Unexpectedly, she grabs one of Henry and Alex’s hands in each of hers, looks back and forth between them a few times. She squeezes their hands then pulls them both forward into a hug. A few seconds later June is nudging her way between Nora and Alex. The four of them stand there holding each other for a long moment. Eventually, the girls step back, both of them sporting warm smiles and wet eyes. They leave to meet the interviewer downstairs before someone sends security looking for them, leaving Alex and Henry alone in his room.

“I owe you a huge apology,” Alex says quietly. “I found the emails. Well, Nora found them for me. I had archived the folder your address auto-sorted into, so I never got notifications when they came in.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Henry tells him.

“It does matter!” Alex insists. “I’ve been angry with you for not reaching out all this time, convincing myself that I meant nothing to you because you were able to walk away without looking back, when you’d been trying so hard to talk to me. I was blaming you for ignoring me when the reality is that I was the one who was ignoring you.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“But I…”

“Alex, stop.” Henry steps forward and takes his hands. “We’re talking now, that’s what matters.”

“You’re allowed to be angry with me, you know,” Alex counters. “You don’t have to downplay what you’re feeling out of some sense of guilt over hurting me when you left.”

Henry smiles at him. “I’m not doing that, I promise. I’m genuinely not angry about you having blocked me. If our roles were reversed, I can’t say I would have reacted any differently.” He squeezes his hands and sighs quietly. “Does part of me wish things hadn’t played out this way and we’d not been absent from one another’s lives for so long? Yes, absolutely. But mostly I’m just trying to have faith in the notion that things happened the way they were meant to. We’ve both grown and matured in these past years, we’re approaching our situation in a much more level-headed way; as painful as it was, maybe we needed to go through it.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of being the reasonable one?” Alex asks, hint of a smirk pulling the side of his mouth up.

“Well one of us needs to be,” Henry teases. “What was it you said earlier? We both have our share of mistakes to make up for?”

“Quit using my own arguments against me.” He pulls Henry into a hug and can’t believe how quickly holding him feels like home again. He would have expected after all that had happened – after the anger and the self-pity and the drunken nights and the pain – it would have taken time to feel comfortable being around him again, never mind holding him, but it hasn’t. If he’s being totally honest with himself, in a strange way it feels like they’ve never been apart. Being close to him, holding him, kissing him, falling asleep in his arms, it all feels as natural as breathing.

They both turn and look at the door when a knock interrupts the moment.

“Should I…” Henry mutters quietly and points in the direction of the bathroom.

“You can if you’re not comfortable with someone seeing you in here, but as far as I’m concerned, abso-fucking-lutely not.” Henry kisses him briefly, then steps back and gestures to the door.

Alex opens it to find Cash standing there. “Hey man, what’s up?”

“Your mom wants you to come down to the Office. She’d like to talk to you and Henry,” Cash tells him. He then shifts slightly to the side so he can see Henry around the partially open door. “Your Royal Highness. It’s nice to see you again,” he says with a respectful little nod of his head.

“It’s nice to see you as well, Cash,” Henry answers.

“Can you tell her I’ll be down in five? I just need to change,” Alex says.

“I’ll let her know you’ll be down shortly.”

“How bad is it?” Alex asks quietly.

Cash lifts an eyebrow. “You know what she’s like when she gets into Protective Mama Bear mode.” He adds a shrug.

“Thanks man,” Alex nods and holds his fist out to Cash, who gamely bumps it with his own before turning and disappearing down the hallway. Alex closes the door and turns to Henry. “You still sure I’m worth it?”

“Yes, I am.” Henry’s response comes without hesitation. “Would you like me to wait in the hallway while you change?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not like there’s anything you haven’t seen before.” The words are out of his mouth before he realizes there actually is something Henry hasn’t seen before, but this isn’t the time to get into explaining the tattoo he got not long after the New Year’s Eve he spent in the Kennedy Garden cursing Henry’s name to the heavy winter clouds.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t respect your privacy. Starting over and taking things slowly, remember? I know we spent the night in the same bed last night, but that doesn’t mean I need to stand here ogling your beautiful body right off the bat. Much as I enjoy watching you strip and redress, I’m not a cad.”

“God, you are so extra,” Alex mutters and rolls his eyes again. He presses a quick kiss to Henry’s lips. “I’ll just be a minute.”

He leaves Henry in the sitting room and makes his way into the walk-in closet. He quickly strips out of his clothes and swaps them for a snug pair of faded jeans and a soft, cream colored Henley shirt. He runs his hands through his hair, making only a half-hearted effort to tame his curls. They’re unruly and will be utterly uncooperative for the rest of the day – they always are when he doesn’t bother to dry his hair – but he doesn’t mind the slightly wild look; partly because he knows it gives him a vaguely rogue-ish appearance, but mostly because he knows Henry likes his hair when he rocks the unkempt rogue look. If Henry’s going to test his resolve by walking back into his life looking like a model-movie star-royal hybrid, Alex supposes he’s entitled to test his powers of restraint a little too. He pulls on one of his favorite pairs of sneakers, gives his outfit a final glance in the mirror, then steps back out to where Henry’s waiting for him.

Alex smiles at the expression that passes over Henry’s face – a mixture of appreciation and the tiniest hint of suffering. “Do I look alright?” Alex asks, knowing he looks good. He turns in a slow circle and as he faces Henry again, he’s right there, in his space, pulling him into an urgent kiss, one hand in his hair, and the other grabbing his ass. Alex chuckles into the kiss. “I guess that's a yes,” he mumbles, his lips still crushed against Henry’s.

“How on Earth do you expect me to behave myself when you have the audacity to look like that?” Henry murmurs as he leans his forehead against Alex’s.

“I don’t know. How do you expect me to behave myself when you look like you do?” Alex counters. He squeezes Henry’s waist briefly then sighs. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Chapter Text

They make their way down to the Oval Office and Alex pauses for a moment before knocking on the door. “Last chance to come to your senses and change your mind,” he says to Henry.

“I have come to my senses, that’s why I’m finally here.” Alex is surprised to feel Henry’s hand slip into his own, lacing their fingers together.

Alex nods, cycles a quick breath, and knocks on the door. His mother’s response comes after only a moment. Alex glances at Henry, opens the door, and they step in. The room is empty aside from his mom, which is odd. Usually at least Zahra would be in here, but Alex guesses she sent everyone out when Cash informed her that they were on their way down. She’s standing near one of the windows, looking out at the cold, overcast morning. When Alex closes the door behind himself and Henry, she turns to look at them. Alex doesn’t miss the way her eyes flicker to their clasped hands. She’s hard to read this morning; she’s got her diplomatic mask in place, her expression carefully neutral, her eyes guarded.

“Your Royal Highness,” she says coolly with a nod.

“Madam President,” Henry answers smoothly.

Alex wants to scream.

His mom gestures toward one of the couches in the center of the room as she moves to sit on the other. Alex and Henry take their seats and wait for her to break the ice.

“Well, I guess my first question of where you disappeared to last night has already been answered,” she says, looking at Alex.

“Yes, we spent the night together, but not like that. I freaked out when I saw him at the reception last night, so I dipped into one of the other rooms. He followed me and we talked, well, more like we fought. I went outside to get some air, he followed me and we fought some more. Then I went to his room and we actually talked for most of the night. We didn’t hook up, I swear.”

“Alex, you’re both adults. You don’t have to justify or validate to me or anyone else who you do or don’t have sex with,” she tells him. She shifts slightly, leaning back against the sofa. “I’m not concerned about whether or not you two are sleeping together; you’re both intelligent young men, and you know how to be responsible in terms of that aspect of your lives. I’m concerned about what happens if you boys are jumping into something again and it goes sideways. Watching you hurt so bad last time was terrible.”

“That’s kind of what we’ve been talking about. We don’t know where exactly things are going right now, but we both want to try and figure it out, together. Whether that means us dating again or just staying friends, we’ve still got a lot to talk about,” Alex tells her. “The only thing we know is that we want to be part of each other’s lives.”

Alex watches her carefully. He can't remember the last time she went out of her way to hide what she was thinking from him. Not being able to read her expression is making him anxious.

“I know us getting back together is a risky decision for a ton of reasons. We’ve hurt each other in the past, the media will eat us alive when they find out about us being together, we have a lot of emotional baggage to sort through before we can even figure out if we can be together, but… Ma, you’ve always told me that love is a risk worth taking and worth fighting for.”

Something shifts in her eyes then. “Love, huh?”

Alex looks at Henry then and grins at him. Henry squeezes his hand gently and returns the small smile. He looks back at her. “I know it’s kind of crazy. I mean, we haven’t even spoken to each other in years but, yeah, I love him, and I know he loves me.” he pauses… He’s trying to put everything into words that make sense, but how can he condense everything he feels for Henry – the enormity of what he knows in his heart when he looks at him, the infinite possibilities he sees before them at the touch of his hand – into mere words? He looks at Henry again and something crystalizes inside him, cutting through the jumble in his head and clarifying everything he’s been trying to explain. He looks back at her. “The day I told you I was bisexual and that he and I had been seeing each other, you told me I needed to figure out if I felt forever about him.” He looks back at Henry now. “I do.” He turns his attention back to her. “I don’t expect you or anyone else to understand it after everything that’s happened and us being apart for so long, but Henry’s my forever. Whatever we did wrong in the past, we’ll learn from it and figure out how to do it right next time, because he’s it. I’m never going to love anyone the way I love him, and I’m not willing to give him up without a fight.”

She stares at him for several beats, her face still unreadable as it is when she’s facing off against an opponent in the middle of a debate. Eventually she shifts her eyes to Henry, when Alex does as well, he finds that he’s staring at him. Unlike his mother, he can read the emotion on Henry’s face as though it were written on a page before him. He looks every bit as in love as Alex feels.

“So much for not being sure if we were going to get back together or not,” Henry quips quietly.

“Shut up,” Alex mutters with a smile. He turns his attention back to his mother. “I know us being together isn’t going to be easy and I am very possibly shooting my political aspirations in the foot, but I’d rather be some anonymous person in a crowd with the man I love beside me than a politician smiling behind a podium alone.”

His mom looks down at her hands for a moment where they’re folded in her lap, and he swears he sees the corner of her lip twitch up. When she looks back up at him, her expression has softened slightly. “Could you give us the room, Sugar? I’d like to have a word with Prince Henry.”

“Anything you have to say to him you can say in front of me,” Alex responds, automatically tensing.

“Alex,” Henry says softly. He waits for Alex to look at him before he continues. “It’s okay. Give us a few minutes,” he insists with a small nod and an easy grin.

Alex looks back and forth between them several times before conceding defeat. “I’ll be pacing in the hallway,” he tells them. As he stands, he leans over to press a quick, chaste kiss to Henry’s lips, squeezes his hand, then leaves the room.

He actually is pacing the hallway when Cash approaches him. He’s got a paper coffee cup in his hand and his typical calm, slightly amused grin. “If you wear a hole in the carpet, Zahra’ll have your ass hanging from the flagpole on the roof,” he says lightly as he extends the cup to Alex. He leans against the doorframe across the hall. “She’s just worried about you. About both of you, actually,” he tells him with a nod in the direction of the door to the Office.

“You didn’t see the way she was looking at him,” Alex replies and takes a sip of the coffee.

“I mean, you’re her kid, of course she’s going to give the guy who broke your heart a few bombastic side eyes.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t need her threatening him or telling him to rethink getting back together.”

“Do you really think that’s what she’s doing in there?”

“I mean, why else would she have asked me to step out so she could speak to him alone?” Cash chuckles quietly and shakes his head. “What?”

“You know your mom better than that.”

Alex stops and sighs. He’s right, he does know his mom better than that. She trusts him and his judgement. She might not always agree with his choices, but she always supports him. There’s no reason – aside from his brain playing the worst-case scenario game – for him to think that she’d be saying anything particularly terrible to Henry. He runs his hand through his hair and looks over at Cash. “Yeah, you’re right. I just... Fuck... She can be intense when she gets caught up in Protective Mom mode, ya know.”

Cash rolls his eyes then scans the hallway quickly. “Listen kid, you didn’t hear it from me, but everyone, including your mom, has been rooting for you two to get back together. She’s not going to scare him off after hoping for this for three years.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everyone could see how happy you and he made each other. We kept our distance, no one wanted to interfere, but we’ve all been crossing our fingers for this. Hell, even Zahra was hoping for you two to get back together. She kind of blamed herself for you guys breaking up in the first place.”

“That’s ridiculous. She had nothing to do with why Henry and I split,” Alex mutters. “And how do you even know all this anyway?”

“I mean, I am the resident love guru,” Cash replies with a wide smile and a shrug. “Trust the people around you, Alex. We’ve got your back. And Henry’s.”

Alex is clearing his throat, which has gone tight at the thought of so many people supporting them – which is probably a good thing because he can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t sound obnoxiously sentimental and sappy – when the door behind him opens. Henry and his mom are both there.

“Well, you didn’t wear a track in the carpet, I’m impressed,” his mom says lightly.

“Cash distracted me with coffee,” Alex shrugs, going for nonchalant and hoping to at least pull off something slightly less stressed than he’s been feeling since Cash showed up at his room.

“Can someone please explain to me how I managed to bring a child into this world who is actually calmed down by coffee?” she mutters and shakes her head. She pulls him into a quick hug. “I love you,” she whispers.

“I love you too.”

“Well, I have meetings for the rest of the day. You boys have fun. Oh, and y’all keep your supper plans open; your father texted me this morning that he had some meetings get cancelled and he’s coming in a day early, so he’ll be here this afternoon. If you’re not leaving before then, it would be wonderful if you would join us, Henry.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude on family time. I know how limited it is.”

“Darlin’, you certainly wouldn’t be intruding. I'm a firm believer that all family should be present for family dinners,” she tells him, a warm expression on her face.

Henry blushes slightly and returns her smile. “Thank you, Ellen. I’d be honored to join you for dinner this evening.”

“Excellent. I’ll see you both later then.” She pulls them both into a quick, three-sided hug, then disappears back into the Office.

“What the hell kinda talk did you two have?” Alex asks after a moment of staring at the closed door.

“Well, it’s a bit early yet for lunch, how shall we occupy our morning?” Henry asks, making no effort to disguise the fact that he’s changing the subject. “Perhaps we should just return to your quarters and take advantage of everyone else being otherwise disposed.”

“So that’s what we’re doing here? You’re just totally ignoring the question and trying to distract me with the possibility of making out all morning?”

“I never suggested any such thing.” Henry’s grin is wicked as he looks down at him. “I simply meant that having some time alone would afford us the opportunity to talk some more.”

“Yeah, right. You looked at my lips when you suggested going back to my room because you want to talk. I haven’t forgotten your tells, you know.” Alex challenges.

“It’s not my fault your lips are so distracting,” Henry remarks, looking down intentionally now. The tip of his tongue darts out to moisten his lips before his bottom lip is caught in a glimpse of white teeth.

“You are really testing my limited self-restraint, you know that don’t you?” Alex asks as he fights the urge to grab him and start kissing him then and there, whoever sees them be damned.

“Really?” Henry asks, shifting slightly closer to him. “Hmm... I suppose I’ve not lost my appeal to you then. I was worried that perhaps after so long, you might not be as attracted to me as you once were.”

“Okay, unless you want me to push you up against the wall and start screwing you right here in the middle of the hallway, you need to stop teasing me,” Alex nearly groans the words. “We both know I’m the reckless one in this relationship.”

“Relationship, huh?” Henry all but whispers, edging even closer now.

“Oh my God...” Alex rolls his eyes. “Yes, you royal pain in the ass, relationship. I mean, my mother’s already calling you family, so yeah, I’d say we’re back together and in a relationship.”

“Good.” In a movement that’s surprisingly quick, he raises his right hand, uses the side of his finger to tilt Alex’s chin up, and dips his head down to kiss him. It’s soft and gentle and Alex feels like his knees are actually going to give out under him.

“Baby,” Alex whispers without meaning to when Henry straightens his posture and pulls away. “We’re kinda out in the open here.”

“Oh dear, someone might see me with the most eligible bachelor in the entire country. Whatever will I do?” Henry says lightly. “Maybe I’m okay with being seen kissing you.”

“Well, in that case…” Alex pushes up onto his toes and kisses him. It only lasts a few seconds, but it’s deep and hot in a way Alex has never experienced before. He pulls back and smiles up at Henry.

“Ugh, would you two get a room?” Zahra’s voice draws their attention. She walks up to them and looks back and forth between them before training her gaze on Alex. “This mean you’ve gotten your head out of your ass and you two are back together?” Alex smiles and tells her yes. “’Bout time,” she says dryly, but Alex can see the slight quirk of her lip. It’s there only a second before she’s back to business mode. “Your dad gets in at 6:00, supper’s at 9:00. Don’t be late.” She then bustles past them into the Office.

“Now, back to the question of what to do,” Henry remarks after the door closes behind her.

An idea occurs to Alex, and he smiles. “Do you want to get out of here for a few hours?”

“If that’s what you’d like,” Henry nods.

Alex turns to look at Cash. “You have plain clothes handy?” Cash raises his eyebrow in a very ‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’ kind of way, then nods. “Cool. Can you get changed and meet us at the car?” Cash nods again and makes his way down the hallway, talking into his comms.

“What have you got up your sleeve?” Henry asks.

“You’ll see,” Alex replies with a grin. “Come on, we need to change. We're going incognito mode.”

“Are you sure we can’t just make out in your room all morning?” Henry asks quietly.

“Trust me,” Alex insists as he starts moving down the hall in the direction that will take them back to the residence and guest rooms.

They go their separate ways to change, and Alex makes a few quick phone calls before Henry returns to his room. He chuckles quietly when he sees what Henry’s wearing; faded jeans, white Converse sneakers, and a light blue hoodie. Alex is wearing the exact same outfit, the only real difference being that the ballcap Henry’s chosen is grey while his own is black.

“Looks like great minds think alike,” Alex comments.

“And fools seldom differ,” Henry shoots back.

“Hey…” Alex makes a face at him, but pulls him close, removes his hat, and kisses him. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of doing that,” he says when he leans away. He hands Henry back his hat and watches him replace it.

“I hope you don’t,” Henry says.

They make their way to the exit where Cash is waiting for them. He’s wearing dark jeans, a t-shirt, and a bomber jacket which Alex knows has special discreet pockets sewn into it for his communications battery pack, a taser, and several industrial strength zip ties that can be used as either handcuffs or tourniquets, depending on the situation. They climb into the car and it leaves without Alex having to say anything.

“You were making arrangements while we split up to change, weren’t you?” Henry asks him.

“Maaaaaybe,” Alex answers with a shrug.

“Sneaky bugger,” Henry mutters. He slides his hand into Alex’s and smiles at him. “So where are we off to then?”

Alex shakes his head. “You’ll see when we get there.”

It’s a short drive, less than 20 minutes thanks to the lighter-than-usual traffic. The car lets them off in front of 1300 Constitution Avenue, and they make their way inside. The museum doesn’t open for another two hours, but there’s a woman in a security uniform waiting at the door for them.

“Good morning, Mr Claremont-Diaz,” she says politely.

“Hey, morning. Thanks for letting us come in early.”

“Always a pleasure, Sir.”

“This way,” Alex says as he nods toward the elevators and gently tugs at Henry’s wrist. They get in and Alex hits the button for the third floor.

“So, why the incognito outfits if we’re here before the place is even open?” Henry asks him.

“Well, it’s not open yet, but it will be in a couple of hours so being able to blend in will be important,” Alex replies casually. “I have a feeling we’re going to be here for a while.”

The door of the car opens, and they step out. Henry looks at the bold lettering on the wall across the wide lobby from them; THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY. He moves toward the entrance to the exhibit.

“Maybe later, that’s not why I brought you here,” Alex says. He slips his hand into Henry’s and nods his head to the side. He leads him to a hall which has ENTERTAINMENT NATION beside the entrance. As they enter, there are hundreds of props and costumes from television shows and movies. Guitars, ruby slippers, a signpost, puppets, sports jerseys, an Oscar, and so much more. They walk deep into the hall, and toward the back, Alex suddenly stops. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“It’s a surprise. Just, humor me for like 30 seconds.”

“If this is some scheme to grope me in the middle of a museum…”

“Ooh, that’s not a bad idea. But, also not what this is,” Alex tells him. Henry closes his eyes and Alex takes both his hands, guiding him forward. He moves them around to a display that had been blocked from their view by a floor-to-ceiling glass case containing a variety of Muppets, Fraggles, and various Sesame Street characters. He positions Henry precisely where he wants him, steps to the side so he’s not blocking his view, and smiles widely. “Okay, open your eyes.”

Alex’s smile is absolutely beaming as he takes half a step back and watches Henry look around. He sees the moment Henry realizes Alex has brought him to a section of the exhibit which is dedicated to James Bond through the decades. There are photos and memorabilia from all the actors, including…

“Dad,” Henry whispers, the sound echoing softly in the quiet room. Henry’s eyes are locked on a life-sized photo of his father, a brilliant smile on his face, as he looks down and to his left. To the side of the photo, positioned so it appears like Arthur's looking at the items, is a director’s chair with his name stitched on the back, a prop gun, a pair of sunglasses, several playing cards and casino chips on the seat, beside a mannequin sporting one of his James Bond suits. Piled up around the legs of the chair are an umbrella, a briefcase that’s open to display an assortment of spy gear, and a large stack of fake money. There are several other photos of Arthur, but Henry's gaze keeps going back to the one that's serving as the backdrop of the display.

He starts to examine the items as closely as the protective glass will allow. Alex knows the text on the various cards and plaques in the display, so he lingers back, letting Henry take it in at his own pace. When he’s finally finished reading everything and turns back to Alex, his eyes have the sheen of tears in them and a question that doesn't need to be asked.

“A couple of months ago, I was over here meeting with one of the curators of an upcoming exhibit and decided to walk around a bit, ended up wandering into this hall. Imagine my surprise when I found myself smacked right in the face with you.”

“What?”

“You didn’t notice?” Alex asks, slightly incredulous. Henry wrinkles his brow in that way he does when he’s trying to figure out if Alex is teasing him or has finally lost his mind. Alex puts a hand on his waist and moves him a few feet to the left so that he can see the part of the largest photo that’s mostly obscured by the chair and other props. He directs Henry’s attention to the lower part of the photo. There, partially hidden behind Arthur’s legs, peeking shyly out at the camera with Arthur’s hand gently touching the top of his head, is a very, very young Henry.

Alex leans his head on Henry’s shoulder. “First time I saw the photo, I kinda freaked out and had to leave. Seeing it brought up too much negative stuff. But then something made me come back the next day. And the day after that. Pretty soon, it was a daily ritual, coming here and staring at the picture, looking at everything in the display until I had the entire thing memorized. At first, I thought I was just a masochist, but now I think maybe I kept coming back for the same reason you kept sending emails. It was a connection to you.” He wraps his arm around Henry’s back and squeezes him gently. “It wasn’t long before coming here didn’t hurt anymore. Matter of fact, it was kind of comforting. I couldn’t be with you, but I could be here, with you and your dad. Now that I say it out loud, I realize how weird and creepy stalker ex-ish that sounds.”

“It doesn’t sound weird or creepy at all,” Henry tells him quietly. He shifts to wrap Alex in a tight hug. “Thank you for this.”

They stand there taking it all in for a while longer; Henry’s eyes barely leaving his father’s bright, happy face, Alex’s eyes always on Henry. Before they start moving through the rest of the exhibit, Henry snaps a few pictures of Arthur’s section of the display which he texts to his mother, Bea, and Philip. Bea responds almost immediately asking him for additional angles of certain items and the picture of their dad, which Henry happily obliges.

By the time they’ve managed to pry themselves away from the 007 section and wandered through half of the hall, people are starting to file in, milling about and too interested in the artifacts around them to notice the two men in blue hoodies who are walking through the exhibit holding hands and talking quietly, or the large man in the bomber jacket who’s always just a few paces behind them.

Chapter Text

“Should I change?” Henry asks.

Alex looks up from tying his sneaker to see Henry standing awkwardly in the middle of his sitting room, fidgeting with his ring. He’s wearing a soft grey button down under a heather grey sweater, black jeans and black sneakers. He crosses the room and takes Henry’s hands in his own, feeling the slight tremble in them.

“You look perfect. Terrified, but perfect. You do realize you don’t have to come to supper if you don’t want to. I mean, it’s literally just a family dinner, there’s nothing for you to be nervous about, but still, if you want to change your mind, it’s all good.”

“No, I told your mother and you that I would be there, I’m not going to back out. It’s just…” His voice trails off and he looks down, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Hey, whatever it is, you can talk to me.”

“This’ll be the first time I’ve seen your father since I, well, snuck away in the middle of the night and broke your heart. Perhaps a room full of steak knives might not be the best venue for that encounter.”

Alex would laugh if he weren’t certain it would upset Henry. “Babe, trust me, out of the two of them, my mom is a way bigger threat than my dad, and that has nothing to do with her access to nuclear weapons. It’s going to be fine. And it’s not like you’ll be there alone. I’m gonna be right beside you all night.” He reaches up to caress Henry’s cheek. “My family can be a lot, but they want me to be happy. They’re not going to give you a hard time. And if they try, you know I’m not above telling someone off, even if it’s my parents.”

“That’s the thing though; I don’t want you to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to be a source of conflict between you and your parents, or anyone else for that matter. If you’re fighting with them because of me, it’s just one more way that I’m hurting you. And them. The last thing I want is to add to the substantial damage I’ve already done to you and your family.” He looks down into the space between them.

“Hey, no, I’m not letting you start catastrophizing and spiraling like this.” Alex shifts his hand to under Henry’s chin and tips his head up, but his eyes are closed now. “Please look at me.” He waits until Henry finally opens his eyes. “I’m right here, Henry. I’m not broken, I’m not hiding away somewhere, I’m here with you, which is exactly where I want to be.”

“What happened to taking it slow because you’re afraid of me breaking your heart again?” Henry asks him.

There’s nothing teasing or flippant in the question, he genuinely means it, and Alex’s stomach twists at the earnestness of it. It strikes him suddenly that Henry’s been through just as much since Austin as he has, even more in some ways. He’s been so caught up in trying to process what he’s been feeling that he hasn’t made sure Henry’s okay, not really. He moves toward the sofa and sits, pulling Henry down beside him.

“You don’t have to do this. And I’m not talking about supper.”

“What are you talking about then?”

“I’m talking about this,” Alex gestures back and forth between them. “I’m talking about us getting back together. If you’re not ready, or just flat out don’t want to, you don’t have to. I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do.”

Henry stares at him for several seconds of clearly bewildered silence. “Is this some sort of reverse psychology? You’ve already realized this was a mistake so you’re trying to get me to say I don’t want to be with you, so you don’t have to be the one to say it?”

“No, absolutely not,” Alex insists. “Let me be completely clear; I want to be with you. But not if being with me is going to make you constantly beat yourself up over what happened.”

“It’s not as though I don’t deserve it.”

“Stop,” Alex whispers. He places his hand on Henry’s knee. He sits quietly until Henry finally looks up at him. “Do you think I want you to be unhappy? That I want you wallowing in guilt and being angry with yourself when you look at me?”

“You should.”

Alex wants to shake him, but he reminds himself that for all intents and purposes, Henry’s gone through the last few years alone. Whereas he’s had his entire family supporting him and helping him process, Henry’s had only Bea and Pez, who are wonderful, but he knows that even with them, Henry holds back. He chooses his next words carefully.

“I know you believe that, but I don’t. I want to be something positive in your life, not a source of pain or a reason for you to belittle yourself. If being with me is going to keep you in this negative headspace, I don’t have a choice but to stop this before it goes any further. I don’t want to hurt you, and I won’t let you use me as a way to hurt yourself.”

“You don’t have to pretend you’re not still angry with me.”

“I’m not angry anymore. After everything we talked about last night, I understand why you left the way you did. I’m not going to lie to you; I don’t think it was the best way to handle things, but I do understand. I wish you would have let me in back then, but we’re not living in the past anymore, remember?” He pauses for a moment, watching the disbelief that crosses Henry’s face. He’s getting frustrated, so he takes a few slow, deep breaths. An idea occurs to him. “I think we should try going to couple’s therapy.”

“What?”

“I think it could really help. We’re both carrying a lot, I don’t think getting a little advice from someone who’s trained in helping guide people to work out their issues would be a bad thing.”

“And how are we supposed to attend couple’s therapy from different continents?”

“I’m not sure about the logistics right now, the idea just came to me. But I’m sure if we want to, we can find a way to make it work, whether that means travelling or videoconferencing, we can figure that part of it out. Is it something you’d be willing to try?”

“I will go to therapy or the ends of the Earth if it’s what I have to do to be with you.”

“Nuh-unh.” Alex shakes his head. “This isn’t an obligation or an ultimatum. We both know therapy is useless if you’re being forced to go and not invested in the process. I’m suggesting this because I think it’ll help us both. We can still be together if we don’t do therapy, I just think we’ll be able to have a healthier relationship if we try.”

“You’re right; therapy is a good idea.” Henry nods in agreement. “I thought I was supposed to be the level-headed, logical one in this relationship,” he teases after a few seconds.

“You are, but the good thing about having a partner is that means there’s someone else who can be the logical one to give you a break from time to time.”

“Alright, who are you and what did you do with the love of my life?”

Alex laughs quietly and pulls him into a hug. “What can I say? This is the new and improved Alex.”

“I wouldn’t say improved,” Henry says. Alex leans back and looks at him. “I don’t think one can improve on perfection.”

“Oh my God…” Alex rolls his eyes, then kisses him. He leans his forehead against Henry’s for a few seconds, then runs a hand through his hair. “Neither of us is perfect. That doesn’t stop us from being perfect for each other.”

Henry leans back and looks at him for several seconds, then touches his cheek. “I can’t believe how lucky I am.” He kisses him briefly then sighs. “Right. We’d best get down there. I’d hate for your parents to be waiting for us.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. I’ll just make sure you sit between your father and I,” he quips.

“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll protect you.”

They’re holding hands as they walk into the dining room. The large table is decked out in elegant silver and green decorations and there’s a fire going in the wide hearth at the far side of the room. Alex glances around and sees his mother and Leo standing near the dresser that serves as the bar in the corner of the room. He leads Henry over and smiles at them. “Hey.”

“Hey boys,” his mother replies. She smiles back at them. “What would y’all like?”

“I’ll take a whiskey,” Alex says. “You want a gin and tonic, babe?”

“Sure.”

“Good evening, Your Highness,” Leo says warmly.

“Just Henry, please. Nothing ruins a pleasant evening faster than someone throwing around their title,” Henry insists.

“Well, it’s wonderful to see you, Henry. If you don’t mind my saying so, your work with Okonjo House is inspiring,” Leo tells him.

“You know about Okonjo House?” Henry asks as Alex hands him his drink.

“Yes, I’ve been following your progress for several years now. The work you’re doing is incredible. Have you ever considered expanding?”

“We’ve talked about it, but we’re trying to pace ourselves, ensure we’ve got the four existing operations stabilized before we take on additional workload or infrastructure,” Henry replies.

“If you’d be open to a little advice from someone who’s an old hand at running non-profits, I’ve got a few ideas you might be interested in,” Leo tells him.

“I always welcome the knowledge of those wiser than I. I’d be honored if you’d be willing to share your suggestions with me.”

“Boys, no business at family dinner,” Ellen chides them gently.

“You’re right, my love.” Leo nods as he steps beside her and puts his hand on her back. “We’ll pick this back up over drinks after supper,” he tells Henry with a bright smile.

“I look forward to it.”

It’s only a few minutes later when June and Nora join them. Not long after that, Zahra and Alex’s dad arrive. Alex doesn’t miss the way Henry’s posture stiffens or the way the muscle in his jaw twitches. He gently rests his hand on Henry’s waist and gives it a little reassuring squeeze.

“There’s my girls!” Oscar crows as he crosses the room to pull Nora and June into a hug. He lets them go and smiles at Ellen. “Thanks for having the room made up early for me.”

“You know you’re welcome anytime,” she says.

Alex has to admit, one good thing that came from his life falling apart is that it managed to get his parents to put aside a lot of their animosity toward each other. They both went out of their way to be there for him, which meant they were forced to play nice more often and it actually seemed to have improved their relationship.

Oscar turns to Alex then and pulls him into a tight hug. “Be nice to him,” Alex whispers in Spanish as his father holds him close. When he leans back, his dad gives him a look that clearly says he knows better.

“Henry, good to see you again,” Oscar says.

“It’s nice to see you again, Sir.” Henry replies.

“I think given the circumstances you can call me Oscar. I mean, it is family dinner after all.”

Henry forces a small grin and a stiff little nod. Alex suppresses a sigh. It’s going to be a long evening…

By the time the main course is on the table, the conversations are flowing and Alex is relieved to see that Henry’s relaxed somewhat, though he still tends to become quiet when he notices Oscar looking at him or he says something to him.

After dinner, they all move to the large parlor across the hall where they sit and drink and talk. Before long, Henry and Leo are in a pair of leather wingback chairs near the fireplace talking about Okonjo House and Alex is on one of the sofas across the room watching them. He can’t help but grin as he takes in the smile and obvious passion in Henry’s expression as they talk. He knew the shelters were important to him, but he’s never seen it this plainly.

“I’ve missed that smile,” his dad says quietly as he settles onto the couch beside him. He looks across the room for a moment, then back at Alex.

“Thank you,” Alex says softly enough that the girls won’t be able to hear where they’re sitting about a dozen feet away.

“For what, mijo?”

“Not giving him a hard time,” Alex mutters into his glass before taking a sip of his whiskey.

“Not my place.”

“You really don’t have a problem with him and I getting back together after everything that happened?”

“I'm the last one with any right to throw stones. Besides, you’re a grown man. If you and he have cleared the air and you’re happy, that’s what matters to me.”

“He was nervous about seeing you tonight. He figured you’d be holding a grudge because he broke your kid’s heart and snuck away in the night.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons.” Alex looks at him with a raised eyebrow. His dad chuckles quietly. “I’m old, not blind. I saw you both those two days at the lake house, saw how head over heels you both were. He wouldn’t have walked away unless he felt he had no other choice. Maybe he could have handled it a better way, but I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing. I’m also certain he didn’t make the choice lightly.” A warm grin pulls the corner of his mouth up. “It takes a lot to make yourself do something you don’t want to do when you believe it’s best for someone you love. It takes even more to admit when you've made a mistake and ask for a second chance.”

Alex looks back at Henry and he feels something warm swelling in his chest at his father’s words. He thinks of everything they’ve talked about in the last 24 hours and realizes that his dad understands things, maybe even better than he does. “He didn’t make his choice back then lightly, and it hurt him every bit as much as it hurt me. Maybe more. At least I had you all for support, he’s had to go through it basically alone. For all his privilege, there’s a lot in life I’ve had that he hasn’t. He’s never known what it’s like to have a supportive family, to know someone’ll have his back no matter what.”

“Well, he may not have grown up with that kind of family, but he’s got one now.” He smiles when Alex looks at him. “You think I didn’t recognize that look on your face every time I said something that made him clam up. I know when you’re trying to stop yourself from stepping in.” He grins. “He’s lucky to have you in his life. And you’re lucky to have him in yours. Not many people get a second chance at their once in a lifetime love.”

“We are lucky. We have each other, and like you said, we have an amazing family.” He grins at his dad. “Which is really good, because he’s going to need us, big time.”

“Why?”

“He wants to come out. You and I both know what kind of shit show that’s going to be.”

“And what about you? Are you going public as well?”

“Yeah, I am.” He hadn’t realized how sure he was about coming out until he says the words. “If people want to judge me or try to block me from running for office because I’m in love with a man rather than a woman, I can’t control that. I shouldn’t have to hide my relationship because closeminded assholes don’t like to think about anything outside their little bubble of what they consider normal. I won’t.” He takes another sip of his drink. “I’m not going to pressure or rush him, but when he’s ready to tell the world, I'm going to be there beside him, holding his hand.”

“And we’ll all be standing right behind the both of you,” his dad tells him. He smiles at him for a moment. “I’m proud of you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“Haven’t you? You had the strength of character to stand up to the people you’re closest to and tell them ‘this is who I am’, which is something that’s incredibly difficult, even when you think you know how they’ll react. You also had the courage to fight for the man you love, despite being hurt in the past.” He squeezes Alex’s shoulder gently. “You’re living your life in a way that’s honest and true to who you are rather than letting society tell you who you should be. That’s not something many people have the conviction to do. Most folks are too scared to take a leap of faith, regardless of how big or small, but you, you jump even when you know it’s a cliff.” He chuckles a little then. “Hell, sometimes I think you jump because you know it’s a cliff.”

“Well, don’t go being too impressed with all that just yet.” Alex looks down into his glass, dropping his voice even lower as he adds “I’m scared. Not about what it means for me, but what it means for him; we don’t know how the Crown is going to react. I feel like an asshole for saying it, but I really don’t know how his mom’s going to handle it. And I’m scared what it’ll mean for you and Ma. I mean, I know her term is almost over, but the last thing I want to do is create a scandal that’s going to affect either of your careers. Or June’s.”

Oscar smacks his arm lightly. “Cut that shit out right now.” Alex looks at him, confused. “First of all, courage isn’t the absence of fear, mijo; it’s the decision that something else, someone else is more important than the fear. As for your mom and I, neither of us is going to worry about what you coming out will do to our careers, so you shouldn’t either. Your sister would kick your ass if she heard you saying you were worrying about how coming out would affect her, so you better shut that down too.” He pauses and looks across the room at Henry. “In terms of how the Crown will respond, that’s not something any of us can control. Henry’s lived in that shadow his whole life. It might not be easy, but I think it’ll do him a world of good, stepping out from under it, especially with you by his side. You’re both braver than you give yourselves credit for, you know.”

“It’s just... He’s been through so much already. No matter how well it turns out overall, the process of getting there is going to be rough.” Alex chews on his lip for a second. “I hate the thought of him having to go through what’s coming just so he can be honest about who he is. I hate that I can’t protect him.”

“Yeah, it’ll be rough, but you’re both tougher than you look.” He smiles at Alex and gives him a quick wink. “He needs your love and your support more than your protection. He won’t be going through it alone, and that's gonna make all the difference. Neither of you will be alone in this.”

Alex looks at him and takes a sip of his drink to hide the way he has to swallow hard around the lump that’s formed in his throat. Sometimes the distance between them makes him forget that he gets a lot of the fight he has in him from his dad. He can’t tell right now what he’s most thankful for, whether it’s the way he’s supporting him, the way he’s accepting Henry, or the way he knows his dad’ll go toe-to-toe with anyone who dares say anything about them when they come out.

“That means a lot. Gracias.” He lets his eyes drift back to Henry who is still deep in conversation with Leo. “I haven’t told Ma yet that we’re planning on coming out, haven’t had a chance to talk to her. I know she’ll have our backs, I just want to give her the heads up so she doesn’t get blindsided by some asshole reporter or something.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.” Oscar kills his drink. “Speaking of asshole reporters, how did the People interview go this morning? Was it that snotty Whitlock kid?”

“I don’t know, I kinda bailed and left Nora and June to deal with it.” Alex gives his father the extremely abridged version of what happened since the reception the night before. “So, while the girls were handling the interview, I snuck away and took Henry to the National Museum of American History to walk around the Entertainment Nation exhibit.”

“I’m surprised they had his dad in there since he’s not an American actor,” Oscar muses.

“Well, none of the Bond actors are American, but the movie studios are, so I guess that’s how they figure a series of movies about a British spy fit in. They did have some really interesting props.” Alex’s smile softens. “The look on his face when he saw the photo of his dad was amazing. I think he really misses him this time of year.”

“I say again, he’s lucky to have you in his life. That was a really nice thing you did for him, taking him to see that.” He ruffles Alex’s hair briefly. “You’re a good kid.” Alex bats his hand away playfully and they settle into an easy silence as they watch the rest of their family carry on their conversations.

It’s about an hour later when Zahra leaves; she’s got a flight to catch as she’s going home for three days to visit her family. Oscar excuses himself shortly after to turn in for the evening, then Ellen and Leo leave as well. It’s nearly midnight when June and Nora bid them goodnight, leaving just Alex and Henry in the large room, snuggled together on a wide, burgundy sofa, drinks in hand, staring into a slowly dwindling fire.

“We survived,” Alex says lightly. He’s curled against Henry’s side and he feels warm in a way that has nothing to do with the fire or the whiskey.

“Yes, we did,” Henry nods. He kisses the top of Alex’s head. “You know, I’m quite glad I postponed my meetings today. Your stepfather had some wonderful insights and I’ve a whole slew of ideas to bring to the board and directors.”

“Um, excuse me? I thought you stayed so you could spend time with me,” Alex teases.

“Oh, yes, of course. That’s what I meant.” Henry chuckles when Alex jabs his ribs.

“So, my dad and I had a really good talk tonight.” Alex shifts so he’s sitting up and takes Henry’s hand in his. “I told him that we’re planning to go public, eventually. He’s got our backs.”

“Well, one of them at any rate,” Henry mutters.

“Babe, my dad’s not like that; if he says he’s got our backs, he does. Trust me, if he was supporting me and ready to throw you under the bus, he’d say so. He’s always been pretty direct, especially when it comes to family stuff.”

“Is that where you get it from then?”

Alex squeezes Henry’s hand. “Do you know what he told me tonight?”

“To tread lightly and keep me at arm’s length emotionally?”

Alex shoots him a stern look. “No. He told me that we’re both lucky to be part of each other’s lives again, because most people don’t get a second chance with the love of their life. He sees how much we love each other, and he believes no matter how complicated things are right now, we’re going to find our way through it together.”

“Why do I have the distinct impression that you’re editing?” Henry asks.

“I’m really not, babe.” He takes a breath and has a moment of thinking he might have lost his mind as he adds “You should talk to him before you leave tomorrow. Just the two of you. I think it might be good for you to hear from him what he thinks.” He forces a little smile. “I mean, you survived talking to my mom this morning. My dad’s way more chill than she is.”

“Is this some kind of test?” Henry asks him lightly, one eyebrow pitching up.

“No, it’s not a test. I really think having a conversation with him would be a good thing. I mean, if we’re going to be together, it would be nice if my boyfriend were capable of speaking when my dad is in the room.” Alex smiles at him. “I won’t push the issue, but, at least think about it?”

“I will, I promise.”

They spend another hour curled together, kissing and talking and kissing, and Alex keeps finding himself so caught up in being in love that he forgets for moments that his heart was broken by this captivating man who looks at him like he’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen and says things like “The tragedy of the day is that it holds merely 24 hours, and that is utterly inadequate for how long I would eagerly gaze upon your countenance.” Alex thinks it must be from a book or something, but this is Henry, and that inner writer sneaks out of him in random, devastatingly poetic ways at times.

Eventually, a yawn slips out before Alex can stifle it, causing Henry to glance at his watch. “I should let you get to bed.” Before Alex can protest, he stands and tugs him gently to his feet. They walk to Alex’s room holding hands, and even though it’s the middle of the night and the halls of the residence are empty, it’s still quietly thrilling.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Alex asks when they reach his door.

“Yes, I do want to. But I’m not going to,” Henry answers. “I meant what I said this morning – or rather, yesterday morning at this point I suppose. I want to do things right this time. With that in mind, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay…”

“Don’t laugh.”

“How about I promise I’ll try not to…” Alex quips. Henry rolls his eyes then takes his hand once again. “All joking aside; what did you want to ask me?”

Henry’s nervous, Alex can feel the gentle trembling of his fingers. He cycles a quick breath and looks down at their hands. “I wanted to ask you if you’d be my boyfriend, officially,” he says, his voice quiet and unsure.

“Are you sure you want to take that step so soon?”

Henry smiles, but he doesn’t look up. “Yes, I am. I’m not exactly ready to take you to dinner in the middle of a crowded restaurant, I definitely need to speak to Mum before I go public, but I am positive that I want to be your boyfriend. Last time we never really dated, we just jumped straight into bed and sneaking around. As much as I miss your body, I don’t want to mess this chance up. I’m quite certain almost no one gets a third chance at once in a lifetime. I want to take the time for us to get to know each other, to figure out who we are now.” He looks up at Alex and scrunches his nose, cringing at himself. “I know, it’s probably ridiculous but…”

Alex cuts him off “It’s not ridiculous at all. I would love to be your boyfriend.” He squeezes his hand back. “And there’s no pressure as far as the timing goes. A month, six months, a year, whenever our first date happens, it happens. I’ll be as patient as you need. Whenever you’re ready. Until then, I'm just grateful to have you back in my life so we can start building something new.”

The smile that spreads across Henry’s face crinkles the corners of his eyes, and his entire body seems to relax at Alex’s words. He leans down and kisses him gently.

“Goodnight,” Henry says softly. He takes a step back so he’s standing nearly in the middle of the hallway now, clearly hedging his resolve by putting distance between them.

“Goodnight,” Alex replies. He slips into his room, closing the door behind him. He leans against it for several seconds, trying to process everything that’s gone down since he first spotted Henry the night before, when his phone chimes. He unlocks it and opens the message.

     HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
     I miss you already. xx

Alex quickly types out a reply.

     miss you more

Alex climbs into bed, and for the first time in he can’t remember how long, falls asleep before he can even put together a list in his head.

Chapter Text

Alex wanders into the large kitchen to find he’s one of the last ones to stumble down for breakfast. It’s Christmas Eve morning, which means everyone is as close to off-duty as life can get for the first family. His mom and Leo are sitting near the corner of the island, each with a mug and a crossword puzzle in front of them. June and Nora are perched at one end of the table on the far side of the room. His dad and Henry apparently haven’t made their way down yet, so at least he’s not the last one up and about.

“Morning Sugar,” his mom says brightly when she spots him.

Alex gives a vague wave and moves toward the coffee maker. He pours a cup, adds the sugar and cinnamon, then takes a sip. He sighs and leans against the counter, waiting for the caffeine to hit his brain. Everyone in the room knows better than to attempt conversation with him before he’s halfway through is first mug. Eventually he moves toward the table where June and Nora are sitting.

“I thought you were going home to Vermont,” Alex mutters to Nora.

“My folks both have the flu, so I decided to stick around,” she replies with a shrug.

“Ew, that sucks.”

“Seriously. But at least this way I get to hang with you guys and not be up to my armpits in snow, so, not the worst turn of events.”

“I don’t know how your parents stand living in Vermont year-round. Like, yeah, it’s gorgeous most of the year, but the winters are brutal. I seriously couldn’t do it,” June remarks.

“Same,” Alex agrees.

“Yeah, it’s not my thing. Hence why I decided to go to school here. I’m close enough I can visit them, you know, when they don’t have the plague, but I’m far enough away that our snowfall gets measured in inches per month, not per hour.”

“Inches per hour? Is that really a thing?” June asks her.

“Oh yeah. Lake effect snow is no joke.”

“Okay, Vermont is definitely off my list of potential locations for my mysterious recluse years,” June comments.

“I thought you were going to spend your mysterious recluse years on the outskirts of a remote village in the rainforest,” Alex teases.

“That was the plan when I was like eight, Alex. Rainforests have too many bugs and too little Wi-Fi,” she points out with a shrug.

“I believe my family owns an abandoned chateau in a remote area of France that’s sufficiently dilapidated to be a backdrop for the tale of a mysterious recluse.” Alex turns to look in the direction of the voice that’s sent a shiver through him. “You’re more than welcome to use it, if you’d like. It doesn’t currently have Wi-Fi, but that could be easily remedied,” Henry adds with a wide grin as he moves through the kitchen toward the three of them. He leans toward Alex. “Morning, love,” he whispers into his ear before placing a quick kiss to the corner of his jaw, then settling easily into the chair beside him.

“Sleeping Beauty finally awakes,” Alex ribs him as he rests his hand on his knee. “Morning, babe.”

Henry scoffs. “I’ve been up for hours, thank you. You’re the last one up and about today.”

“Really? Where were you?” Alex asks.

“We went for a run,” his dad’s rough voice says from just behind them. Alex hadn’t noticed his dad walk into the room after Henry. In fairness, he rarely notices anything once Henry walks into a room, so he doesn’t feel too terrible about it.

“Mornin’ Pa,” Alex says with a grin at his dad. He then looks back at Henry. “So, how do DC runs compare to London ones?”

“Colder, but drier, so a nice change of pace,” he answers. “It’s nice to get back with shoes that aren’t soaked through for once. I’m going to miss it, if I’m honest.”

“When do you have to leave?” June asks.

“In an hour or so. If all goes well, I should get back to London just in time to join my family for after dinner drinks and our traditional carol sing.” He wrinkles his nose. “Gran always insisted on spending Christmas Eve that way and Mum’s kept it up, for the time being at least.”

“I mean, we basically used to do the same thing,” June remarks. “We’d get our annual set of matching pajamas, sit around the tree, drink cocoa, eat too many shortbread cookies, sing carols, then Dad would read us ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas before we went to bed, or Leo would put on It’s A Wonderful Life and we’d all cuddle together on the couch and quote random lines.”

“That sounds infinitely more enjoyable than sitting in a stuffy parlor all evening listening to my family attempt to carry on a genuine conversation between songs old enough they should be categorized as antiques,” Henry mutters. “But I suppose traditions are traditions, no matter how tedious they are.”

“Does your family at least party for New Year’s?” Nora asks.

“No, it’s not much of an event for us.”

“Well, if you’re not busy with your family, you should come back for the New Year’s Gala,” Nora suggests. “It’s our second to last one and we have a great band and a wicked DJ lined up.”

“Oh my God, you should totally come! And bring Bea too, if she’d like to come,” June adds.

“If you get Pez to come along, it could be a full-on blowout. I bet we could even track down a karaoke machine,” Alex teases.

“If y’all are going to start with karaoke, I’m changing the venue from the ballroom to a tent outside,” Ellen teases from the island.

The four of them laugh and Alex can’t help but smile. After so long, feeling this relaxed and happy feels good in a way he can’t even get his head around. Henry’s beside him and laughing, leaning into him and holding the hand Alex rested atop his knee, all in plain view of his family. Something crystalizes in Alex’s mind, and he realizes that he really does mean what he said to Henry the night before. However long it takes for him to be comfortable coming out, he’ll wait. The rest of the world knowing is irrelevant; it’s this, his family – all of his family – happy and together, that matters.

That’s how much of the next hour passes, everyone laughing and eating and chatting about Christmas and planning for Henry, Bea, and Pez – who both promptly responded yes to the texts Henry sent them – to join them for New Year’s. Eventually, Alex and Henry excuse themselves, Alex having decided to get every last moment he can with Henry before he leaves by accompanying him to the airport. They spend most of the 26-minute drive to Dulles making out and murmuring about wishing they had more time. After the car clears the security gates, Alex finds himself gripping his hand tightly as they head toward the hangar where Henry’s private jet waits. He might feel badly about squeezing Henry’s hand so hard if his grip weren’t just as tight, as though they’re both trying to keep the other with them by hanging on for dear life.

They step out into the hangar and Alex has to force himself not to scowl at the jet. He leans against the side of the SUV that drove them there and jams his hands into the pockets of his jeans to stop himself from reaching for Henry’s.

“I’ll text you as soon as I land back home,” Henry tells him. He’s standing closer than he probably should be and his proximity is making it difficult for Alex to remember that whole thing about being patient.

“You better,” Alex shoots with a smirk. Something that’s been gnawing at the back of his mind since they were sitting in the kitchen causes him to bite his lip. “Are you sure about coming back for New Year’s?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, it’s just that the last time we spent New Year’s Eve at the same party, we ended up kissing out in the Kennedy Garden prompting you to ghost me for a month,” Alex remarks with a shrug. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to come because June and Nora put you on the spot or anything.”

“Well, in fairness, I thought you might send the Secret Service to assassinate me after kissing you that night, so yes, I admittedly made a rather hasty exit. I don’t foresee that being a concern this time around,” Henry answers with a crooked grin. “I assure you, if I had reservations about coming to the gala, I would tell you. We’re doing that now, remember? Telling each other things rather than hiding what we’re feeling and just trying to push through.”

“Yeah, I guess we are.” Alex forces himself to look down at his shoes, because looking at him is making it that much harder to not reach for him. “You better get going if you want to make it back early enough to spend the evening with your family.”

“Yes, I suppose I should.” Henry looks like he’s fighting the same urge to reach out that Alex is. He’s fidgeting with his ring and biting his bottom lip. “I should have kissed you again before we got out of the car.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for that when you come back next week,” Alex tells him, attempting to be the responsible one again. What he wants to do is yank the door open, pull Henry in, and fog up the windows until neither of them can stand.

“Right.” Henry nods. He looks over at the jet, sighs, then returns his gaze to Alex. His expression softens as he looks at him. “I’d best be off.”

Before Alex can stop himself, he’s pushed off the truck and leaned forward, wrapping Henry in a hug. He tries to memorize the feeling of Henry’s arms around him, pulling him close and holding him securely against him. “I love you,” Alex whispers.

“I love you, too.” Henry’s voice is so soft and low in his ear that Alex doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to make himself let go. But then he remembers that they’re not there yet and the embrace is already several seconds longer than what would typically be considered a friendly hug, even for particularly close friends. He forces himself to loosen his arms and feels Henry do the same. He leans back, his ass pressing against the door of the SUV again.

Alex stands there watching until Henry climbs the stairs into the jet, then gets into the back of the SUV. Before they’ve reached the security gate on their way out, his phone alerts him that he has a text.

HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
Is it the 31^st yet?
Can’t be back in your arms soon enough. xx

Alex smiles down at his phone and he’s pretty sure he’s actually blushing. Something Henry once wrote to him in one of their emails comes to his mind, and he quickly taps his response out.

come back to me when you're done being flung through the firmament, you lost pleiad.

Henry’s reply of a series of hearts and kiss emojis appears just as the car clears the gates, and that’s the last Alex hears from him until nearly eight hours later.

HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
Back in London and missing you already.

They easily fall back into the flow of texting near continuously. That evening, Alex is in his room, sitting on his bed and reading one of the emails which had been lost to his archive folder when his phone rings. He looks at the screen and smiles.

“Good evening, your Majesty,” he says brightly. He closes the laptop and puts it on the nightstand.

“You know, one of these days you’re going to say that around someone who’ll actually take offense to you intentionally botching my title like that.”

Alex rolls his eyes and settles back against his pillows. “Like who? Philip? What’s he going to do? Send the toilet assassins after me?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him quite frankly,” Henry jokes.

“So, I’m guessing the fact that you’re calling means family bonding time is over. Sounds like you survived.”

“Yes, thankfully we’ve all wandered off to our rooms for the night. I’m lying in bed with David.”

“Lucky David,” Alex quips. “I miss your bed.”

“You’ve got a one-track mind, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s part of my charm.” Alex swears he can almost hear Henry’s eyes rolling. “That’s not what I was thinking of though. What I miss most about your bed is just lying in it and holding you for hours. That night after Wimbledon I barely slept, I just kept looking at you and thinking how good it felt to have you curled up against me like that somewhere that meant something, somewhere that wasn’t just some anonymous hotel room.” He pauses for a few seconds before adding “I don’t think I ever told you how much that meant to me back then. I should have.”

“What happened to not looking back and playing the ‘could have, should have’ game?” Henry asks.

Alex sighs quietly. “You’re right. We said we weren’t going to do that.” He sinks down a little and stares up at his ceiling as the silence draws out for several somewhat awkward seconds. “So, any idea what you’re going to wear for the gala? I want to make sure we don’t clash.”

“Thinking about that already, are you?”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been thinking about it since you said you’d come. I know we’re still keeping things on the DL, but just knowing you’re going to be there, that I get to spend New Year’s Eve with my boyfriend, automatically makes it 1,000% more exciting.” It’s Henry’s turn to let the silence hang between them. “Hey, did I say something wrong?” Alex asks, a knot forming in his stomach.

“No, no, of course not. I just…” The pause is long enough that Alex pulls the phone away from his ear to look at the screen. The timer’s still counting, so the call hasn’t dropped. He has to physically bite his tongue to stop himself from saying anything. He knows from the tone he was using that Henry’s searching for his words, and he doesn’t want to rush him. “Are you sure you’re okay with us not going public yet?”

“Yeah, I really am. I meant what I said when I told you I would wait as long as you need. I’m not gonna lie, I like the idea of walking into an event on your arm and showing you off to the world, being able to brag about you while everyone is standing around trying to one-up each other about how their spouse is the best – which is a contest I will absolutely be winning, by the way – but I’m not in any rush. Moments like this, times like dinner last night and this morning in the kitchen, that’s all that I need. My family knows I love you and that you love me. Anything beyond that is just a bonus.”

“Well, I think you’ll find I actually win in terms of having the best spouse, but that’s beside the point. Do you promise you’ll tell me if it’s bothering you, keeping things under wraps?”

“Baby,” he says it low and deep, the way he knows Henry loves. “I don’t care if it’s another six months or ten years that we keep things low key. Do I want to scream from the rooftops that I’m in love with you? Hell yeah. But until you’re ready for the world to know, I am perfectly happy to tell you over and over again in private how much I love you.” He picks at a loose thread on his comforter. “But yes, I promise if it ever starts to bother me, I will talk to you about it.”

“See, I told you I was going to win when it comes to who has the best spouse,” Henry says softly, and Alex thinks he can hear a little smile in his voice.

The quiet beep from Alex’s watch makes him glance at the time. He smiles; it’s 7:00, which means it’s just hit midnight in London. “Merry Christmas, baby,” Alex says.

“Happy Christmas, love,” Henry answers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to say it in person.”

“Don’t be. We both know there are limitations to living on separate continents. We’ll make up for it when you come back for New Year’s.”

“You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?” Henry asks with a quiet chuckle.

“Yet another part of my charm,” Alex quips.

“And you definitely are charming.”

“Well, I do have to make an effort to keep up with you. I can’t be all boring and yawn-worthy when I’m literally dating Prince Charming.”

“I am not Prince Charming.”

“Uh, yeah, you are. You’re gorgeous, kind, sweet, smart, generous, witty, charismatic and an actual prince. There’s a reason why there are so many fanfics out there about you.”

“There are not.”

“Literally tens of thousands, babe. Sorry to burst your humility bubble, but you’re a certified royal hottie with a very active and creative online following.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Have you never gone on a fanfic site and dropped your name into the search field?” Alex asks. He’s smiling broadly and quietly happy that Henry can’t see him. He’d be mortified if he saw just how much amusement Alex was taking from this conversation.

“No, of course not.”

“Hold on,” Alex says. He quickly opens the internet browser on his phone, pulls up his favorite fanfic site, and searches Henry’s name. The results pop up instantly and he takes a screen shot which he sends to Henry. “And that’s just on one site.”

“I refuse to believe that there are 18,000 stories about me on there,” Henry says a moment later.

“Oh, there absolutely are. From what I’ve seen, most of them are pretty classy; your typical girl-next-door meets Prince Charming, they fall in love and live happily ever after storylines. Lots pairing you up with actresses and singers, most of those are pretty respectable too. There are some more, uh, creative ones out there though which are quite racy.”

“And why, precisely, are you so well-versed in what sort of stories are out there about me?”

“I mean, I might have read a few back when we were hooking up. I was curious to see if the fantasies lived up to the reality,” Alex remarks.

“And do they?”

Alex smiles. “Not even close.”

Henry laughs quietly, and Alex notes it’s the relaxed laugh that he misses so much. He’s about to bring the conversation back around to New Year’s attire when he hears Henry stifle a yawn. “I should let you get some sleep. You’ve had a hell of a couple of days.”

“I’m fine,” Henry protests.

“You’re exhausted. Did you sleep at all on the flight home?”

“I’m rarely able to sleep on a plane.”

“That’s what I thought. I’m going to say goodnight so you can get some sleep, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Since when are you so bossy?”

“I’ve always been bossy. Don’t even pretend you don’t love it.”

Henry sighs for effect. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

“Sleep well,” Alex says softly, a warm smile curving his lips as he remembers so many nights of secret calls and FaceTimes and texts. He’s spent so long keeping those memories locked away, unwilling to face the pain they triggered, that letting himself recall them now feels like a tight coil has been cut from around his chest and his heart can beat properly for the first time in ages. It reminds him of the story Henry had told him about the prince with the recalcitrant heart on the outside of his chest.

“You get some rest too. No staying up all night and tormenting yourself by reading through my lost emails.”

Alex stills. “How the hell did you know I was reading my emails?”

“You might be handsome and brooding, but you’re not exactly mysterious, love. You and I both know you’re itching to go through those emails and silently berate yourself for sending them to an archive.”

“I didn’t realize how predictable I am.”

“Alex, please let it go. Yesterday, you told me you didn’t want to be a source of pain for me, that you didn’t want me to feel guilty about what happened between us when I looked at you. I don’t want that for you either. I don’t want you reading through all that and criticizing yourself or thinking of how things might have gone differently had you looked at that folder. Neither of us can change what was done, only learn from it.”

Alex grins and picks again at the thread on his quilt. “No fair throwing my own logic back in my face.” He hears the quiet chuckle that comes over the line, which is quickly followed by another stifled yawn. “I promise, no more emails. Now, put on Bake Off, rub David’s ears, and get some sleep.”

“Yes dear,” Henry says, a warm, relaxed tone to his words. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Alex catches himself smiling again. After all this time, it feels so indescribably good to say it. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Henry answers.

Alex forces himself to pull the phone away from his head and hit the button to disconnect the call. He puts his phone on charge and reaches for his laptop. He opens it and pauses when he sees the open email screen. He shakes his head as he closes the window. He told Henry he wouldn’t spend the night reading emails, and he’s not about to start lying to him.

He stares at his desktop for several seconds and decides to do some online shopping. He needs something epic for the gala. He’s got a date, and even if they can’t act like they’re together in front of everyone, that doesn’t mean he can’t make a point of looking extra good to torment his boyfriend. You know, just a little… He remembers how Henry doesn't like being the center of attention, and since he'll be attending for the first time since the 2019 gala, he's sure to attract a good amount. Unless, of course, there's someone around who can draw focus. An idea comes to his mind and he types the name of a clothing company he saw advertised on a social media site earlier. He smiles as the webpage opens. His outfits for the galas have always been fashionable, a few of them even sparking trends for a few months. The ensemble that's already coming together in his mind as he scans the website won't exactly be a show-stopper, but it's definitely going to turn some heads.

Chapter Text

It's nearly 10:00 in the evening on December 30^th when Alex looks up from his spot on the sofa in the game room to see Amy ushering Henry, Bea, and Pez through the door. It was decided through the week that they would arrive the day before and stay for the first few days of the new year so they could have a proper visit rather than just rushing in for the gala and returning immediately after. He meets Henry in the middle of the room and hugs him tightly for several seconds. He kisses him briefly before letting him go and pulling Bea into an embrace.

“Thank you so much for coming. We’ve missed you,” he says quietly as he holds her.

“Thank you for inviting us back in,” she replies, and Alex hears the deeper meaning in her words. When he leans back, there’s a slight sheen of tears in her eyes that they both pretend isn’t there. He nods knowingly and she squeezes his arms before releasing him to be swept into a crushing hug from Pez.

“Alexander! Darling! It’s so wonderful to see you again!” Pez tells him.

“It’s good to see you too, Pez.”

Pez has just released his hold on him when June and Nora come in. There are shouts and hugs and squeals of delight as the four of them fold into a group hug. Alex tucks himself into Henry’s side and leans his head against his shoulder as they watch them. After a moment, June looks for them and pulls them into the little knot of limbs and laughter. They’re seated on the floor in a rough circle when the small clock on the mantle chimes that midnight has arrived.

“We should let you guys get to bed. Can’t have you jet lagged and throwing a wet blanket on the gala tomorrow night,” Alex remarks teasingly.

“Come on, we’ll show you to your rooms,” June says as she gets to her feet. She holds her hands out to Pez and Bea. Nora stands beside her and takes Pez’s free hand as they both rise. They lean into each other as they start moving toward the door. “You two better get some rest too,” June calls over her shoulder and shoots a mischievous grin at Alex.

“G’night Bug,” Alex answers as he casually flips her off. She giggles and winks at him.

He’s sitting beside Henry and as soon as the others are out of the room, he pushes himself up onto his knees, swings his right leg across Henry’s so he’s straddling those incredible thighs, and leans forward to kiss him. Henry makes a muffled noise of surprise, but it’s quickly replaced by a quiet moan of appreciation and accompanied by his hands coming to rest on Alex’s waist. The kiss is deep and intense to start, then relaxes into something slow and tender. When Alex pulls away slightly, he smiles down at Henry. “I’ve been dying to do that all night.”

“I guess it’s alright for me to admit I’ve spent most of the evening fantasizing about pinning you down and ravaging you then,” Henry tells him with a chuckle.

“I missed you,” Alex says quietly after a few seconds.

“I’ve missed you as well.” Henry touches his cheek gently.

“June had a point about you needing to get some rest.” Alex brushes one of his thumbs along the curve of Henry’s cheek, just below the tell-tale shadows that have formed. “We both know you didn’t sleep on the plane.”

“I didn’t, and my body does think it’s about 5:00 in the morning,” Henry concedes. “Would you walk me to my room?”

“I’d be a pretty lousy host if I didn’t,” Alex quips.

They hold hands as they make their way to the Queen’s Bedroom where Henry’s luggage has been brought.

“Would you mind coming in for a few minutes? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Sure,” Alex answers. He lets Henry lead him to the sofa in the small sitting room and they settle onto it so they’re facing each other. Henry looks nervous, and Alex tries not to let his brain jump to the worst-case scenario.

“I had intended to wait until tomorrow to tell you this, but honestly, I’ve been chomping at the bit to tell you all night,” Henry begins, looking down at their inter-laced fingers. He cycles a quick breath and brings his eyes up to meet Alex’s. “I spoke to Mum about coming out. She was hesitant about the idea at first, but only because she knows the sort of scrutiny I’ll be subjected to. We had a lengthy, very frank chat about things, and she understands why it’s so important to me,” he pauses and squeezes Alex’s hand. “Why it’s so important to us.”

Alex can’t stop the smile that comes to his lips as Henry’s meaning settles in. “You told her about us?”

“I did. I told her about all of it. She was terribly cross with me over the way I left Austin, actually. Which obviously was well-deserved, but I’m not dwelling on it,” he says before Alex can say anything about not looking backwards. “She wants you to come to London sometime in the next few weeks so she can meet you.” His smile becomes a little shy now. “She also suggested that we should plan to have official suitor photos taken when you do.”

“Suitor photos?” Alex asks, surprised.

Henry nods. “We have her blessing to go public, both as my mum and as the Queen. Whenever we’re ready for the world to know, the Palace will be issuing an announcement of courtship and support of our relationship.”

“Oh my God…” Alex can barely get his head around it. He wasn’t sure exactly what reaction he’d been expecting from Henry’s mother, but it wasn’t this. “Baby, that’s… That’s amazing.” He shakes his head a little. “I have to be honest; I was kinda worried that the Crown wouldn’t be so supportive.”

“I was too, in truth. I wasn’t worried about Mum’s reaction as my mum, but as the Queen I wouldn’t have been entirely shocked if she’d suggested we keep the relationship out of the public eye.”

“I am so damn proud of you,” Alex says after a few seconds.

“There’s no need for that. I’ve not done anything yet.”

“Henry, you came out to your mom, that’s major. I remember how nervous I was coming out to mine and, I mean, we’ve always had a really close relationship and she’s a Democrat; if there was ever going to be a best-case scenario for who to have to come out to, I had it. We both know you and your mom’s relationship has been strained since you lost your dad because of how she pulled back from everyone. And let’s face it, the Crown doesn’t exactly have a track record of being super supportive of non-traditional lifestyles.”

“Well, you’re certainly not wrong.” Henry grins as he brings one hand up to the side of Alex’s neck. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find it within myself to be true to who I am.”

“Hey, there’s nothing for you to be sorry about. You don’t owe it to anyone to be out, not even me. You need to do what’s right for you, no one else. If that means keeping us behind closed doors and only our immediate family knowing, that’s fine. If it means taking suitor photos and a royal announcement that we’re dating, I will happily pose beside you until we get the perfect shot, even if it takes hours.”

Henry leans forward and kisses him gently. “As I've said before, I definitely win the ‘I have the best spouse’ award.” Alex chuckles quietly.

“Oh, and for the record, I spoke to my mom and Leo about us intending to go public whenever the time feels right for us. They’ve both got our backs too. So do June and Nora, but I kinda feel like they go without saying.”

“It’s good to know we have people in our corner.” Henry grins. “Now, while we have a few moments to ourselves…” He squeezes Alex’s hand then gets up off the couch and moves into the other room, returning a moment later with a small box wrapped in simple silver paper, sporting a large purple bow.

Alex smirks at him and reaches into his left front pocket. He pulls out  a small, flat box tied closed with a thin gold ribbon. “Mine’s not wrapped nearly as nicely.” Henry takes it from him and rests it on his leg.

“Well, this isn’t actually a Christmas gift; that’s still in my suitcase. This is… something else.” He gestures for Alex to open it.

Alex removes the paper and opens the box. Inside there’s a purple velvet box nestled into silver tissues. He removes the box and opens it. He looks up at Henry in confusion. “Wait... is... is this your signet ring?” He glances down and only now realizes that Henry’s not wearing it.

“It is. It was given to me on my eighteenth birthday, as is tradition in my family. Each male heir is given a signet, engraved with his initial and worn on his left hand, a symbol of our loyalty to the Crown and our connection to our family line. The further tradition is that when he enters a serious courtship, he bestows the signet to his partner, to declare their bond. Should the relationship progress to marriage, during the ceremony the signet is exchanged for a wedding band and returned to its original owner, though moved to the right hand to prevent it from interfering with his wedding ring.” He grins at Alex. “If you don’t want to wear it, that’s absolutely fine, but it’s meant to be yours. For now, at any rate.”

“What if someone recognizes it? I don’t want to out you before you’re ready.”

“I’m planning to sit down with one of the reporters the family trusts next week to let them break the story of my coming out. Mum and Bea even offered to be part of the interview to show a united and supportive front. Perhaps if you’re comfortable with it, we could go official around Valentine’s day. If we did, the initial wave of reactions should be done by the time March rolls around. We could actually go out on real dates for our birthdays. Maybe even slip away for a few days.”

“And you’re certain you want me to have it?”

“I’ve been dreaming of you wearing that ring since Rio.”

Alex’s chest feels like it’s going to burst open with how hard his heart is pounding. “So, is the tradition that I have to put it on my own finger or is there some pomp and circumstance protocol that has to be followed to make it official?”

“No, there’s no tradition for that part of things,” Henry answers with a smile. “May I?” he asks pointing at the box. Alex nods, so he plucks the ring from the velvet slit. He slides the ring onto Alex’s left pinky and smiles when it fits almost perfectly. “As I said, you can tuck it away on your chain or just keep it in your nightstand if you prefer. Though I must admit, I do like seeing it on your hand.”

“Oh, it’s staying right there.” Alex tells him. He looks down at the ring sitting on his finger, Henry’s hand holding his, and a flush of warmth rushes through him. Had someone told him two weeks ago that he’d be ending the year wearing Henry’s signet as a sign of their official courtship, he would have told them they were out of their mind. “Okay, I really should have made you open my gift first because it’s not at all romantic and seems extra lame after this,” he remarks.

“I’m certain your gift is in no way lame.” Henry picks up the box from where it’s been resting on his thigh, tugs the ribbon free, lifts the lid and now it’s his turn to look down in confusion. He picks up the jump drive from the box and looks at Alex.

“Every email you sent me since Austin is saved on there. I had Nora download everything then delete it all out of my mail folders and trash. I told you I wouldn’t read them, and this is my really lame way of showing you I mean it. I can’t give us back the years we’ve missed, but I can make sure I don’t waste any more time by getting lost down that ‘what if’ rabbit hole. If there’s anything on there that you want me to see at some point, you can choose to show it to me, or you can erase them all and that’s it, they no longer exist.”

As soon as he stops talking Henry lurches forward and kisses him, then pulls him into a tight hug. “How on Earth could you think this isn’t a romantic gift?” he asks as he holds him. “You’ve literally handed me the physical manifestation of your commitment to us moving forward and putting the mistakes of our past behind us. In what universe is that not incredibly romantic?”

“I mean, I guess when you put it like that, it does sound a little better. It’s still not a royal promise ring though,” Alex replies.

“As I said, that isn’t your gift. Speaking of which…” He kisses him briefly before again disappearing into the other room and returning with another box, this one smaller but wrapped in the same heavy, metallic paper and topped with a purple bow. “Happy Christmas.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous, and you’re spoiling me.” He opens the box to reveal another small jewelry box. This one contains a pair of shining, platinum cufflinks. Alex lifts one to look closely at the design. “You’ve got to be kidding.” The face of the cufflink is a wide, flat disk engraved with a tiny wedding cake.

“It was that or turkeys,” Henry quips. “Just because we’re moving forward doesn’t mean we should forget our past entirely. Philip’s wedding might have been a disaster, but without that disaster, we wouldn’t have this.”

“They’re perfect.” Alex puts the cufflink back in the box and shuts it. He kisses Henry then sighs. “I should head back to my room.”

Henry nods. “Remind me why we said we were going to take things slowly?”

“Because we’re older and wiser and being responsible since we know there’s more to life than mind-blowing sex?”

Henry wrinkles his nose. “Stupid us deciding to be responsible.”

Alex chuckles, then gets up from the couch and makes his way to the door. When he reaches it, Henry pulls him into a deep, slow kiss.

“Rest well,” Alex says when they lean apart.

“You too, love.”

Alex slips out of the room and makes his way to his bedroom. He puts the box with the cufflinks on his nightstand, changes into shorts and a t-shirt, then crawls into bed. As he settles in, a glint of light from the lamp beside his bed catches the ring on his left hand. He smiles as he stares at it for several seconds before closing his eyes. He starts making a list in his head.

1. He and Henry are courting.
2. Henry’s mother wants to meet him.
3. They have the support of both their families.

Three is as far as he makes it before he drifts off.

The day of the gala is always spent dashing from meetings to interviews to prep stations for Nora, June, and Alex. This year is no different. The band that’s playing features prominently in a new movie that’s just been released and the lead single from the soundtrack has been rocketing up the charts, so there’s extra hype about that.

It’s almost time for them to get dressed when Alex manages to slip away with Henry. They disappear into one of the smaller studies and collapse onto the couch in front of the fireplace. The day already feels like it’s been a marathon, and it’s still a couple of hours before the party even starts. They’re chatting quietly when Alex’s watch beeps. He smiles and pulls Henry into a kiss.

“Happy new year,” Alex whispers afterwards, leaning his forehead against Henry’s.

“Jumping the gun a bit there, aren’t you darling?”

“Nope, I’m right on time, actually. It’s 7:00 here, which means it just hit midnight in London,” Alex tells him with a smile. “We’re going to be in the middle of a crowd of like 400 people at midnight here, so I figured if I can’t give you a new year’s kiss then, I’d take the opportunity to have one now.”

Henry looks at him in a way Alex can’t quite work out in his head. He looks happy, but in his eyes there’s something that looks like he’s, not annoyed exactly, but something is bothering him. Alex is deciding whether or not he should ask what’s wrong when Henry says, “Put another tally mark on that Best Spouse score card.”

Alex’s phone buzzes in his pocket then and he groans when he looks at the message on his watch. “Erase that one off the scorecard, I have to go; the stylist is waiting for me.” He presses another quick peck to Henry’s lips. “We have to be down in the hall by like 8:30. I’ll come to your room at 8:15 to pick you up.”

“I think I can find my way down to the party without an escort,” Henry says lightly.

“Oh, I know you can, but I want to have a minute alone with you to show you my outfit. And maybe sneak in a few kisses before I have to spend the rest of the evening being a responsible adult and refraining from kissing you every time I look at you."

"I’m looking forward to finally getting to see this mystery outfit. In that case, I shall be patiently waiting in my room.”

“Perfect.” Alex gives him one last quick kiss as his phone buzzes again, then darts out of the room before Zahra can come searching for him.

It’s just over an hour later when Alex knocks on the door of Henry’s room. He’s grinning when the door opens, and the expression that overtakes Henry’s face is exactly what Alex had been hoping for; a combination of surprise and appreciation, with a distinctly familiar flash in those beautiful blue eyes that says he’d rather spend the evening behind closed doors and ripping the outfit off him.

Alex unbuttons his chambray blue suit jacket and gently pulls it open to allow Henry a better view of the outfit. He’s wearing black slacks and black leather shoes which compliment his black dress shirt and chambray tie. The tie disappears beneath his vest – blue with black accents and silver fasteners down the center. At a quick glance, it could be any vest, but Henry quickly realizes what it actually is.

“Is… is that a corset?” Henry asks as he takes it in.

“It is,” Alex answers with a quick nod. He doesn’t miss the way Henry’s eyes are tracing the black lines of the boning channels down the length of his torso, or how his gaze lingers on the way the garment cinches tight at his waist. “I take it from the look you’re giving me right now, you approve?”

Henry moves so quickly that he takes Alex by surprise, grabbing him by the waist and neck, pulling him in for an intense kiss. “How in God’s name am I supposed to keep my wits about me tonight with you looking like that?” he asks, more than a little breathless when he draws back from Alex’s lips. “You’re such a tease.”

“I mean, I can go change if it’s going to be a problem,” Alex suggests.

“Don’t you dare. You look fantastic.” He leans back slightly and lets his hands settle on Alex’s waist, which triggers a quiet groan. “It should be a crime to look this good in public. You’re going to start a riot.”

“I think you’re overstating things a little,” Alex tells him with a smirk. “Besides, you might be a little biased.”

“I’m not biased, I just have eyes that work.” He brushes his thumb across Alex’s cheek. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

“We definitely make a good-looking couple,” Alex remarks. Henry’s suit is black and strongly reminiscent of the iconic one his dad had worn during his time as Bond. “It’s probably for the best that we’re not public yet; both of us looking like this, the amount of attention we’d be drawing tonight, the band would be pissed that they wouldn’t be the headline of the night.”

“Too bad for them,” Henry mutters as he leans in to kiss him again.

“Is this how it’s going to be now? Are we going to walk in on the two of you snogging every time we turn a corner?” Pez’s voice comes from nearby.

Alex and Henry look in the direction his voice came from and see him escorting Bea down the hallway. She’s wearing a dark emerald cocktail dress that has sheer, asymmetrical, flowy layers billowing around the sleek, mid-thigh skirt as she walks. The neckline is high, a lace choker connected to a lace panel that covers her chest. It’s stunning, but very princess appropriate Alex thinks. She’s wearing knee-high black boots with red bottoms, a subtle snakeskin pattern, and 6” heels. Her hair is swept back from the right side of her face and held in place by a decorative clip. It’s a large apple the same shade red as the bottom of her shoes with a black-green snake coiled around it. The tail of the snake is a chain that dangles and wriggles at the slightest movement.

Pez is as always, a spectacle in the best possible meaning of the term. His jacket is black satin with a subtle black-on-black floral pattern which seems to shift depending on how the light touches it. The shirt he’s wearing beneath it is a crisp white with just the most subtle embroidery on the corners of the collar and along the top of the pocket. He’s not wearing a tie, but he has a bright red scarf draped artfully around his neck and hanging loose down the front of him which matches the random nails he’s painted.

“Given it’s still a good month or so before we’ll be able to even hold hands in public without causing a scandal, you can tolerate walking in on the occasional private moment,” Henry shoots as he slides his arm around Alex’s back and pulls him close. He gives him an appreciative nod. “Looking good, mate.” He smiles warmly at Bea. “You look lovely as always.”

“No one will be looking at either of us with the two of you in the room,” Pez remarks. “Alexander, you must tell Auntie Pezza where you got that corset. It’s fabulous.”

“I’ll send you the name of the website and the contact info for the designer I dealt with. He was amazing.”

“And clearly very talented. You’re going to break hearts.”

“Well, my heart’s already spoken for, so…” Alex shrugs. Henry squeezes him again and he leans his head on his shoulder and places his left hand on his stomach. He doesn’t miss the way Bea’s eyes flicker down to his hand on her brother’s torso and the spark of recognition in them when she zeros in on the ring. The smile that spreads across her face as she looks at the two of them is so warm and genuine that Alex almost blushes when she locks eyes with him and gives him a tiny nod.

They make their way down to the room that’s been prepped for the party and spot Nora and June immediately. June is wearing a knee-length dress that’s black and covered in clusters of multi-colored sequins. Her hair is swept up into a meticulously precise messy bun with about a dozen tiny, glittering butterflies tucked into it. Nora’s wearing a plunging black leather halter top tucked into high-waisted black pants that make her look about 6” taller than she is. Paired with her dark curls being piled high on top of her head, she looks statuesque and almost ethereal, like a dark angel taken human form.

As they all gather near the center of the room and begin chatting, he silently muses about the elaborate, eye-catching outfits they’ve all chosen for the evening. Henry could never look mundane, his combination of movie star and royal DNA could never be mistaken for average or common, but his outfit is certainly the most conservative of the six. Maybe he’s not the only one trying to protect his boyfriend from getting overwhelmed tonight. The idea triggers a rush of gratitude to course through him as he looks at the rest of their group.

Several people enter the room then, and he immediately feels himself go into politician mode. He gives Henry a quick wink before moving away from him to go greet the newcomers. It’s hours later when he finally finds himself standing next to him again. He’s been discretely keeping an eye on him all night and he’s been happy to see that one of the other four has always been in proximity to him. He saunters up beside Henry now, a glass of whiskey held loosely in his hand, and leans back against the bar.

“How’re you holding up?” Alex asks him, hiding his words behind his glass. “I know stuff like this isn’t exactly your forte.”

“I’m alright. Better now that I have a moment to at least be near you.”

“Well, it’s only like half an hour until midnight. After that hits, you can slip away and head back to your room. I’ll give it a while before I excuse myself, make sure a good number of people see me still down here after you’ve gone up, then I’ll make my escape and we can have a nice private new year’s celebration up in my room. Or yours. Whichever you prefer,” Alex tells him.

“You’ve got it all worked out, don’t you?”

Alex raises his glass again. “I’ve been plotting how to get you alone all night.”

One of the photographers who was hired to document the night approaches and asks if she can get a picture of the two of them. Alex puts his whiskey on the bar so it won’t be in the shot and leans in close to Henry in a very platonic and absolutely not head over heels in love kind of way. Or at least, that’s what he’s going for.

“It took every ounce of self-control I had not to grab your arse just then,” Henry mutters quietly to him as he turns and reaches for the gin and tonic he motioned to the bartender for just before the photographer spoke to them.

“Now who’s the tease?” Alex asks through a wide smile.

The six of them have found their way to the center of the room and are clustered together when the DJ announces that they’ve hit the one-minute mark. The crowd cheers and hoots as everyone leans into the excitement of the moment. Alex is soaking it up and loving every second of it. The pulsing energy that’s filling the room is nothing compared to what he feels each time he looks at Henry, knowing that each passing minute is one closer to them being able to steal away to the privacy of the residence.

At the ten second mark, everyone in the room starts shouting the numbers in unison.

Ten…

Nine…

Alex knows he should be shifting his focus around among the others, but he can’t take his eyes off Henry.

Eight…

Seven…

Henry’s face is cast in the shifting colors of the party lights, awash in blues and greens and reds in turn. He looks happy in a way Alex has so rarely seen.

Six…

He looks so free in the moment, not a prince but a man like any other caught up in the excitement of a party.

Five…

Four…

He wishes he could find a way to give Henry more of this, more of the simple joy of being only himself, of knowing he can be himself because he’s surrounded by people who love him.

Three…

An image flashes through Alex’s mind; Henry sitting in a bright room, a manuscript ready for editing on the end of the desk he sits at, David napping peacefully near his feet, a mug of tea held in his left hand, and a wedding ring catching a glint as the light pours through the window.

Two…

He swears to himself that one way or another, he will find some way to give Henry that life.

One…

“Happy new year!” Alex has barely finished screaming the words when he’s pulled into an awkward, 6-sided hug. June, Nora, Pez, and Bea have all pulled himself and Henry together, and he recognizes it as their way of protecting the two of them from the intrusive hands – and mouths – of the revelers around them. He can’t allow himself to get choked up over it right now, but he makes a mental note to thank each of them the next day.

Once the crowd surrounding them seems to get the hint that there will be no breaking their circle and drift away for the most part, they all lean away and start hugging each other, quickly switching from one to the other to make sure that the partiers who have lingered don’t have an opportunity to insert themselves into the moment.

Eventually Henry is holding Alex, hugging him tightly. “Happy new year, baby,” Alex says into his ear, knowing that there’s enough noise and music all around them that no one other than Henry will be able to hear the words. “I love you.” They start to pull apart and Alex feels overwhelmed. He still has the image of Henry at the desk in his mind, and looking into those fathomless blue eyes now, a wave of wanting that life, as much for himself as for Henry, floods through his chest. He knows it’s going to be a hell of a road to get there, but he’s never wanted anything as much.

What he’s thinking must be written all over his face because Henry’s expression shifts. It looks like something has dawned on him in the moment, like he’s come to a decision that’s lifted a weight from his shoulders. That’s when the light comes into his eyes, like a switch has been flipped that allows all the happiness he’s been missing out on for so many years to suddenly cascade through him.

Henry shifts his hand from Alex’s shoulder to gently cradle the back of his head and kisses him. Alex’s mind is usually pretty good at keeping up when things happen that he’s not expecting, but this completely derails it. Henry’s kissing him. They’re in the middle of the Gala, and Henry is kissing him! It’s a perfectly chaste, PDA appropriate kiss, all lingering lips and gentle pressure and hands on each other’s backs and necks, but it’s happening in the middle of a White House ballroom filled with people. Alex can almost feel the dozens of eyes which he knows are staring at them, but he doesn’t care. Henry, the man who broke his heart and now is healing it, is kissing him.

Henry shifts slightly and presses his forehead to Alex’s. “Happy new year, love.”

Alex sputters out a quiet chuckle. “I guess I better plan that trip to meet your mom sooner rather than later. I think you just moved up the timeline for needing those suitor photos a little.”

Henry shrugs. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

Chapter Text

Alex opens his eyes and takes a few seconds to let his brain to calibrate. He’s not in his room, but rather curled on one of the couches in the game room on the third floor, with a comfortingly familiar pair of arms wrapped around him. He scans the room as the end of the evening comes back to him. After he and Henry turned the gala into an international rumor mill, they along with Nora, June, Pez, and Bea had spent another hour circulating, shaking hands, and dodging questions before leaving as a group.

Once they were safely tucked into the privacy of the room, they all turned their phones off or set them to airplane mode. Notifications were already starting to ping through every few seconds and everyone wanted to stay in the bubble of the moment a little longer. There would be time to deal with the fallout of their unplanned coming out party later.

The others had folded the two of them into a tight hug that seemed to last forever. There were tears and congratulations, words of support and encouragement and pride, and every time it seemed someone was about to pull back, they all held to each other that much tighter. They’d curled onto the sofas and talked the hours away, still in their party clothes – though Alex had removed his corset since it was definitely not the most comfortable garment to snuggle in – with their shoes kicked into a pile in the corner of the room, makeup smeared, and a sense of excitement thrumming between them that put the energy of the gala to shame.

Eventually, they all drifted to sleep somewhere around 5:00, Alex’s back curled to Henry’s chest, stretched out on one end of a sofa, Nora on the other end, all six of their feet tangled together in the middle. Bea, Pez, and June were on the other couch, Pez leaning into the plush cushions of the back near the middle, June tucked into his side, her head on his shoulder, and Bea stretched out on his other side with her head on one of his legs.

Alex shifts his left arm enough that he can see the time. It’s nearly 8:00 and he absently wonders why Zahra hasn’t stormed into the room threatening to murder him yet.

“Good morning, love,” Henry whispers into his ear.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Alex asks quietly.

“I think I might have woken you, actually. You seemed to be sleeping pretty soundly until I started kissing your neck like this.” He places a kiss on the nape of Alex’s neck to demonstrate.

Alex stifles a giggle and shifts his hips, wriggling his ass against Henry. A foot kicks Alex in the leg.

“If you two are gonna get freaky, do it on top of someone else’s feet,” Nora mutters, her voice still thick with sleep.

This triggers a fit of laughter from both Henry and Alex.

“Okay, hearing someone talk about my brother having sex is not the way I wanted to start the new year,” June grumbles.

“Just be glad you’ve never walked in on one of their frisky FaceTime sessions,” Bea remarks.

“Beatrice!” Henry snaps.

June looks down at her. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish I could,” Bea sighs dramatically.

“Oh my God...” Henry buries his face behind Alex’s head. “Please kill me,” he mumbles.

“No. If I have to live through this, so do you.” Alex groans as he covers his face with a hand.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Hen. Everyone masturbates. Just learn to lock the damn door.”

“Okay, it’s too early, I’m too hungover and far too undercaffeinated for this discussion.” June looks at Pez. “How is he able to sleep through a full-on conversation happening around him?”

“I’m not asleep, I’m praying to spontaneously develop the ability to turn back time and prevent this conversation from happening,” Pez mutters without moving. “I’m also making a mental note to never borrow Henry’s phone again. Not without having disinfectant wipes handy at any rate.” He tilts his head forward and looks over at Henry, whose head is just visible behind Alex’s now. As Pez smirks and winks at him, Henry flips him off in response.

Alex sputters. “Did… did you just give him the finger?”

“Yes.” He shifts so he’s looking down at Alex now.

“I’ve never seen you do that. It’s kinda like the first time I heard my grandmother swear; shocking but also sort of impressive.” Alex muses.

Henry’s grin turns wicked. “Well, I should think by now you’d be accustomed to me doing things with my fingers that are shocking but impressive.”

Alex feels his face go hot and he knows he’s blushing as he registers the various sounds of shock, feigned disgust, and amusement coming from the others, not to mention the numerous kicks to the shin from the other end of the couch. He covers his face with his hand again. “I hate you,” he groans. “Clearly I’m a bad influence.”

Henry leans down so his face is close to Alex’s. “The absolute worst,” he says, but his voice is warm and affectionate and there’s a broad smile that’s curving his lips and wrinkling the corners of his eyes. He places a quick peck on Alex’s lips.

It’s about fifteen minutes later, all of them now sitting up discussing breakfast, when a voice from the hallway causes them to freeze.

“ALEXANDER DIAZ! Where in the name of Hell are you?”

“Well fuck…” Alex mutters, looking down. “This is not the outfit I had planned to die in.”

Ellen appears in the doorway, her eyes zeroing in on Alex almost immediately. “Out. All of you,” she orders without taking her eyes off him.

“Ma,” June starts.

“Not now, June. Out. I need to have a word with your brother.”

“You guys go get ready for breakfast. I’ll catch up,” Alex says to them with a quick nod at June. She looks like she’s about to protest again when Nora takes her arm, shakes her head, then tugs her toward the door. Alex makes a silent note to thank her later. If he survives, that is…

He looks to his side when he feels Henry’s hand slip into his. “You should go with the others,” Alex tells him quietly, though he’s clinging to his hand like a lifeline.

“Not a bloody chance,” Henry tells him.

Once the rest of them have left, she demands “What the hell were you thinking?” as she crosses the room.

Alex stands and looks at her, confused and slightly terrified. “Ma, you said you supported us coming out,” he says, annoyed with himself when he realizes his voice sounds like a little kid who got caught doing something they’d been expressly told not to do.

“Yeah, I said I supported you boys coming out when you were ready. Not that I supported you outing Henry in the middle of the gala! What the hell were you thinking putting him in that situation, Alex? I know you boys are young and sometimes the carnal side of the brain can take over – Lord knows your father and I did enough things in restaurant bathrooms and the back seats of taxis when we were your age that I'm the last one to throw stones about getting caught up in the moment – but how could you be so selfish and reckless? Especially when you knew he wasn’t ready?”

“Ma, I…”

“Save it. Your father and I raised you better than this, Alex.” She shifts her attention to Henry, who’s standing beside him. “Henry, sugar, are you alright?”

“I believe there’s been a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened last night,” he says to her. “If anything, you should be shouting at me for outing Alex.”

“What?” Ellen asks. Alex can almost see the anger leaving her body as she looks back and forth between the two of them before returning her gaze to Henry.

“Alex didn’t do anything to out me. He didn’t kiss me; I was the one who kissed him. I just came to the realization in the moment that waiting and planning interviews and official photos was so ridiculous. I wasn’t thinking about the press or the fallout, probably for the first time in my life, if I’m honest; all I was thinking was that the man I love was standing in front of me and I wanted to kiss him. So I did,” he tells her. “I’m sorry if my actions upset you, that wasn’t my intent.”

“Oh! No, no don’t you dare apologize. I’m the one who owes you both an apology.” She looks at Alex. “I’m so sorry. I should have spoken to you, to both of you, before I came in guns blazing.” She steps forward and pulls him into a hug. “I just, I saw the articles starting to show up online and I was worried about Henry and how his family’s going to react. I didn’t even stop to think that it might have been something you boys had talked about beforehand. I’m really sorry, sugar.” She leans back, looking at him intently. Alex can see the pain in her eyes. She really means it. “Can you forgive me?”

“On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Never elaborate on or even mention what you and dad have done in bathrooms and backseats ever again. There are certain things that no one wants to picture their parents doing,” he tells her with an elaborate shudder for effect.

“Keep it up and I’ll tell you where and in what position you were conceived,” she teases.

“Oh, for the love of God, please stop talking,” Alex replies. “And there’s nothing to forgive. Do you have any idea how happy it makes me to know you’ll protect him that fiercely? Even if it’s from me.” He smirks. “It’s also kind of good to know now that you’ll be taking his side if we get into a fight or anything.”

“Realistically, which of the two of you is more likely to be in the wrong and just stubbornly holding his position?” she asks, a playful grin coming to her face.

“Point,” Alex shrugs.

“And you,” she says, turning now to Henry. “I’m so sorry, Henry. I shouldn’t have made presumptions before I spoke to you. Think you can forgive me for going off like I did?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. Honestly, I’m flattered that you stood up to protect me so hastily.”

“No need to be flattered. I will move Heaven and Earth to protect my family.” She looks back and forth between them. “Whatever you boys have been through, or are going through, anyone with eyes can see you two love each other. I think taking things slower this time around is the right choice,” she pauses and looks at Alex. “But you said it yourself last week, baby; this is forever.” She turns her eyes back to Henry. “That means you’re as much one of us as any other member of this family, and I will protect you the same as I will any of them.”

Alex sees the slight twitch in Henry’s jaw as he swallows. He knows his mom’s words have struck a nerve, but he’s not about to point it out.

She touches his cheek for a moment before pulling them both into a hug. She lets them go then reaches into her pocket and pulls out a business card that she hands to Henry. “That’s my personal cell number. You should have it in your phone, just in case. And if you would, please pass it along to your mother. I have a feeling she and I will have some things to chat about which I don’t feel need to go through official channels.”

“Of course.” Henry nods as he takes the card. “Thank you, Ellen, for everything,” he adds, his voice thick with emotion.

“Speaking of your mom, you should call her. Make sure everyone’s on the same page so you don’t have her going off on y’all like I did.” She smiles at both of them and something in her expression softens. “I’m so proud of the both of you. I hope you know that.”

Alex nods. “Thanks, Ma.” She leaves and he looks at Henry. His eyes are still on the door. He presses a gentle kiss to the corner of Henry’s jaw. “My mom’s right, you should call your mom. I’ll wait for you in my room.”

“Why?”

“I thought you might want privacy to talk to her,” Alex shrugs.

“Anything she and I have to say to one another we can say in front of you. Besides, I should introduce you two, even if it’s not in person.”

“Oh… Okay.” Alex nervously runs his hands through his hair, doing nothing to tame the curls that are absolutely out of control this morning.

“Right. Let’s get this over with.” Henry pulls his phone from his pocket and turns it back on. As soon as it powers up, a cascade of alerts and notifications pour in. He moves back to the sofa and settles onto it, tugging Alex along with him while his phone chirps and chimes. They both straighten their shirts as best they can in an effort to not look like they spent the night sleeping on a couch. Once his phone settles, he FaceTimes his mother. It takes several rings before she answers; when she does she looks slightly harried, but she’s smiling widely.

“I was wondering when you’d call, dear,” Catherine says, her voice warm and bright. Alex can’t help but think how much it reminds him of Bea’s.

“Hey Mum. Sorry, it’s half eight here and it was near 5:00 when we turned in from the gala.”

“No need for apologies, darling, I figured as much.”

“I know this isn’t quite the introduction we’d talked about, but, Mum, this is my boyfriend, Alex. Darling, this is my Mum, Catherine,” Henry says.

“It’s so good to meet you, Alex.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Your Majesty,” Alex answers.

“Oh, please don’t start with that Majesty nonsense. As far as you’re concerned, I’m Henry’s mum, no more, no less. Please call me Catherine, dear, I insist.”

“If that’s what you prefer,” Alex smiles and nods. He hopes that his voice doesn’t betray the nervousness he’s feeling. He’s always been anxious when meeting the parents of the girls he’s dated in the past, and none of them were ever royalty. This is intense, but he doesn’t want to stress Henry out, so he tries to internalize it all and just work on coming across as relaxed and maybe even a little bit charming if possible. Besides, he really does want to make a good impression on her.

“I do hope you’ll be able to come for a visit soon so that we can meet in person, Alex. Technology is wonderful in so many ways, but it just doesn’t replace being able to sit face to face for a spot of tea and a proper chat.”

“I plan to, yes. Whenever you have time in your schedule, I’ll make myself available. I’ll have Ms Bankston reach out to your equerry to determine a time that won’t be inconvenient for you.”

Catherine laughs quietly. “Alex darling, you’re not coming over as an envoy, you don’t need to run through handlers. You just come over when you can, Henry will let me know when you’re heading across the pond, and I’ll make time for you. I recognize that our situations are unique, but there’s no political posturing or protocols necessary here. I’m just a mum who wants the chance to get to know the man who’s won her son’s heart.”

Alex smiles at the phone and feels a swell of warmth in his chest. Now that he’s finally having an opportunity to see the real Catherine – the bright, engaging, spitfire of a Catherine that Henry talks about remembering from his youth – he realizes just how wrong he’d been about her. He’d never met her when he and Henry were together before, she’d still been too lost in the grief over Arthur’s death, and he thinks now maybe that was a good thing. If he’d met her then, he doesn’t know if she would have had it in her to be this happy for Henry… or this supportive. Alex isn't certain if the change has been sparked by her taking on the role of Queen, or because her mother is no longer around and keeping everyone in the family in the shadow of the Crown, but he knows it's not his place to speculate.

“Is Percy staying on with you while you and Bea visit, Henry?”

“Yes, we’ll all be here another few days.”

“Excellent. Can you do me a favor and have him take a quick photo of you two? He’s got such a brilliant eye for photography. Remember that portrait he took of Gran a few years back? He caught an absolutely marvelous shot of her, even managed to coax a smile out of the old bird, which I don’t think had happened since I had the audacity to marry for love rather than tradition. We just need a shot we can put out to the media with the official statement of support, proper suitor photos we can worry about later.”

“Of course. We’ll get cleaned up and I’ll ask him to take care of it right away.”

“Brilliant. Nothing too formal, no need to pose like a pair of cutouts. Just a simple one of the two of you together. And do try to crack a smile; it’s a courtship announcement, after all. Can’t have you looking like you’re there under duress.”

“Mum, when has there ever been an announcement of courtship photo that had the couple smiling in it? Even when you and Dad were announced, you both looked like you were having mugshots taken.”

“Well, you’re not wrong; neutral expressions have always been the tradition for courtship photos. However, I do believe it’s high time we have some new traditions for the new Crown. You’re the first member of the family to enter a courtship since my coronation, therefore, I’d say it’s the perfect time to finally have a photo go out that looks like the couple is actually happy to be together,” Catherine tells him. “What do you think Alex? It’s as much your announcement as Henry’s.”

“Oh, smiling for sure; but I will always capitalize on any excuse to see Henry smile so, I’m completely biased on the topic.”

“Oh, we’re going to get on smashingly,” Catherine replies. “Right. Now, eat something first, then a quick photo. Alex, I’m not sure what your team is planning to put out, but I was thinking it would be beneficial if the same photo were used by both releases. Given how high profile you both are, showing a united front could be a good approach. Make sure everyone knows that you boys have the full support of both families.”

“Do we though?” Henry asks.

“Darling, if you’re worried about your brother, don’t be. Philip is a stickler for tradition and will certainly have things to say in private, but you know he’ll tow the company line in public.” She pauses for a moment and seems to become thoughtful. “Philip loves you, Henry. He takes too much after your Gran so he’s terrible at showing it and he doesn’t handle change well. You’re his baby brother, as jarring as you courting might be for him, he does support you, in his way.”

“If you say so, Mum.”

“Give him time, darling.”

“I will.”

“Alex, it was wonderful to meet you, such as we were able to. I truly am looking forward to your visit.”

“I’m looking forward to it as well, Your Ma—” Alex wrinkles his nose and cuts himself off. “Catherine,” he corrects himself.

“I thought I was going to have to call you on that one for a second,” she tells him. “Do get us the photo as soon as you can, if it’s in the next few hours we’ll have time to make the evening edition with the statement.”

“We will,” Henry assures her.

She stares at the screen for several seconds. “I’m so proud of you, Henry. And of course, you as well, Alex.”

“You have no idea how much that means to me, Mum,” Henry tells her, his voice tight.

“Right. No tears, you’ll end up all bloodshot and puffy in the picture,” she tells him.

Henry laughs quietly. “Right,” he mutters.

“Off you go then,” she says. She waves at the screen.

“’Bye Catherine,” Alex says, waving back.

“’Bye Mum,” Henry waves as well. He taps the button to end the call then drops his hand and phone in his lap. “Well then, that wasn’t too painful, was it?”

“Are you kidding me? Compared to the dressing down we got from my mom, that was a spa day.” He takes Henry’s free hand. “Let’s go get some breakfast, then we’ll talk to Pez about getting that picture for your mom.” Henry leans over and kisses him, and Alex melts into it. “What was that for?”

“Just because we can,” Henry tells him, his entire body seeming to relax as he says the words. “We don’t have to hide anymore. I never realized how amazing that freedom was going to feel.” He rests his head on the back of the sofa. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”

“Hey, no, there is nothing for you to apologize about. Being out about our sexuality is a huge, intensely personal thing. We both had to be ready to take that step.”

“Were you though?”

“What do you mean?” Alex asks. He’s getting that weird, uneasy feeling he gets in his stomach when he feels like Henry is slipping into one of his bouts of grief.

“Were you ready? I wasn’t even thinking last night, I just acted, I didn’t even stop to ask you if you were okay with coming out now.”

“Baby, stop,” Alex says, bringing one hand up to rest on the side of Henry’s neck. “I am completely fine with being out. The only reason I didn’t come out sooner is because, well…” he bites his lip. “Honestly, it didn’t really matter. I hadn’t dated anyone since we broke up, not seriously anyway, so it didn’t seem like something I needed to address.”

“Why weren’t you? Dating anyone, I mean.” Henry asks.

“I mean, I went to dinner a few times with some people, but it was never anything more than that.”

“I just presumed that whomever you were seeing, your team was keeping a lid on it,” Henry admits.

“Honestly, I tried to date. Tried to convince myself that if I started seeing someone it would help me get over you. But I just… I never felt anything for any of them. There was no spark, no twisting rush in my gut when I tried to get close. I realized after about half a dozen dates that I could have gone out with a thousand people and there still never would have been anything because none of them were you.” He leans his head back now too. “So, I focused on law school and my internships and working on stuff for my mom and figured I’d worry about sorting out that part of my life later.”

“I hate that I put you through all that,” Henry says. “I’m so sorry, Alex.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.” Alex squeezes his hand and lifts it so it’s between their faces. He presses a kiss to the back of Henry’s hand, his lips soft against the smooth skin and knobby little points of his knuckles. “I’m not sorry because all that led to this, led to us being right here, right now. Even though we’ve just gotten back together, our relationship is stronger and healthier than it ever was back then. I mean, we’re about to go take a picture for the Palace and the White House to release with a statement saying that we’re courting and that our families have our backs. It was a bumpy road getting here, we both definitely got bruised up along the way, but we’re here.”

Henry forces a small smile. “Looking forward, not backwards.”

“Damn right.”

“One of these days I’ll remember that.” He kisses the back of Alex’s hand now. “Come on. Let’s go get you some coffee so I can show the world I have the most amazing boyfriend ever.”

An hour later, they’ve eaten, showered, dressed, and are sitting on a staircase between the second and third floors. Pez is standing at the bottom of the stairs adjusting settings on his camera. Alex has learned that he never travels anywhere without it as he has a passion for photography and enjoys going out into whatever city he’s visiting to capture images of the architecture with a particular affinity for seeking out areas where graffiti artists like to work. He’s been going on for at least ten minutes about how, if you know what you’re looking for, you can tell where a picture is from just by the street art.

Alex is sitting one step below Henry, nestled against his chest, leaning back against him as they wait for Pez to perfect whatever adjustment he’s making to the camera. He looks up at Henry and smiles; he looks amazing, which Alex should probably be used to by now, but somehow, no matter how often he looks at him, he always finds himself lost in taking it all in. Henry’s hair is product-free for once, laying casually across his forehead rather than coiffed meticulously into place. He’s wearing a white button-down, the collar poking out from the soft, sky-blue knitted sweater that almost matches the color of his eyes. Dark blue jeans and some classic black and white Converse sneakers complete the ensemble. He can’t help but thinking how perfectly the casual outfit suits him.

He knows he looks pretty good himself, sporting a simple black t-shirt, faded blue jeans and unintentionally matching Cons. His hair is unruly, mostly because he knows Henry loves it that way, but maybe a little because he decided to lean into the carefree American rogue look. He knows the contrast will play well in the photos; Henry all smooth, clean-cut, and dashing, him wild, dark, and with a cockiness he’s not been able to subdue since the night before. Henry is his, and the whole world is about to know that in no uncertain terms. They’re going to put the photo of them out there, with twin statements from the Royal and the First families, and the most eligible bachelor on the planet is officially going to be off the market because he’s all his.

Henry wraps his arms around Alex, clasping his hands over his chest, and rests his chin on his shoulder. “I can’t believe I finally get to tell the world how much I love you,” he says softly.

Alex snorts out a quick laugh. “Funny, I was just thinking essentially the same thing.” He closes his eyes and brings his left hand up to hold Henry’s hands. He smiles when Henry kisses the side of his neck. They both look at Pez when they hear a series of shutter clicks.

“You could warn us first,” Henry remarks.

“Just a few test shots to make sure I’ve got the settings dialed in,” Pez replies, the camera clicking several more times. “Trust your Auntie Pezza.”

They spend the next half hour with Pez clicking away and repositioning them, moving them to one of the studies, then into the game room to curl together on the sofa where they slept the night before, even out onto the portico briefly. The camera snaps almost constantly and he and Henry manage to tune it out before long.

“Right, I do believe I’ve got enough here to work with,” Pez says eventually.

“I should hope so. You’ve only taken about a thousand shots.”

“Excuse you, I don’t question your writing process, therefore you don’t get to question my artistic process.”

“Fair enough,” Henry rolls his eyes.

“I’m off to sort through, pull a few quick edits together, then send them off to your mums,” Pez heads off in the direction of his guestroom.

“Finally,” Alex says softly. He turns to Henry, pushes up onto his toes and leans in to kiss him. He’s got a hand on the back of his neck and one on Henry’s waist. Henry quickly leans into the kiss, one hand going to Alex’s lower back and pressing their bodies flush, the other sliding up into his hair. Alex sighs seconds later as he settles back onto his heels. “I’ve been wanting to do that since you walked into the room. You look so damn good.”

Henry’s hand shifts from his hair to the side of his neck, his thumb skimming along his jaw. “You’re one to talk. It’s been taking everything I have not to pin you to the wall and ravage you.” He kisses him briefly on the lips. “So, what shall we do now that we’re done with that?”

“Well, I feel like we should probably stay within the House until the official statements go out later. Pez will probably be a while getting the pictures out to our moms. Why don’t we just hang out in the game room and figure out when will work for me to come meet your mom.”

“Translation, you want to go make out in the game room until the others come track us down and force us to interact like actual grownups.”

“I mean, pretty much,” Alex shrugs.

“You’re a menace.”

“Yeah. But I’m your menace.”

“Yes, you are,” Henry whispers.

Chapter Text

BREAKING NEWS

The words flash across the screen, in large, bold white font on a red background, and Alex feels a nervous little flutter in his stomach. Henry squeezes his hand and he squeezes back. They’re sitting on the couch in one of the large TV rooms on the third floor, Pez and the girls sitting on both sides of them. Ellen and Leo are on one of the other sofas, and Zahra is hovering at the back of the room, her phone in her hand and her ever-present coffee thermos sitting on the mantle above the fireplace.

The title card is replaced by the face of a reporter Alex doesn’t recognize. They’ve tuned into one of the British news stations. ‘Here we go…’ he thinks. The press release went out to the media less than fifteen minutes ago, and he’s never been this anxious about seeing himself in a news report.

“Good evening, and thank you for joining us for this first broadcast of the new year. I’m Vanessa Clarke and this is BBC One Evening News. We typically would begin this broadcast with her Majesty the Queen’s New Year’s address which we will bring to you shortly. This year, however, we’re starting off with an announcement which the station received just moments ago. In an unprecedented joint statement from both Buckingham Palace and the White House, the courtship of His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales and First Son of the United States Alexander Claremont-Diaz has been officially announced.”

The camera moves slightly so the reporter is no longer centered, but now takes up the left side of the screen. One of the photos that Pez took appears, filling the majority of the right side. Alex smiles as he looks at the photo; it’s one of the first ones from the stairs. Henry’s arms are around him, his hand holding Henry’s with the signet ring in plain view, Henry’s chin resting on his shoulder. They’re both smiling and looking at the camera.

“I thought you said those were test shots,” Alex comments with a glance at Pez. June shushes him.

The camera feed of Vanessa is replaced by a plain white background with bold, black wording fading into view, the text of what she’s about to read. The photo on the right side of the screen shifts to one of them sitting on the sofa in the game room, Henry’s left arm is draped over Alex’s shoulders, Alex’s right hand resting on Henry’s knee. Both of them are smiling and Alex thinks they definitely managed to give Catherine the image of a couple who are actually happy to be together that she wanted. “An excerpt from the statement reads as follows; ‘It is with great joy that Her Majesty Queen Catherine, President Ellen Claremont, and Senator Oscar Diaz announce the courtship of their sons, Prince Henry and Alex. After years of friendship, the couple have chosen to enter this new phase of their relationship. They do so with the full and unfaltering support of their families.’ The full text of the official statement can be viewed on the BBC One webpage.”

The photo shifts to one Alex hadn’t seen yet; it’s a picture of them kissing the night before, clearly taken on someone’s cell at the party. The lighting is terrible, the photo is dark and slightly out of focus, but it’s clearly them; Henry’s golden hair and movie star jaw are unmistakable even in blurry profile.

“The announcement comes after a photo of what appears to be the two men sharing a New Year’s kiss began circulating on social media and among several news outlets earlier today. While the source and authenticity of that photo have not been confirmed, the statement from the Palace and White House puts to bed any speculation about the validity of the claims that the couple are, in fact, dating.” The photo changes again and goes to another one that Pez had taken.

Alex feels his cheeks flush warm as he looks at the picture. It’s not one of the posed photos, but a candid one he didn’t realize had been captured as they were moving from the stairs to the game room. Alex’s back is to the wall and Henry’s leaning into him, one hand braced against the gaudy antique wallpaper, the other gently pressed to Alex’s side just above his hip. They’re both laughing in the picture, wide-open smiles and their eyes crinkled in the corners, Henry’s nose scrunched, and Alex’s head tossed back slightly. Just before the image was taken, they’d been goofing around, shoving and shouldering one another, playfully arguing about who should get top billing when the statement goes out, when Alex had tripped on the corner of a rug and nearly gone crashing into a small table in the hallway which had a large, white, antique vase sitting on it. Henry had managed to redirect him so he missed the table and thudded clumsily against the wall. Pez had remarked that the moment was eerily reminiscent of a certain cake incident, and as soon as the words were out there, Henry and Alex looked at each other, realized he was right, and dissolved into laughter.

Seeing the moment from an objective perspective, Alex is struck not just by how happy and open they both look, but by the unmistakable love in Henry’s eyes as he looks at him. His mind goes back to the night in LA, and he remembers the way Henry was smiling and singing and dancing on that horrible, sticky little stage, eyes always seeking him out. He remembers the tiny, self-satisfied grin as he ate ribs with a smear of sauce on his upper lip and the tip of his nose, his eyes crinkled the same way as he watched Alex watch him eat. The way those heart shatteringly blue eyes looked up at him before fluttering shut as he drifted to sleep that night in Henry’s room after Wimbledon… Alex sees all of those moments and more in the pure joy that’s on Henry’s face in the picture. He finds himself wondering how he ever could have been so oblivious as to not realize Henry had been in love with him all along.

“We will continue to follow the story should any additional information be released by the Palace or the White House. For now, we simply join in wishing the couple well as they embark on this journey together.” Vanessa is shifted back to the center of the screen as the photo disappears. She begins talking about the New Year’s video that Bea says Catherine recorded several days ago.

“Okay, that went better than I expected it to,” Alex remarks. “I have a feeling the US outlets aren’t going to be running the announcement in quite the same tone.”

“You’re not wrong, kid,” Zahra says from the back of the room, staring down at her phone. She flicks the TV to one of the US channels just in time to see the picture of them from the party on one side of the screen with the words NEW YEAR’S GAY across the top of it in heavy red lettering.

The anchor on the screen is one Alex recognizes, but he can’t think of his name. “Less than fourteen hours into the new year and we have confirmation from the White House that the speculation which started circulating last night is indeed true. Alex Claremont-Diaz has been involved in a homosexual affair with Prince Henry for an undisclosed period of time, as confirmed by the office of the President. In a statement simultaneously released by the White House as well as Buckingham Palace, it states that the couple is officially courting after years of what is vaguely described as friendship, and asking for privacy and respect from the public. Though the statement was released only minutes ago, it seems quite obvious that this is a tactical response to the revelations brought forward by the photo of them making out at the gala last night.”

“Making out? It was one kiss! There wasn’t even tongue!” Alex blurts out. June hits his arm as she shushes him this time.

“News outlets both here in the US and in Britain are picking up the story and already there are messages flooding in. Many of the comments that we’re seeing on our feed are expressing shock at the fact that a member of the first family has been in the closet while living in the White House and the implications of what type of acts have taken place on what many consider sacred ground as the most recognizable symbol of the country. There is also concern that this has obviously been covered up for an extraordinary length of time, outrage over the fact that the President has clearly been complicit in lying to the press and the people of this country about the situation, and questions about how much taxpayer money has gone toward keeping this all quiet.”

As the anchor talks, a series of screenshots of comments from various social media platforms are flashed across the bottom of the screen. All of them distinctly disapproving, many of them censored to black out profanities and slurs which can’t be shown on TV, most of them expressing various levels of disgust ranging from mild discomfort to outright rage. The feed switches to another camera angle which has a wide shot of the anchor and another man sitting at the desk.

“Honestly, as valid as all those questions are, I think there are much bigger implications here. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is coming out right now. President Claremont has nothing to lose at this point; she’s only got a year left in office, any investigation into a coverup of federal expenditures is going to take long enough to happen that she’ll be back in Texas before the truth comes out, if it ever does. Not to mention, there’s a lot of… let’s call it chatter, that she’s not fond of either of the frontrunners for her successor as president. We currently have two very prominent candidates who are well out ahead of the field for both their party’s nominations, and she’s got a documented history of bumping heads with both of them. Putting this out there in an election year when there are trade deals due for renegotiation next year, to put it bluntly, whoever takes over the Oval Office will have to deal with the fallout of Alex Claremont-Diaz having outed the prince of England. No matter how you look at it, this is a power move.”

“Exactly. And then there’s also the question of whether or not this is actually a real relationship or just a publicity stunt to get Alex Claremont-Diaz’s name back in the news cycle. His mom’s on her way out of office and he’s been pretty low profile for quite a long time now. His approval numbers have been trending steadily down for months because he just seems irrelevant to the American people at this point. However, in the last twelve hours he’s been associated with four of the top five globally trending hashtags across all social media platforms: #NewQueersDay, #FirstPrince, #QueenACD, and #PrincessAlexander. That is a lot of bandwidth for someone who yesterday wasn’t even in the top 500 trending topics,” the first reporter says.

“Turn it off,” Ellen snaps. The screen goes black. She turns and looks at him. “You know you can’t listen to those idiots, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” Alex nods. It’s not like this is the first time the press has taken a run at him for something or other. Granted it’s never been this direct, but he can handle it. He shifts his gaze to Henry, who looks like he might either throw up or break something. “Are you okay?”

“No. I’m currently fighting the urge to call a barrister to find out how to purchase a news station so I can have the pleasure of shutting them down and firing every person involved in that repulsive excuse for a report.” Henry’s jaw clenches so tight that Alex is worried he’s actually going to hurt himself.

“Babe, don’t even worry about it. From that station, I expected nothing less. They’re notorious for putting out absolute trash and calling it news. Honestly, it would be concerning if they put out something that wasn’t derogatory; I’d worry what they were up to.”

“Actually, I kind of expected worse. I figured they were going to cut to someone who looks like they survive off a diet comprised exclusively of moonshine and meth who would go on some homophobic rant they’d have to bleep half of,” Nora remarks.

“They wouldn’t,” Henry looks affronted by the idea.

“It wouldn’t have been the first time they did something like that,” June observes. “You should have seen some of the ‘man on the street’ interviews they aired after a divorced woman on her second marriage with two half-Mexican kids got elected as president.”

“And they’re able to just get away with airing slander whenever they feel like it?” Henry asks, incredulous at the notion.

“They’re assholes, but they’re not stupid. They always make sure they phrase things in a way where anything controversial they’re saying is angled as being opinion or subjective observation, not hard facts. That way if anyone goes after them for putting out information that’s not true, they shrug it off as ‘we never said this was the truth, it was just what the anchor said and their interpretation of the situation’.” June says.

“Slimy little bastards, aren’t they?” Pez asks.

“Oh yeah,” June agrees.

“Try not to stress about it, sugar. We all know exactly what that station is like and exactly how they spin everything that gets put out. I could put out a press release that said the sky is blue and they would turn that into me making claims that Mother Nature is a Democrat,” Ellen tells Henry with a warm grin.

“Speaking of press releases…” Alex interjects. “When did aligned statements get swapped out for a single joint statement? Which has never happened before.”

“Well, Catherine, your father, and I had a good long chat when we were looking through the pictures that Pez sent us,” she looks now at Pez. “Those pictures were all wonderful, darlin’. If you ever want a side hustle as a photographer, let me know because I have about a hundred different projects that could use your eye. We had a hell of a time whittling it down to just three to put out.”

“You’re too kind, Ellen,” Pez says with a wide smile and a tipping his hat gesture.

“Anyway, the more we talked about the wording and the timing, we just realized that it made sense. Having one joint statement from both camps shows that we’re all supporting both of you in no uncertain terms. It’s not the White House supporting you and your boyfriend or the Crown supporting Henry and his boyfriend; it’s two families who support you both equally.” She smiles at them. “And that is exactly what you boys have; two families who have both your backs in this and anything that comes your way.”

“You guys have no idea how much that means to us,” Alex says.

“Truly. Thank you,” Henry adds. He looks from Ellen to Leo, then June, Nora, and even Zahra. “All of you.”

“Speaking of things discussed on that call, Catherine wants you to go over there for a visit, sugar,” Ellen tells Alex.

“Yeah, she mentioned that when we spoke to her earlier,” Alex replies with a nod.

“I was thinking, you should go with them when Henry, Bea, and Pez head back home. Take a few days to do what needs to be done in terms of having time to sit down with Catherine, do a little bit of press, strike while the iron’s hot.”

“We were thinking something similar when we were talking about it,” Alex says with a quick glance at Henry before looking back at her. “I just wanted to talk to you first in case you had anything you needed me to do here first in terms of damage control.”

“Do not start calling it that, sugar. There’s no ‘damage control’ to do because you haven’t damaged anything.”

“I could refer you to at least one news report that would beg to differ,” Alex comments.

“Did you or did you not tell me less than five minutes ago that you knew you couldn’t take anything those idiots said to heart?” She shakes her head. “You two haven’t done anything wrong. You fell in love, that’s something you should be celebrating, not feeling like you have to do damage control for. You’re both internationally recognized public figures, of course people are going to run their mouths. Don’t either of you dare let anyone else’s ignorance or bigotry make you feel like you have to apologize for how you feel for each other, not for one second.”

He feels Henry squeeze his hand and understands that his mother’s words mean just as much to him as they do to Alex. He grins at his mom, but there’s a tightness in his throat that he’s not sure he can get words out around at the moment, so he simply nods in understanding.

“And I expect the four of you,” Ellen gestures to Bea, Pez, Nora, and June, “to keep an eye on the two of them. If you catch them starting with any of that damage control and apology nonsense, you have presidential permission to give either or both of them a swift kick in the arse.”

“Have I mentioned that I absolutely adore your mum?” Bea asks June as she squeezes her arm and leans her head on her shoulder. She shoots a wicked little grin at Henry then. “You heard her, I have presidential permission on top of my diplomatic immunity now.”

“You say that as if you have ever hesitated to kick my arse for any reason. Ever,” Henry replies.

“I’m the older sister, it’s my duty to keep you in line and protect you, even from yourself.”

June gives Alex a smug look. “Told you it was a big sister thing.”

“You’re literally the worst,” Alex mutters as she nudges him with her shoulder.

“I’m serious, by the way,” Ellen says, drawing their attention back to her. “You six need to have each other’s backs, and that goes beyond just you four keeping your eyes on Alex and Henry. You boys have to have their backs too. Y’all know what the media can be like. There could well be rumors that start about the others because of how close you all are, you need to watch out for them too.”

“Always,” Henry tells her.

“Goes without saying,” Alex agrees.

“Good.” She smiles at them all for a moment before turning to Leo. “Let’s give the kids some space, darlin’.” They make their way out of the room, Zahra following behind them.

“So it’s official; the whole world knows you two idiots are in love,” June says, leaning her head on Alex’s shoulder as she wraps her arm around Bea’s shoulders.

“Well, they know we’re dating,” Alex corrects.

“Alex, darling, anyone with eyes that work and even a modicum of emotional intelligence who sees those photos will see you’re in love,” Bea challenges him.

“She’s not wrong. You two pretty much look like human forms of the heart eyes emoji when you’re looking at each other,” Nora adds. “Those pictures make it pretty clear that you are not just dating.”

“And those weren’t even the most lovey-dovey ones I caught. Those were just a few of the ones that were press release appropriate.”

“I want you to send me those pictures, by the way. I need a new wallpaper for my phone,” Alex tells him.

“Already emailed to you, mate.”

Pez had sent the pictures to Alex, and he has to admit, he wasn’t wrong when he said that a lot of them were too intimate for a press release. Alex does find one that he decides to set as the background on his phone. It’s one he hadn’t realized Pez had taken. He must have turned and caught a shot of them as he headed off to sort through the pictures. They’re standing in the hallway and staring so intently at one another it’s no wonder he didn’t realize Pez had snapped it. He’s got a hand on Henry’s waist and one on the back of his neck while Henry’s left hand rests against his neck. Their bodies are pressed flush against one another and there is no way to not see how completely lost in each other they are.

Alex smiles as he stares down at his phone for a few more seconds before locking it. They’re almost to London, and he’s spent the majority of the flight from DC quietly alternating between reading a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and responding to emails on his phone. He glances sideways to where Henry’s head is resting against his shoulder, as it has been since he fell asleep not long after takeoff, his soft, rhythmic snores the soundtrack of Alex’s entire transatlantic flight.

“I’ve never seen him sleep more than a few minutes on a plane,” Bea says softly when she appears beside Alex’s seat. She smiles and touches Alex’s free shoulder gently. “He seems to sleep so much more soundly when you’re around. Even the other night in the game room, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sleep so deeply.”

Alex nods and squeezes her hand briefly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being there for him when I wasn’t,” he tells her barely above a whisper. “When I couldn’t be.”

She lowers herself into the seat in front of him, facing them. Her eyes settle on her brother’s face and something heavy settles over her. “It wasn’t easy to be; he did just about everything he could to try and keep me at arm’s length. Maybe it was some form of karmic retribution for how I pushed him away when I spiraled after Dad passed. Luckily, I’ve always been particularly tenacious, and he’s never had it in him to be cruel enough to really push anyone away.” She looks at Alex and a tiny grin curls her lips. “I’m just glad he finally got his head out of his arse and listened to me.”

Alex considers her words for a moment. “You’re the one who convinced him to come to the Christmas dinner.”

“Nora and June are right, you’re quick.” Bea replies nodding. “Honestly, it was something of a Hail Mary. I figured it would be a cure it or kill it encounter.”

“What do you mean?”

“I figured that if you two talked fact-to-face, it would either mend the situation between you two or be the final nail in the coffin, as it were. I hoped you two would be able to work things out, but frankly, if you couldn’t, I hoped it would make him realize he needed to let you go.” She pauses and looks down at her hands. “I’m sorry, I know how awful it sounds to say it like that, but the truth of the matter is that watching him hurt the way he was, watching him hate himself for how he’d hurt you… You know I adore you, Alex, but there were days these last few years when I almost hated you.” Her voice cracks a little and she clears her throat, still quiet so as not to wake Henry. “It wasn’t because of who you are or anything you’d done; it was just that he was so happy when you two were together. Seeing that light leave him, seeing him retreat into himself, wander about numb and robotic, I found myself wishing you’d never come to Pip’s wedding. Seeing the grief in him over losing what you two shared, it…” She closes her eyes and shakes her head a little. “It was like when we lost Dad all over again.”

“I’m so sorry.” Alex whispers.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about. Our grandmother was the one who convinced him that he couldn’t have a life with you, that he didn’t deserve to be happy simply because he loved in a way she didn’t respect.” She looks down at her hands again. “She was our grandmother and I did love her in a way, but I also hated her for what she did to him.” She looks back up at him now and her eyes are steely. “What she did to both of you. I think part of me always will, if I’m being honest. Neither of you deserved what you’ve been through these last years, and it all happened largely because of her influence.”

“Henry and I made a deal with each other. We said that even though we’re not going to forget what happened, we’re not going to let ourselves live in the past or the ‘what if’s of those lost years. Focusing on all those negative emotions and the wrongs of the past doesn’t change them, it just fills up today with regret and wastes the time we could spend building something new. Henry and I are making a choice not to waste our todays. I won’t lie, it’s not easy; it’s so tempting to look back down that dark path we came from and get drawn into it, but this,” Alex gestures between himself and Henry, “this is what matters. Not how we got here, not how many bruised hearts or wounded egos we suffered along the way.”

“And here I thought Hen was the philosophical romantic in the relationship,” she says with a fond smile.

“Can I offer some, well, not advice, exactly… a little perspective, maybe?” Alex asks her after several seconds.

“Of course.”

“You, and Henry, and Philip,” he pauses, emphasizing the last two words, “have been through too much already. Losing your dad the way you did, the depression that consumed your mom after he passed, all three of you were forced to navigate that alone in your own ways. You were all too young to face something like that on your own, but you each survived it. It changed all three of you in ways that’ll never be undone, but you’re all the people you are now because you found your way through the pain and the fear you faced.” He pauses, glances at Henry then back at Bea. “Hating your grandmother doesn’t hurt her, especially now; all it does is steal more from you and the people you care most about. Whatever space we hold for hate, is space we can’t fill with love for the people who deserve it. Don’t let her take more from you, or them, than she already has.”

She regards him for long enough that he’s not sure if she had tuned him out halfway through what he was saying. When she finally speaks, her voice is thick with emotion and he realizes there’s a slight sheen to her eyes that wasn’t there moments ago. “God, I hope he realizes how lucky he is to have found you.”

“We’re both lucky,” Alex counters.

“Yes, I suppose you are.” She looks out the window for a moment. “We’ll be landing soon.”

“Right,” Alex nods. She squeezes his shoulder then returns to her seat beside Pez. He turns so his face is brushing against Henry’s hair and presses a kiss to the top of his head. He puts his hand on Henry’s leg and shakes it gently as he says in a quiet voice, “Baby, we’re about to land. Time to wake up.” It takes a few seconds of shaking and a another “Time to wake up, Henry,” before he feels him shift and make a little confused murmur.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Henry asks blearily. “Sorry, I must have nodded off.”

“You did. About seven hours ago. We’ll be on the ground in a few minutes,” Alex tells him.

“What?” He looks around confused.

“You slept pretty much the entire flight,” Alex tells him, smiling.

“I what?”

“Yup. You dozed off like fifteen minutes after we took off and slept straight through.” Alex kisses the side of his cheek which has a crease from the seam that runs along the shoulder of his shirt.

“I’m sorry. I can’t believe I slept that long. Why didn’t you shove me off you?”

“Because I didn’t mind, and I was glad you were getting some rest.”

“Score another one for the Best Spouse tally,” Henry mutters as he stretches.

It’s a little over three hours later when Alex finds himself in a large, surprisingly comfortable room at Buckingham Palace. He hasn’t been here since Philip’s wedding, and his nerves are already vibrating dangerously close to panic attack frequency, so he really doesn’t want to focus on the fiasco that was the royal wedding. Then again, without that fiasco, he wouldn’t be here now, standing in the middle of a room he can only think to describe as opulent, holding Henry’s hand as they watch the Queen of fucking England – a.k.a. his boyfriend’s mother – bustle into the room.

Alex can’t help the smile that curves his lips. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but Catherine in the moment is the antithesis of whatever image his mind had been anticipating. He’d not had the chance to meet her at Philip’s wedding or during the time when he and Henry were involved before, but he knew who she was, obviously. However, he’s reminded that the polished image of each of them that gets presented to the media and the world is not who they really are. In the back of Alex’s mind, he’d expected her to glide into the room in the sort of matching separates her mother had favored; simple, matronly, bland outfits which were perfectly respectable and about as visually intriguing as a blank canvas. The Crown was expected to be neutral in every way, including their attire; no patterns or bold colors or statement pieces of any kind.

Catherine is wearing a white button-down with vivid red flowers printed on it tucked into blue jeans and a long, beige cardigan which looks buttery soft and so casual that Alex almost finds himself wondering if this is a body double that’s been sent in Her Majesty’s place. Her look is distinctly university chic, a pair of chunky-heeled boots giving her a height boost which still leaves her several inches shorter than him, reading glasses sitting atop her head, and her hair swept up into a graceful cascade at the back of her head held in place by a large clip. She’s nearing her 60s and Alex catches himself thinking she looks every inch the “cool lit professor that everyone likes” role.

“There’s my baby,” Catherine says brightly as she eyes Henry. She sweeps him into a hug. “I hope I’ve not kept you boys waiting too long. I’ve no more meetings for the day so decided to change before I came down for tea.”

“Not at all, we just arrived a few minutes ago,” Henry replies smoothly as he returns her hug.

Alex feels something in his chest swelling at the scene. He knows how hard it was on Henry when Catherine withdrew into herself after Arthur passed. Seeing them smiling and holding each other like this, seeing the pure joy in Henry’s ocean eyes as they interact, it makes him happy in an unexpected way. It also makes him appreciate the relationship he’s had with his own parents in a new light. He should really make a point of telling them that when he gets home.

“Well, I know we had an impromptu introduction a few days ago, but, Mum, this is Alex, my boyfriend,” Henry says as he steps back slightly and gestures toward Alex.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Catherine,” Alex says to her, reminding himself that she’s specifically requested he address her by her name rather than her title. He extends his hand toward her.

“Oh, a handshake’s hardly going to cut it, darling,” she says as she moves toward him, then pulls him into a hug.

Alex is surprised at the enthusiasm – and strength – of her embrace. He chalks it up to another one of those preconceived notions he’s had in his head about how royals are frail, delicate things, like Fabergé eggs come to life. He almost scoffs at the thought. He should know by now, after all he’s learned about Henry and Bea, that nothing could be further from the truth. There’s a strength and endurance that emanates from their very core, tucked quietly away in an effort to make them appear less intimidating, but always there beneath the surface.

“Would you care for tea or coffee, dear? You must be tired after travelling all day.”

“It was a pretty smooth flight, so I got some rest on the plane,” Alex tells her. It’s not exactly a lie; he might not have slept on the flight, but listening to Henry’s snores, knowing he was sleeping, was so relaxing that he was feeling rejuvenated in a way that sleep was rarely able to grant him. “Tea would be lovely.”

“You know you don’t have to say that just because you’re this side of the pond. I’ve heard you’re more of a coffee drinker.”

“I’ve developed an appreciation for a spot of tea over the years,” Alex comments with a wide grin, the Claremont-Diaz charm instinct kicking in.

“I bet you have, along with other quintessentially English afternoon delights,” she murmurs back with an almost conspiratorial wink.

“Mum!” Henry blurts out and Alex doesn’t need to look at him to know the way he’s blushing right down to his collar and to the tip of his ears. Alex knows he won’t be able to contain his laughter – further mortifying Henry – if he opens his mouth, so he simply pitches an eyebrow up at her and shrugs. “Oh, my God, I knew introducing the two of you was a terrible idea.”

Catherine laughs quietly. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, darling. We’re just breaking the ice a bit.”

They settle around a small table which reminds Alex of the card table in the game room back at the White House. Somehow, he can’t picture Catherine and her mother sitting at it playing cards the way he and June sometimes do with their mom, but sharing awkward cups of tea, yeah, that seems much more plausible.

Thankfully, despite it being the first time they’ve met, there’s an easy cadence to the conversation that they strike up, punctuated occasionally by half-hearted complaints from Henry when Catherine reveals tidbits of information like the name of his favorite childhood toy– a stuffed black bear Henry inexplicably named Mr Moose which Arthur had brought home after being away filming on location in Canada – or when Alex tells her about his karaoke debut back in LA.

They’re about an hour into the conversation when Catherine looks at Henry. “Darling, would you be a dear and give Alex and I a few minutes alone?”

Henry eyes her uncertainly. “Anything you need to say to him, you can say in front of me.”

“Do humor your mother, dear,” she tells him with a gentle pat on the back of his hand where it’s resting beside his teacup.

“Babe, it’s fine,” Alex tells him, resting his hand on Henry’s other one.

Henry looks back and forth between the two of them for several seconds before sighing, clearly doing the math and realizing he’s outnumbered. “Fine. I’ll be in the kitchen if she doesn’t run you off.” He stands, presses a quick kiss to Alex’s forehead, then makes his way to the door.

“I wouldn’t have put out a press release if I intended to run him off, you know,” Catherine calls teasingly as Henry crosses the room. “Revoking statements is an absolute headache.”

Henry pauses at the door, rolls his eyes, and mutters “Now I know where Beatrice gets it from,” but there’s a fondness in his eyes as he looks at her. He looks at Alex again, draws a deep breath, then steps out.

Alex has to agree with Henry’s comment; Bea clearly inherited a lot of her feistiness from Catherine. He can’t explain why, but he’d always presumed it came from Arthur. He looks at her now and she’s watching him. Without thinking, he straightens his posture, and suddenly it feels uncomfortably close to be sitting so near her in such a large room, just the two of them.

“I assure you, I don’t bite, dear,” she says gently. “And for the record, despite Henry’s unfounded concerns, I’ve no intention of running you off. I have people for that, if it was my intention, and certainly wouldn’t need a private conversation to get the point across.”

Alex smirks and looks down, recognizing what she’s doing. She can read his body language and recognizes that he’s nervous now that Henry, the one thing they have in common, is gone, so she’s trying to set him back at ease by teasing him. “I mean, Henry did warn me about the toilet assassins already.”

She cocks a curious look at him, but smiles. “Henry’s told me about what happened between the two of you, back when you were seeing each other. Though, not in detail, of course, there are some things that a mother does not need to know or visualize.” She reaches across the small table and rests her hand on his. “I’m so sorry he hurt you, dear. He shouldn’t have left the way he did.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Alex tells her. “I don’t agree with how he handled it, but with the benefit of time and a lot of talking things out over the last couple of weeks, I understand why he felt he had to do what he did. He truly didn’t think there was any other way, and he suffered too. It doesn’t make it right or make the aftermath hurt any less, but he was trying to protect me in his way, I get that now.” He looks down to where her hand is holding his. “We both have done things we’re not proud of in terms of how we treated each other, how we handled the situation, but we’re learning to trust each other again. We love each other, and we’re both willing to take a leap of faith that that’s enough.”

“Darling, whether or not you two love one another has never been a question in my mind. You don’t make the kind of gestures you’ve made, put yourself through the pain of sacrifice, unless you’re doing it for someone you love.”

“You’re right. I should have recognized what he was doing sooner. I wish I had.”

“Don’t you dare pretend he was the only one.”

Alex looks at her curiously.

She chuckles quietly and gives him a look that easily reads for the ‘Oh please, don’t try to play a player…’ energy it conveys. “Do you honestly think I don’t know you came to pay respects at my mother’s funeral?” she asks him.

Alex bites his bottom lip. He guesses it makes sense she would have seen a list of who all attended, but it does surprise him that she noticed his name. There were leaders from all over the globe there; presidents, sheiks, emperors, prime ministers, kings and queens, the who’s who of the most powerful people in the world attended that funeral. He knows how those kinds of lists are managed; there were literally thousands of people there, his name would have been buried in a block of random names, which he’d honestly banked on. He figured that way Henry would never see it. “I didn’t think anyone had taken notice of me being there.” It’s a half-truth. He knew his name would have been recorded somewhere as having attended, no one got near that service without being vetted, he just didn’t think anyone would care.

“Bea saw you. She pointed you out to me, mentioned that you were a dear friend of Henry’s but that there’d been a falling out between the two of you. I confess that at the time I was too overwhelmed by processing the loss of my mum and everything her death set in motion for me to pay much attention. Then last week when Henry and I were talking and he started telling me about you, it clicked who you were and why she’d made a point of singling you out.”

“Bea saw me?” Alex is surprised. He’d made a point of keeping to the back of crowds and the furthest pews of the church. “Did Henry know I was there?”

“I don’t believe so, no. He was far too busy worrying about me to notice much of anything. I think he was worried that after the way I’d reacted to his father’s death, that I’d simply implode after Mum went.” She frowns and looks down. “It’s a funny prospect, love. You can feel it in so many different ways, and it’s utterly unique to each person you feel it for. When I lost Arthur, my entire world went dark. He’d been my partner in every sense of the word, including when it came to standing up to my mum. Without him at my side, I felt I had no strength left to fight her, so I hid myself away. I regret it terribly, because I realize now how my children suffered under her scrutiny, especially my dear, sweet Henry.”

They sit in silence for a good minute, Alex recognizing that she’s struggling through something internal that he has no right to intrude upon. Eventually she looks up and squeezes his hand again.

“Henry’s always been such a gentle soul. I sometimes think he’s got so much kindness within him because he took up the portion that Philip left behind. His brother’s not a bad person, he’s just built very differently from his siblings. Arthur and I used to wonder about them sometimes; how our children could all be so vastly unique from each other. Philip’s always been all stoic adherence to rules and duty, which will serve him well when I die and he takes up the crown. Beatrice was our adventurous little spitfire, forever into some form of mischief or another. And Henry, my sweet, joyous, little sunbeam, he was every bit as gentle as he was loving. If one of the children was going to bring home a wounded bird or squirrel, you can be sure it was him. He’s always hated to see suffering in others. Unfortunately, that kind heart has done him a disservice in some ways. He’s so averse to the notion of letting anyone else be hurt that he’ll do anything in his power to stop them from being in pain. I’ve often thought he would be the sort to step in front of a speeding lorry and get himself hit in order to push someone else out of the way.”

“Yeah, that does sound like something he would do,” Alex agrees. He thinks he’s always known this about Henry, and thinking back now, he realizes that’s exactly what he’s done for him so many times. The pained expression on his face when Alex said nothing had to change after they first hooked up in his room following the state dinner, the way Henry blamed himself for Zahra catching them at the DNC and how he offered to give him up afterwards, and then Austin… Like a metaphorical samurai with the wakizashi to his stomach, he had time and time again offered to sacrifice himself for Alex. Alex had just been too damn oblivious to realize it until now. How could he have been so blind?

“Whatever guilt trip you just set off on, stop it.” Catherine’s voice pulls Alex out of his thoughts. “Henry wouldn’t like to see the hurt in your eyes just now, and I don’t like it either.”

“Now I know where he gets his uncannily keen perceptive skills from,” Alex comments with a smirk. “I never wanted him to hurt himself to protect me. I hope you know that,” he tells her. For some inexplicable reason, it’s suddenly become incredibly important to him that she understands.

She squeezes his hand again. “Oh, love, I know. I never thought you did. The thing is that’s just who he is. He will always put himself last, always prioritize the happiness of others above his own, especially for those who mean the most to him. I’m asking you to remember that as you two build your life together. I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself or your happiness for him, far from it. I want you both to be happy. I am, however, asking you to spoil him on occasion. Remind him that he’s worthy of receiving the same kind of love he gives so generously.”

Alex feels his throat tighten as he listens to her words. The earnestness in her eyes and the kindness in her voice are painfully evident. She means it. “You have my word,” he answers, his voice coming out smoother than he expected. “I want him to be happy, and I will do everything in my power to make sure he knows beyond a doubt that he’s loved.”

“Even when he convinces himself he doesn’t deserve to be? When he tries to convince you he doesn’t?” she asks. “Because we both know those days will come, and they likely will not be infrequent.”

“Then most of all,” he assures her. “I love your son, Catherine. All of him. His dark days and the doubt within him won’t change that. Not ever.”

She stares at him for a few moments, then rises without saying anything. Instinctively, Alex also gets to his feet, and just as he straightens to his full height, she wraps her arms around him in a tight hug. “Thank you,” she says softly.

“For what?”

“For loving my boy,” she replies simply, holding him tighter.

“You never have to thank me for that,” Alex assures her.

“You should head to the kitchen before he sets something on fire. My sweet boy has so many incredible talents and gifts, culinary skills are sadly not part of that list.”

“Keep delivery menus handy. Duly noted.” Alex quips, and she laughs.

She leans back finally and touches his cheek gently. “Thank you for coming here, Alex. I’m so happy to have had the chance to meet the man who clearly loves my son so deeply.”

“I do.” Her smile shifts then and Alex can’t help but ask why she suddenly looks like the Cheshire Cat.

“Oh, nothing dear. I was just thinking how easily that phrase rolled off your tongue.” She gives him a quick wink before turning to leave. She makes her way out, her long cardigan flowing behind her, leaving Alex there thinking about what she said. It’s definitely too soon to be thinking of other contexts where he might be uttering the phrase “I do”, but all of a sudden he is, and he absolutely cannot stop the stupid smile the thought brings to his face.

Chapter Text

“Good evening, gentlemen,” a young-looking hostess says with a bright smile as Alex and Henry walk into the restaurant. “Right this way.” She gestures toward a dining room to their left and leads them to their table. Their security has already checked in to make sure everything is secure and that the staff have all been adequately briefed and NDA’ed. As they follow the woman, Alex finds his mind wandering, wondering what it would be like for them to simply be able to go somewhere without half a dozen security guards and a stack of paperwork.  

The dining room is wide and rustic, with well-worn but meticulously clean wood floors and exposed brick walls. There’s a corner of the room which is set up with instruments; a drum kit, guitar, and keyboard sit awaiting the return of their musicians who are currently on a brief break. They’re seated at a table not far from the band and they thank the hostess. The wall opposite the one where their table is situated is floor to ceiling glass and metal panels, and Alex remembers that in warm weather the entire thing opens to the street. He makes a mental note to plan a return trip in the summer.  

He looks at Henry now and smiles. He’s looking around the space, taking it all in, and smiling. When his eyes find Alex staring at him, he flushes slightly.  

“What?”  

“Nothing. I just love seeing that look of amazement on your face. It makes me happy to be able to introduce you to new experiences,” Alex tells him with a grin and quick shrug. “I’m guessing from the expression on your face you like the place?”  

“It’s brilliant. How did you find it? I didn’t realize you’d ever even been to Montreal.”  

“I came up here for my mom last year. There was this conference that she wanted June to attend, but Bug ended up with the flu right before she was supposed to fly out, so I took her place. One night a bunch of us from the conference came here and – as much as I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time – I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I thought you’d like it. When you agreed to let me plan Valentine’s day, I immediately knew I wanted to bring you here.”  

Henry’s expression softens and he reaches across the small table, twining their fingers together. He smiles, and it’s the warm but slightly sad smile Alex has come to recognize as marking a moment when Henry’s thinking about their mistakes, but trying not to admit it. Alex pitches an eyebrow up at him and gives him a look that clearly reads ‘Do we have to get into this again?’. Henry chuckles quietly and looks down, shaking his head.  

The server appears beside their table then and explains the specials before taking their wine order.  

The restaurant is packed, which is to be expected given that it’s Valentine’s day. Fortunately, that means that most of the tables around them are occupied by couples who are far too interested in one another to notice them, allowing for at least a momentary breather where they can just be Alex and Henry.  

Their wine arrives and they place their orders, then spend the next several minutes talking quietly over their drinks and once again linked hands. The band returns to the small area which serves as their stage and after a few random notes to confirm everything is still in tune, they begin to play. They drift through a series of soft jazz standards as Henry and Alex drink and make their way through the courses which are brought out for them, the diners around them apparently oblivious to their presence. At some point between the main course and dessert, the band steps away for another break and Alex catches Henry staring at him.  

“Do I have food on my face or something?”  

“No, though in fairness, it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened,” Henry replies with a cheeky smile. “I was just thinking about how wonderful tonight’s been. It’s…” he looks down sheepishly for a second. “This is the first time anyone has done something like this for me. I just… I want you to know how much I appreciate it.”  

“The night is far from over, I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve.” Alex smiles.  

“I can hardly wait,” Henry mutters softly.  

After they finish their meal, they step out in the cold air of the evening – a welcome contrast after hours in the warmth of the at-capacity restaurant. Alex takes Henry’s hand and rather than asking for Cash to call for the car, he leads him a block East. As soon as they clear the large building that makes up the majority of the short block, they have a clear view of the water beyond. They cross Rue Commune and make their way along King Edward Quay Street – Alex momentarily pausing to tease Henry about the name of the street – until they reach the boardwalk that follows the waterfront. They turn North and stroll quietly along. They’re not the only ones out walking, but the other couples they pass are few and far between so Cash and the PPO working with him tonight – whose name Alex has unfortunately forgotten – hang back a little farther than normal in an attempt to give them some semblance of privacy. Amy and the other PPO – their name also escaping him at the moment – are far enough ahead that Alex can almost let himself believe for a moment that they aren’t constantly being watched.  

Their pace is slow and relaxed. They stop at random spots to look out at the water or to kiss under the lights that illuminate the pathway. When they approach a man sitting on a small folding chair playing an ancient looking guitar and singing about past broken hearts being like northern stars leading to where one is meant to be, Alex sweeps around in front of Henry and wraps him in his arms. They laugh and sway together for a few minutes until he reaches the end of the song, then they continue along, Henry shaking the man’s hand and discretely slipping a small wad of bills into it before they move past him.  

They make their way to another walkway, which Alex tugs him onto. This one arches gently as it leads out to a small, man-made island where a large Ferris wheel is illuminated in pinks and purples against the night sky. Amy is standing near the operator when they approach and nods to Alex.  

It takes less than a minute for the operator to indicate to Amy that he’s ready, and she stands near Alex and Henry as the PPO does a quick inspection of the gondola. Once satisfied, he gives Amy a quick thumbs up.  

“Enjoy,” Amy says as she steps aside for Alex and Henry to get in.  

“Well now,” Henry murmurs as they step in. The interior of the gondola is small but comfortable. Two large, cozy chairs which resemble armchairs are on each side of the cabin with a wide armrest between them. The four seats are plush and look like they have a very luxurious fabric covering them. Henry settles into a seat and Alex takes the one beside him, holding his hand across the armrest.  

The door is closed, and the wheel begins its leisurely rotation. As soon as the gondola has cleared the loading platform, Alex gets up and moves over to Henry’s seat, straddling his lap and leaning in close.  

“Hi,” Alex says simply.  

“Hello.”  

Alex runs his fingers through Henry’s hair, sighing happily at the way the thick, silky strands move around his digits. He’d mentioned one morning when they were cuddling during his post-New Year visit to England that he loved the feeling of his hair before it was locked into place with product for the day. He’d noticed that since then, Henry more and more frequently didn’t bother with the pomade. He hasn’t remarked on it, but whenever he has the chance, he touches it, a wordless show of appreciation and acknowledgement of the fact that he knows Henry’s done it specifically to make him happy.  

They kiss, but it’s not the kind of burning, reckless kiss they used to share. It’s slow and deep and accompanied by hands caressing one another. Alex can’t help but muse about how they both instinctively seem to have settled into the different energy this time around. When they’d been hooking up back when this all first started, everything had seemed urgent and rushed. Even in the quietest, most intimate moments, there had always been something looming – the threat of being caught, the risk of being outed, the knowledge that the Crown would never accept them being together, an unspoken understanding that they were on stolen time – so they’d never truly been able to relax and appreciate what it meant to simply be together.  

To be fair, they do still share those heated moments filled with scorching kisses and roaming hands – they are both still in their 20s and being horny is a constant state of existence, at least it is for him if Henry’s within 100 feet – but Alex has come to appreciate these moments even more. He’s not sure if it’s due to the sense of freedom that’s come from them being out or simply because they’re older and the time apart made them appreciate each other that much more, but these gentle moments when Henry’s kissing him like it’s the end of the romcom are the ones he lives for.  

When Alex leans back slightly, he smiles down at Henry and allows himself a small smug smile at the flush in his cheeks and the look in his eyes. Henry’s gazing up at him like he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, but there’s an unmistakable lust in his gaze that causes Alex’s body to respond in an obvious way and now it’s his turn to start blushing.  

“Quit looking at me like that,” Alex mutters.  

“Like what?” Henry asks, his lips curling into a smile. “Like I’m staring at the man I love and picturing doing utterly filthy things to you right here and now?”  

“Yeah, exactly. In case you hadn’t noticed, this gondola has a transparent floor and very large windows, so there’s literally no angle where things wouldn’t be visible.”  

“You say that as though I care what people see,” Henry chuckles quietly.  

“You say that now, but being out and having pictures of me going down on you plastered on the covers of every tabloid out there are two very different things.”  

“Fair point. Still though,” he looks pointedly down at the front of Alex’s jeans where the unmistakable bulge is giving away where Alex’s mind is. “It might be worth it.”  

Alex can’t stop the laugh that rolls out of him then. He leans forward until his forehead is pressed to Henry’s. The smile that curves his lips is wide and care-free and he finds himself sighing as he thinks about how amazing it feels to be able to be with Henry like this, out in the open.  

He shifts so he’s more or less curled against Henry and settles his head on his chest, turning his gaze to the lazily drifting skyline outside the gondola. It’s dark and the lights of the city seem to shimmer beyond the windows. “It really is beautiful.”  

“It is,” Henry agrees. He squeezes Alex’s waist briefly with one hand as he absently toys with his hair with the other. “Thank you for planning the perfect Valentine’s date.”  

“Thank you for being the perfect Valentine to plan a date for,” Alex counters.  

“Oh my God, you did not just say that...” Henry moans. Alex chuckles quietly. He can’t see Henry’s face, but he knows he’s rolling his eyes. “When did you turn into such a sap?”  

“I think it happened when I started dating this writer.”  

“I’m not a writer.”  

“You’re an amazing writer. You just haven’t given yourself permission to accept it yet.” Alex shifts so he’s looking up at Henry’s face. “You might not have published anything yet, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a writer.”  

“Actually, that’s exactly what it means.”  

Alex sits up so he can look at him without craning his neck. “There is a world of difference between being a published author and being a writer.”  

“How precisely do you figure that?” Henry asks him.  

“Anyone can be a published author. People who have cookbooks out there are published authors, people who submit weird, random articles to magazines that get printed are published authors. Hell, people who pay for it themselves and put a book out are published authors. Being published doesn’t mean shit. You’re a writer in all the ways that matter.” He shifts so that he’s straddling Henry’s knees again and takes both his hands in his own. “The way you tell a story, how you craft it and keep people engaged and wanting more as you spin those yarns, it's captivating. I still remember reading the story you emailed about the beautiful prince with the recalcitrant heart who fell in love with the peasant boy from the far away land. I knew it was your story...”  

“Well, our story, or at least the start of it,” Henry interrupts him.  

“Either way, I still got lost in the way you told it. I could imagine it as a sweeping epic fit to be adapted into a movie. Just those few paragraphs, and you had me completely engrossed in the fantasy and imagining the handsome prince sweeping me off my feet.”  

“You’re biased,” Henry remarks.  

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Your style, your voice, your ability to weave an entire world with just a few words, the way you make me see what you can see through your words, that’s what makes you a writer, Henry. You need to stop selling yourself and your talents short just because you aren’t published yet.”  

Henry slips one of his hands free so he can rest it on Alex’s neck. He draws him down and kisses him gently. “You’re not so bad with words yourself, you know.”  

“Well, like I said; dating a writer has its perks,” Alex says quietly. He closes his eyes and sighs.  

“What is it?”  

“Nothing.”  

“I thought we agreed no holding back from each other, even when it’s a hard conversation,” Henry reminds him.  

“It’s nothing bad or anything. Just me being dramatic.”  

“I happen to enjoy when you’re dramatic.”  

Alex rolls his eyes. “I’m just... happy. I was thinking how good it feels to be able to say we’re dating, not just hooking up, to actually call you my boyfriend.” He leans back and grins down at Henry, bringing his free hand up to run through his hair. “Six months ago, I couldn’t have imagined being this happy with anyone, especially not with you.”  

“Six months ago you would have walked away and flipped me off over your shoulder if I’d even tried to talk to you,” Henry comments teasingly.  

“Yeah, I probably would have.” Alex concedes. “Now I not only get to love you, but I get to do it without having to pretend I don’t and it’s just... very freeing.”  

“You’re right. It is freeing.” Henry leans forward until his head is resting against Alex’s chest. He wraps his arms around his back and pulls him closer. “Thank you.”  

“For what?”  

“Being patient with me. Forgiving me. Loving me. Making history with me. Everything.” He pulls back and looks up at him, his blue eyes shining soft and vulnerable in the dim light. “For being everything I never dared dream I deserved to have in my life.”  

Catherine’s words after Alex had told her he would always love Henry come back to him along with the earnest concern in her eyes. ‘Even when he convinces himself he doesn’t deserve to be? When he tries to convince you he doesn’t?’ He remembers telling her that the moments when Henry doubts himself, when he doubts that he deserves to be loved, were the ones when he was going to love him most. He’d been right. Looking down at him, he can see those shadows of doubt, and it makes something in his chest swell.  

He touches Henry’s chin tilting his face up so he can kiss him. “You need to start dreaming much bigger, baby, because you deserve the whole damn world. And if you don’t believe that, then I guess I’ll just have to believe it enough for the both of us.”  

“Okay, if you make me cry and some paparazzi gets a picture of me bawling my eyes out, you’re not getting any of those late-night FaceTime sessions you enjoy so much for like a month,” Henry says as he blinks quickly several times.  

Alex laughs then leans smiling into another kiss. It’s slow and deep and he tries to make sure Henry can feel just how much he loves him. When they finally break apart, they watch their surroundings silently for several minutes.  

Once they disembark, they walk back across the bridge, hand in hand.  

“Where to now?” Henry asks.  

“You’ll have to wait and see,” Alex mutters, a smirk curving one side of his mouth. He leads Henry back in the direction which they originally came from, but he turns them back toward the street about halfway along the promenade. They dart across Rue Commune when a red light creates a break in the traffic and continue South. Before they reach the end of the block, Alex tugs Henry up three concrete steps and through a dark green door, stepping into the lobby of a the Auberge de Vieux Port.  

“Wow, I would not have expected this from the outside,” Henry mutters as they cross the lobby toward the desk. Alex releases Henry’s hand and speaks to the receptionist as Henry looks around.  

“All set,” Alex says brightly as he returns to Henry’s side, keycards in hand. They make their way to their room and slip inside, Alex bidding Amy a quick goodnight before he shuts and locks the door behind them. By the time he’s joined Henry, he’s standing by the window looking out at the river. He saunters up behind him and puts his hands on Henry’s waist. “What are you thinking?”  

“That I have the best boyfriend ever,” Henry tells him as he turns so he’s facing him. He leans his head down and kisses him. “I was also thinking that I’m starting to see the appeal in Montreal. It’s certainly made a wonderful first impression, as cities go.”  

“First impression?” Alex looks at him curiously. “You’ve never been here before?”  

“No, never.”  

“How is that possible?”  

Henry shrugs. “There’s just never been anything happening here that I was sent to attend.”  

“Huh.”  

“Huh? What’s huh?” Henry asks.  

“Nothing, it just always kind of catches me by surprise when I’ve done something or been somewhere you haven’t.” He pauses and runs his fingers through Henry’s hair. “I tend to forget how isolated you’ve been for most of your life. Like, I get it, you’re a prince and you had basically the world at your feet, but in so many ways you were locked away like some character in a fairy tale. I get so angry thinking about how you were treated that I think sometimes I block it out or something.”  

Henry kisses him lightly. “Don’t let it make you angry. It’s the past, and we made a pact not to let that control us anymore, remember?”  

“I know, but...”  

Henry presses two fingers to his lips, silencing him. “Do you know the best thing about fairy tales?” Alex furrows his brow and gives his head a slight shake to indicate that he doesn’t know where Henry’s going with this. “The happy ending, of course.” He rests his hand on Alex’s chest now. “My life has been far from perfect and yes, I’ve got a few scars that I will likely always carry. Thankfully I’ve won the heart of an incredible partner who can see past those scars and love me in spite of them.”  

“Not in spite of, but regardless of them. I love you because of who you are, not because of what you carry,” Alex challenges him.  

“That’s the thing though; who I am is as much because of the scars as not. If I’d not been treated the way I had, if I didn’t carry those specific scars and experiences, I wouldn’t be this version of me. Had I been raised with the full support of my family and encouraged to be honest about my sexuality from the start, I might have been seeing someone when I attended the Olympics in Rio. I likely also would have been with a date at Philip’s wedding.”  

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to smack me over the head with the point, I get it. Had things been different, we probably wouldn’t be together.” Alex’s stomach twists at the thought. They’ve been through so much that even the thought of never having had this, never having had him in his life, sets off a low hum of anxiety in him.  

“Exactly. I’ve gotten through the worst part of the story; and yes, I might be somewhat battle-worn and there might be a few dents in my armor, but I’m at the part now that makes it all worthwhile. I’m standing here staring at the love of my life, ready for my happy ending with you.”  

Alex has to swallow hard against the tightness that’s suddenly constricting his throat. “I guess when you put it like that...” He smirks at Henry. They kiss for a few seconds before turning to look out the window again.  He then nudges his way under his arm, so Henry’s left arm is draped over his shoulders and his right is wrapped around Henry’s back. They stand there looking out at the water for several minutes.  

Alex chews on his bottom lip for a moment, a flurry of anxiousness fluttering through him as he slips his left hand into the pocket of his jeans. As though he can sense the wave of tension going through him, Henry squeezes him and presses a kiss to the side of his head. It’s exactly what Alex needed to dispel the unwarranted whisper of doubt that had crept through him. “There’s just one thing you’re wrong about,” he says, breaking the silence.  

“Oh? And what might that be?”  

“I don’t want this to be your happy ending,” he tells him. He feels Henry’s posture go rigid and he can’t bring himself to stretch out the moment. “I want this to be the start of our happily ever after.” He pulls his hand from his pocket and holds up a narrow platinum band with a channel of small round diamonds set along the center of it out in front of them. “Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristan-Windsor, will you marry me?” He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he huffs it out when Henry starts laughing. “Okay, not the response I’d been hoping for."

Henry pulls a small, blue velvet box from his right pocket and flips it open, revealing a platinum band with a channel of black diamonds in the center. “You beat me to the punch.”

Alex stares down in disbelief for an instant, then he’s laughing too. Then they’re holding each other and kissing and clinging to each other like they can hold onto this moment if they grasp one another tightly enough. When they finally loosen their hold on each other, Alex smirks. “I never did hear an answer in there.”

“Yes, you bloody numpty!” Henry kisses him hard, then Alex slips the ring onto his finger. He holds up the box between them. “Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz, you are the love of my life. Will you marry me?”

For once, Alex has no desire to be sarcastic or silly. This moment is too important and as fitting as it would be for him to make some quip or smartass remark, that’s not what he wants to remember when he thinks back on this memory.

“Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.” Alex draws a shaky breath as Henry pulls the ring from the box and places it on his finger. He stares down at it, feeling so overwhelmed that he might start crying. Or continue crying, because the damp tracks on his cheeks would indicate that he’s already been crying for a while, and he’s not sure when that started. It doesn’t matter.

Henry said yes. His beautiful, sweet, frustrating, perfectly imperfect Henry said yes. After all the animosity and clandestine hookups and years of misunderstanding and silence and hurt, Henry is his, and he always will be. They fought through every battle that circumstance could throw at them and they emerged side-by-side, a little battered and bruised, but still standing.

They won.