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The snow was hard and crunchy underneath his feet, slippery in some spots, slushy in others, but mostly pristine and softly glowing in the moonlight as he trekked across it. And yet the English prince lost in the White House gardens barely noticed. The light and music spilling out from the party tent behind him and the darkness underneath the trees ahead of him were equally ignored. One representing torment, the other solitude.
Only the cold—seeping slowly through the soles of his thin leather shoes, crawling up his legs, biting his fingertips and ears and throat—only that seemed real. Only that seemed right.
He shouldn’t have come. He’d known that of course but he’d come anyway.
He also shouldn’t have drunk those bloody fancy cocktails, whatever they had been. He‘d known that too. And he’d done it anyway.
Because, apparently, he was very very stupid.
And now here he was. Panting out foggy breaths into the frigid air, the snow of the White House garden glistening with refracted light that broke apart again in unshed tears until everything was a smear of white and light and bright colours, any form and meaning lost.
A perfect mirror image to the darkness inside of his mind.
Torment and Solitude.
He shouldn’t have come.
Alex had never liked attending parties. Not so much because he didn’t like the concept of parties but rather because of how he could never allow himself to behave like he was at a party. He hated how the music tugged and pulled at him and yet he couldn’t give in to it. Couldn’t let loose and dance the way all those people at the party had done.
Because he wasn’t like those other people at the party.
He wasn’t allowed to be like them.
Not that Willie hadn’t tried to make him dance. Teasing, pushing, grabbing at his hips to get him to move with the beat until Alex had gone almost crazy. The music pulsing through him, Willie touching him. It was almost too much to bear.
And yet Alex had done it anyway because surely it was worth it? To suffer through it so he could experience it at all? So he could return home with the memories of Willie’s wild grin, of his hair flying as he danced, of his hands on Alex’s hips. He could bear it and pretend it didn’t affect him and then, when he was all alone again, he would be able to take those memories out and cherish every little moment.
And it might have been possible. If this hadn’t been a New Year’s Eve party.
But it was. And at the strike of midnight, everything had come tumbling down. He should have known. Of course he should have. He should have been prepared.
But intoxicated by warm hands and cool alcohol and loud music, Alex hadn’t prepared.
Living in the moment. For once. Not preparing for the future. For once.
He should have known it was a bad idea. Because of course it was.
And he had known. But even a prince can dream a little.
Small dreams of hands on hips and smiles on lips that would never amount to anything more.
He could have bits and pieces of Willie. Little fragments puzzled together into something like happiness.
Since he could never have all of Willie. He was a prince in a gilded cage with all the world looking in and Willie would never be his. He’d known that.
Of course he had.
Yet he hadn’t anticipated how much it would hurt to see him being claimed by others. Even if just for a meaningless kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve in the middle of a party full of uninhibited drunk people.
Alex had no idea who the people had been. Willie presumably knew them since they were guests at his party. His and Julie’s, really, but still, they would have agreed on the guest list, so Willie must have known the strikingly gorgeous blond girl grabbing him as the DJ had finished her countdown. Had known whose lips suddenly pressed against his, while everyone shouted and looked for other lips to kiss.
He had presumably also known the handsome black person who’d spun Willie out of the girl’s embrace only to claim their own kiss next.
And the hot dude with the carefully tousled hair and curated stubble who’d come next.
And yeah, Alex got it. Willie was gorgeous and even more radiant that night, glowing with happiness. Who wouldn’t want to kiss him? They’d have to be mad not wanting to kiss him! Even if he hadn’t been the nephew of the President of the United States.
Willie’s allure had nothing to do with power and influence (and it was arguable how much he even had of that after all) and everything with being who he was. The most wonderful and beautiful person Alex had ever met.
Alex had ached to kiss him since forever. Way before they’d been forced into this charade of friendship that had, somehow, miraculously, turned into something like a real friendship over the last month or so. Of course he understood how those without the restraints binding him, had immediately taken the chance.
He should have known.
He should have prepared himself.
But he hadn’t and so he’d watched, rooted to the spot until he felt physically sick, and the only thing to do was to run. Just so he could breathe again.
He’d stumbled out of the heated party tent, barely caring whether anyone saw him, just knowing he needed to get out of there.
He had no idea where Luke and Reggie were. His plus twos and supposed moral support for the event had been way more excited about the whole thing than he was. They’d also immediately attached themselves to Julie Molina, daughter of the Vice President, and her friend Flynn once introductions were over. He hadn’t seen them again for the rest of the evening.
He should have known. He’d brought them anyway.
And now he didn’t know where they were and he was here, somewhere in the snow covered gardens of the White House, fighting an existential crisis he should have better prepared for but hadn’t.
At least here, he could breathe. Even though the air was cold and scratched his lungs raw. But he could breathe.
Except—
There was the unmistakable crunching of shoes on snow and then an all too familiar voice called out his name, sharp and breathless.
“Alex! What the fuck?”
Alex wiped at his eyes and turned around. And then he took an involuntary step back. Willie looked furious, and hurt, and furious, layers of emotions playing across his face. Alex had seen him annoyed plenty of times but he’d never seen him angry.
“Willie,” he said feebly as Willie came to a halt two steps in front of him.
“What the fuck, man?”
Willie hugged himself and Alex got the impression that the cold was only partly responsible. Neither of them were dressed for standing around in December at night. But the fury had left Willie’s face and now there was only hurt and disappointment.
Alex flinched. Despite the distance between them. Or maybe because of it.
He wanted to reach for Willie, wanted to comfort him and replace that look on his face but he didn’t even know why Willie had been angry. Why he looked so small and lost now.
“I just … needed some air,” he tried to explain, as if that was any explanation for either his flight or Willie’s presence here.
“Yeah, right.” Willie’s voice was low and cold and he’d turned his head as if even the sight of Alex disgusted him. “And here I’d really thought we’d become friends. That you were different and not at all like what I first thought. But I got it all right on the first try, huh?”
“What are you even talking about?” Surely he had a right to walk out of a bloody party without being cussed out about it? This was his existential crisis Willie was butting into after all.
Willie threw his hands up, exasperation written all over his face. “You! Being a homophobic asshole!”
Alex froze.
“...what?”
“Come on, the moment you see me kissing some guy, you practically fled the party! So what, did you pretend I wasn’t bi all these weeks? Is that why you could suddenly talk with me? Because you neatly convinced yourself I wasn’t queer? Did you also convince yourself I’m white, too?”
The words were rushing out so fast, Willie nearly stumbled over them in his haste to hurl them at Alex’s head. His brows were scrunched together and his eyes threw sparks and maybe there were tears, too, as he alternately hugged himself and gesticulated widely, and how had this all suddenly gotten so very very wrong?
Alex took another step back.
“That’s not—”
“Because I am queer, Alex!” Willie stepped forward, completely ignoring Alex’s interruption, voice growing even more thick with emotion. “I’ve always been and always will be and I’ll never be squeaky white and if you can’t handle that, then screw this whole thing. I don’t care what Aunt Victoria says, or my uncle, or anyone else. I won’t do this. And you know what the worst thing is? I actually really started to like you! I thought you weren’t like all those other entitled white assholes and here you can’t handle even the littlest bit of queer PDA and—”
“Willie!” Alex’s voice was almost painfully loud in the quiet garden. But then so had Willie’s been.
Willie shut his mouth, lips pressed into a hard line, and somehow managed to glare at him even while blinking against the cold and the tears.
“I’m not a homophobe.”
“Yeah? Sure looked like it though.”
Hysteria was bubbling up in Alex’s lungs. He didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or to cry. This was absurd! Completely and utterly absurd! Here he had been, pining over Willie and hiding in a sky dark, snow bright garden in freezing temperatures because he was so so very gay he thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest and shatter into a million pieces because he couldn’t kiss the man of his very frequent dreams, and now Willie was accusing him of being a homophobe?
What the fuck?! Truly, what the everloving fuck?
He cast for a way to explain, for any string of words that would inject some sense and reality into this bizarre scene but he couldn’t even begin to find the right word to start with, nevermind any to follow up with.
So in the end, he just muttered “okay”, took two steps forwards, and grabbed Willie’s face.
And then he kissed him.
It wasn’t the most elegant of kisses but Alex didn’t care. His fingers were curled around Willie’s cheekbones, soft strands of hair tangled between them, and Willie’s lips, cold at first, were gradually warming, and they were soft and they tasted faintly of lime and mint, and everything disappeared, cold feet and all, and then Willie’s hands were at his shoulders and they swayed just a little bit closer, like two moths with the same flame.
It wasn’t perfect but, somehow, it still felt like it. And Alex caught an eternity between their lips.
He could have lost himself in this kiss.
It was solitude. It was torment.
And then the full impact of what he was doing hit him. He tore himself away from Willie—Willie, who had never asked to be kissed—hands falling away from his face only to flutter helplessly around as he searched for the right words once again. And once again failed to find them.
But at least the frown was gone. The hurt. The anger. Replaced by sheer confusion but that was better. Right? Even if Alex had just jeopardised everything. At least Willie knew now, that Alex wasn’t a homophobe, that it hadn’t been that which had made him flee. Of course now they could never speak again, ever, but at least Willie knew.
Willie opened his mouth but no sound came.
Alex took another step back.
“I’m … that … okay.”
Then he turned around and fled for the second time that night. And this time, he made sure to put a whole vast ocean between himself and the man of his dreams whom he’d now lost forever.
But at least he had the little puzzle pieces of happiness that would stay with him. He just wished their edges weren’t so bloody sharp.