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It was the diving finals of the Rio Olympics, and Henry would rather be anywhere else. Preferably sulking away in his bed, David in his lap and Austen in his hand. His clothes felt wrong on his body, like everything he wore belonged to someone else - someone functioning, someone intact. He was already irritated at the world, which had resumed with obscene speed and left Henry to dust, and didn’t have the energy to be gracious about it. He swore if he heard one more person say something about his father he was going to lose it.
Henry tried to smile, he was suffocating though as he felt hyper-visible and invisible at the same time.
He caught fragments of conversations all around him - careful laughter, subtle judgments, fake sympathies. A glance that lingered for too long. Someone asked a question that felt loaded even if it wasn’t explicitly cruel.
Henry answered carefully. Too carefully.
Henry let his gaze drift, before finally landing on the sun - a yellow ipe-amarelo, though it paled in comparison to the man wearing it. He was talking with two other women, curls bouncing, eyes bright and unapologetic. He was the most incredible thing Henry had ever seen.
Not in a polished, untouchable way. In a real way. In a stands like he’s comfortable in his body, smiles like he means it way. Henry tore his eyes away too late, heart already betraying him.
Henry folded inward. He had to keep his distance.
This was the kind of place where love felt like something to hide. Where joy needed to be palatable. Where being too much was a liability. Because if someone like that ever loved him, it would set him on fire.
Unfortunately, his eyes betrayed him as well, already flickering back in hopes of seeing more of the man. More of that devastating smile, happy and animated and fully alive. And then, like the sky crashing into the earth, their eyes met.
It was like he could finally breathe.
Henry saw Alex approach like an incoming wave.
“Hey,” Alex said. “I’m Alex. Alex Claremont-Diaz.”
He stuck his hand out, radiating suave and smooth confidence.
Henry’s brain short-circuited. He shook the hand in front of him on autopilot, already feeling his budding crush grow at an alarming rate. Crushes were dangerous. Crushes meant going against expectations. Going against duty. Crushes meant vulnerability.
He turned to Shaan and said, “Can you get rid of him?”
Henry felt it - the tiny fracture, the disappointment Alex tried to hide. Panic flared. He wanted to take his words back, but doing so would mean opening the door again. So he clamped it shut and let Shaan take Alex Claremont-Diaz away.
Henry stared at the empty space, his chest tight, already aching with regret.
Throughout the event, he thought of the man - of his warmth, his openness - and felt suddenly, painfully far away from the world.
←─ · · · · · · ─→
Henry stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the send button.
Should I send it to him?
No.
Yes.
He hates me.
We need to keep up appearances.
He supposed that made it easier, hiding under the thinly veiled excuse of royal duty. He was used to royal duty. Everything in his bloody life was royal duty.
He hit send.
Attached was a picture of Chief Chirpa - tiny, commanding, adorable, pissed off.
Just like Alex. His traitorous brain supplied.
Then, in a fit of nervousness, sent another message before he could stop himself.
Alex didn’t respond.
Henry paced the room, heart racing.
He told himself not to read into it. People were busy. People forget.
An hour passed.
Then a day.
By the third day, Henry was certain he’d imagined the entire connection. Them talking it out on the floor of a supply closet. Alex stealing Henry’s phone out of his hand and putting in his number. Alex telling him “No booty calls”.
Of course he didn’t answer, Henry thought. Why would he?
By day five, Henry was embarrassed enough to start rewriting the memory entirely. Alex probably hadn’t been interested. Henry had misread it. That was safer than accepting that he’d been dismissed.
Around a week later, Henry woke up, checked his phone - and froze. Alex had finally responded, accompanied with a picture of Henry on the cover of People. The one on the beach with the navy swim trunks that Pez claimed made him look slutty.
Henry dropped the phone onto his chest, heart slamming.
The rush of relief was immediately followed by panic. Responding too fast would look eager. Careless. Like this mattered.
Henry locked his phone and set it face down on the nightstand.
Be normal, he told himself. Be casual.
He went through the motions of his day. He attended meetings. He pretended his chest didn’t tighten every time he thought about the unread message waiting for him.
At lunch, Henry opened the message.
Closed it immediately.
That night, he typed a response. Deleted it.
The next morning, he convinced himself that waiting was the right thing to do. If Alex could take a week, Henry could take a little time too.
The internet recommends waiting three days to avoid seeming too eager or desperate.
Henry cracked on the second.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, phone in his hand, heart beating too fast for someone who claimed not to care.
It was a screenshot of a Daily Mail tweet that read, Is Alex Claremont-Diaz going to be a father? - he spotted it during one of his many mindless scrolls through twitter. It’s a casual reply back, he tried to convince himself. Just some banter between mates.
And then it escalated - a message here, a shared article there - but it grew into something with rhythm. Late-night texts that blurred into early mornings. Quick messages sent while in meetings. Calls that lasted longer than either of them cared to admit. (“I wanna talk about those pants. Teddy bears and choo choo trains?” “Really?” “Chooo-choooo.”)
They lived on different sides of the world. The ocean between them was far enough apart.
Henry liked that, he realized. Liking Alex from a distance felt contained, manageable. Love, if that was what this was, had an entire ocean to stretch across without demanding anything.
Alex became part of Henry’s routine. Someone to tell about the small things. Someone whose opinion mattered too much. Someone whose absence Henry felt even when they were technically always there.
Sometimes, lying in bed with his phone warm in his hand, Henry thought, If we lived closer, this would be dangerous.
But they didn’t. So it wasn’t. Not yet.
So why did it feel right every time he let him in?
Time zones softened edges. His phone screen blurred intensely. Henry found that he could talk to Alex in ways he couldn’t talk to anyone else.
←─ · · · · · · ─→
Henry walked out in the cold, snow crunching under his feet.
Everything felt sharper when they saw each other in person again - the way Alex’s attention lingered, the way he stood so close without touching. Henry told himself it was fine. That he could handle this.
Until Alex Claremont-Diaz kissed Nora Holleran at midnight.
Henry’s chest hollowed out.
Of course, he thought. He likes her.
How could he have deluded himself so much?
Their relationship was plastered all over the tabloids. He let himself think that maybe it was just speculation, just rumors that were circling about. But that blasted kiss. Sloppily done, yet laughter rang throughout, practically confirming everything.
Outside under a linden tree, the air felt brittle.
He was lost in his thoughts, thinking about his father as he often does when he’s alone and being contemplative, before a quick thud caught his attention. He turned toward the sound and was met with none other than Alex himself, tripping over a bench.
“What’re you doing out here?” Alex asked, trudging up to stand next to Henry under the tree. Henry squinted at him, trying to make his eyes focus.
“Looking for Orion,” Henry admitted.
Alex huffed a laugh and looked up to the sky. “You must be really bored with the commoners to come out here and stare at the clouds.”
“‘m not bored,” Henry mumbled. “What are you doing out here? Doesn’t America’s golden boy have some swooning crowds to beguile?” Why are you still hanging out with me? went unsaid.
“Says Prince fucking Charming,” Alex answered, smirking.
Henry couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at that. “Hardly.”
His knuckle brushed the back of Alex’s hand accidentally, yet the little zip of warmth in the cold night was undeniable.
“You didn’t really answer my question, though,” Alex pointed out.
Henry groaned, rubbing a hand across his face. “You can’t ever leave well enough alone, can you?” He leaned his head back. It thumped gently against the trunk of the tree. It wasn’t like he could say I saw you kissing Nora Holleran and my gay heart couldn’t take it anymore. “Sometimes it gets a bit… much.”
Alex kept looking at him. Specifically, looking at his mouth. Though Henry supposed it was probably his drunk mind making things up.
Alex shifted and leaned back against the tree too. Henry’s mouth twitched as Alex nudged their shoulders together, trying his hardest to keep his pulse in check. But he couldn’t stop the smile that was tugging at his lips.
“D’you ever wonder,” he started slowly, “what it’s like to be some anonymous person out in the world?”
Alex frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just, you know,” Henry said. “If your mum weren’t the president and you were just a normal bloke living a normal life, what things might be like? What you’d be doing instead?”
“Ah,” Alex said. He stretched one arm out in front of him and made a dismissive gesture with a flick of his wrist. “Well, I mean, obviously I’d be a model. I’ve been on the cover of Teen Vogue twice. These genetics transcend all circumstance.” Henry couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Gods, why am I in love with this man again? “What about you?”
Henry shook his head ruefully. “I’d be a writer.”
Alex gave a little laugh. “Can’t you do that?”
“Not exactly seen as a worthwhile pursuit for a man in line for the throne, scribbling verses about quarter-life angst,” Henry said dryly. “Besides, the traditional family career track is military, so that’s about it, isn’t it?”
It’s not like he’d ever had a choice when all these voices in his life kept pointing him away from who he wanted to be.
Henry bit his lip, he wasn’t sure why he was telling Alex all of these things when just months before they were sworn enemies. Supposedly. But it was just easy when he was with Alex, like no one truly saw him the way he did. “I’d date more, probably, as well.”
Alex laughed again. “Right, because it’s so hard to get a date when you’re a prince.”
Henry cut his eyes back down to Alex. “You’d be surprised.” Henry probably shouldn’t trust him, but oh how he wanted to.
“How? You’re not exactly lacking for options.”
Henry’s gaze kept going back to Alex’s brown ones, his mind struggling to find the correct words to say without giving too much of himself away. “The options I’d like… they don’t quite seem to be options at all.”
“What?”
“I’m saying that I have…” men “people… who interest me,” Henry said, turning his body towards Alex, fumbling over his words. “But I shouldn’t pursue them. At least not in my position.” for the queen is a homophobic racist who can’t stand the fact that her grandson is gay.
Alex was smart, surely he could read between the lines and understand what Henry was trying to say. And a part of him wanted that, he realized. He wanted Alex to know he was gay. That he liked men. That he liked Alex. He supposed it was thanks to the alcohol, all of that liquid courage surging through him. But his brain kept going back to the fact that it just felt so right every time he let Alex in, gave a little part of himself away and placed it against Alex’s palms.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Alex said.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
You really don’t?”
“I really, really don’t.”
Henry’s face grimaced in frustration, his eyes cast upward in search for help. How are you so smart yet so oblivious at the same time? “Christ, you are as thick as it gets,” he said, and grabbed Alex’s face in both hands and kissed him.
It was sudden. Unplanned. Desperate.
It was everything.
Alex froze for half a second, enough time for Henry to immediately go into panic before kissing back - soft, startled, and unmistakably real.
Henry pulled away immediately. “Oh god,” he said, eyes wide. “I-I’m so sorry I-”
He turned on his heel, walking away at double time before Alex could say anything. He wasn’t sure if he could handle it if he did.
Henry had turned around the corner before the panic hit, words already catching in his throat.
←─ · · · · · · ─→
Henry went back to Kensington.
Distance returned, but it wasn’t the same anymore.
Henry pulled inward. He left messages unanswered. He avoided thinking too far ahead. He told himself he was being practical, careful. Hope only hurts, so he just tried to forget it.
Nobody was there to notice. That made it easier.
Henry let the almost-relationship exist in a private, undefined space where it couldn’t ask more of him.
Sometimes, alone in his bed, Henry pressed a hand to his chest and thought, I love you.
He just didn’t dare to say it out loud. Not to Alex.
Love felt too big to survive the circumstances.
←─ · · · · · · ─→
“Okay, so I’ve been meaning to ask,” Alex said, petting David. “Why is Mr. Wobbles wearing a tiny hat?”
Henry replied with a serious and deadpan look on his face. “Bea made it for David, but the bastard keeps taking it.”
They looked at each other for a beat, before bursting into laughter. Meanwhile, said Mr. Wobbles was sitting on the windowsill, a smug look on his face.
Outside the palace window, London sprawled out below them, lights blinking, endless and alive.
“This is nice,” Alex said, breathless from the laughter.
Henry nodded, his heart now pounding, shoulders shaking with mirth. He tried to tell himself that was the reason, but deep down he knew.
He thought about that morning, the getting up before the sun had risen to run, the pounding of his shoes as they hit the ground, each intake of breath stinging with sharp, fresh air. Running into Philip, who was eating plain toast of all things, talking about the future. Land holdings. Heirs.
He then thought about how his life was with Alex. When loneliness didn’t press as hard at night. When silence felt less accusatory. When there was someone out there who knew about the shape of Henry’s days and wanted to hear about them anyway.
When someone was willing to fight for him. For them, instead of just simply running away.
The thought of losing Alex hurt. And wanting him meant risking that hurt. And yet, here Alex was, like an outstretched hand.
“I want this to be my life,” Henry said. “I want to be able to love you. Out loud. Where people can see.”
Alex’s eyes softened. “Me too, baby. Me too.”
Henry wanted to scream it from the rooftops. He wanted the entire world to know that he loved Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz.
And he could. Maybe not now, but certainly in the future.
Alex kissed him, slow and sure, as the city watched and didn’t care at all.