Chapter Text
Henry
Henry had to open his blasted mouth.
He wants to argue that he was very tired, but that doesn’t make it a true reason why he said what he said. He never sleeps enough and he’s always tired. It’s hardly anything new. He wants to argue that the interview took far too long. That was just a flat-out lie. It was a normal length interview. Shaan had emailed him the questions beforehand and discussed them with him. It just so happened that he didn’t read the email (immediately moved it to a folder called ‘Shaan’s briefings’ with the intent of revising it later) and hardly paid attention when Shaan talked it through with him. He should have known better. He should have answered his usual, rehearsed answers.
He wants to argue that society is incredibly heteronormative and that his grandmother is incredibly old-fashioned. That’s true, at least, but not an argument he will make out loud.
The interview started the same way it always did. The driver manoeuvred the car through the awful London traffic with a folksy American song with poignant lyrics on the car radio that feels appropriately depressing to Henry. He doesn’t think he knows it, though, and makes a mental note to ask Bea later. Inside of the studio, the stylists do their best to make him look presentable while Henry sends Alex a message about Bea’s recent analysis of American pop music and British pop music and where they find each other. He suspects he’ll get a message back telling him that they’re both nerds, because even after two months of messaging quite a bit that’s how Alex communicates: all lowercase, brutally realistic.
When the interviewer came in and the stylists were apparently satisfied, Henry handed his phone over to Shaan, who pocketed it without looking at it. Henry sat up straight, having long accepted that he’s never going to get comfortable in any chair while he’s being interviewed. The Crown insisted on monthly interviews to make it unflinchingly clear to the public at large that the incident with the cake changed nothing. Philip and Henry are still best pals, much like Alex and him, and Henry still supports all his initiatives, and Philip and Martha are well. It’s the same thing every month. He smiles through it until the corner of his mouth hurts and gives all the right answers and that’s that. Normally, that is.
This month’s interview started off normal enough. He’s asked about the holidays almost immediately, seeing as they’re weeks away from Christmas and New Year’s and the public at large needs to hear that Henry has normal holiday plans. To that end, he talked about Christmas with his family, not specifying who is likely to show up and who is likely to start an argument over the dinner table, and added that he’ll spend New Year’s with his good pal Alex, who is hosting a party with June and Nora. He doesn’t think Alex knows that yet, but his attendance to this party is a requirement from both the Crown and the White House both to further prove that Alex and him are just fine and have no animosity towards each other.
The discussion about holidays out of the way, they went over the usual: the events that Henry has attended the past month and the other appearances he made for the Crown and how much it all means to him. Henry gave the right answers, nodded along and smiled some more. He’s sure it’s believable, because this is what he always looks like. Only Bea and Pez seem to realise that his smile seems painful and strangled at times and he wants to keep it that way.
When they’re almost near the end, he’s asked about Philip and Martha’s wedding. Henry blinked, caught off guard. He took a moment to process, trying to find the right, politically correct answer. “They’re very happy. Now that they’re back from their honeymoon, Martha is adjusting to royal life wonderfully.” Something like that should do it.
The interview smiled brightly at him. “Perhaps this is blunt of me,” she said, “but the public cannot get enough of the wedding. It leads us to wonder: when the day comes for you, Your Royal Highness, how do you envision it? Is there anything you want to share with us?”
And Henry, well. Henry had to open his blasted mouth to cause a PR scandal so big that the cake incident very much pales in comparison.
“Well, for starters, I don’t think the Archbishop of Canterbury will be willing to marry me and my chosen partner in the tradition of the Anglican Church,” he said, his bemused and cynical smile coming out in full force now.
The room falls silent. No one says a word. Multiple people are frozen to the spot. Henry thinks he hears someone drop their cup of tea or coffee, which falls to the floor with a splat and the sound of ceramics breaking. It breaks the silence, loudly, and a few of the people who froze after his declaration about the Archbishop of Canterbury and and the Anglican Church, seem to turn to try and find the source of the noise.
After a few more beats, the interviewer has gathered her wits enough to ask: “What do you mean by that, Your Royal Highness?” as if he made a vague statement about Bea’s love for American 80s music or Philip’s penchant for first print books, one they share.
Around them, everyone is still silent. Knowing that he’s on camera, Henry tries to search out Shaan without it being obvious. He pretends like he’s taking a moment to think as he scans over the rest of the people in the room, finding camera crew and directors and interns. At last he finds Shaan, who catches his gaze and does and says nothing. He just looks neutral. Henry guesses he doesn’t have it in him to motion Henry to stop. He should be.
“I mean,” Henry says, clearing his throat, “that as long as gay marriage isn’t legal in the Anglican Church, there’s no point in me marrying.”
To fill the inevitable silence that follows, making it clear that he’s completely alright with the situation, he takes a sip of the glass of water that stands on the small table between him and the interviewer. The idea of the interview was to make it look like a cosy chat between two friends, both of them in comfortable chairs and neither one of them making notes. Maybe that’s an argument for Henry: he fell for the setup so hard that he thought it was safe to come out on camera, because he was just talking to a friend, wasn’t he?
“That does complicate the situation,” the interviewer agrees. Henry can tell she’s panicking. It isn’t that he went off script, exactly. It’s more like he threw the script in the fire and put her in an unpredictable and frankly unprecedented situation that she is now expected to navigate both of them through. “I suppose you would also need a partner for marriage to become a topic of conversation,” she carries on, still caught off guard, as if she hadn’t brought up the conversation topic to begin with. “Is there anyone you’re looking to make a royal suitor?”
Henry shakes his head solemnly and immediately. He spares one traitorous thought for Alex ( I like it when boys with chin dimples are mean to me) before smiling bemusedly again. “No, no, no such thing,” he says reassuringly. “Hardly enough time.”
The interviewer takes the enormous hint and asks him what he’s so busy with other than his royal obligations, and Henry takes the opportunity to talk about the Okonjo Foundation at length, name dropping Pez the way he often does. The public knows and adores Pez thanks to this, much to Philip’s chagrin, although he’s made quite the name for himself without Henry’s help as well. He explains how they want to help at-risk teens and start more shelters, knowing that anyone who looks it up will understand what Henry isn’t saying.
When the interview ends a few minutes later, Shaan immediately takes charge. He ushers Henry to his side as he emphasises to the director that the part where Henry talks about the Anglican Church and his potential marriage will be taken out of the interview in the edit room. He’s not asking, he’s telling her. The Crown will want to review the footage before it airs. He then addresses the room at large and reminds everyone of the NDA’s they signed. When he has everyone’s verbal confirmation that they will adhere to the non-disclosure agreements, Shaan finally seems to relax again. Henry hardly gets the time to shake the hand of the interviewer and try for small talk when Shaan tells him the car has arrived and they have to go.
The two of them get in the backseat of the car. As soon as the driver starts to drive back to Kensington Palace Shaan closes the privacy screen and turns to him. “Do you want to tell me what that was, Your Royal Highness?” he asks.
Henry doesn’t try to evade. “She caught me off guard,” he says. “I didn’t remember what I was supposed to say. I hardly understand why that question was pre-approved, Shaan. Am I supposed to dream of my own wedding now that my brother just got married?”
Shaan makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. “Henry, you could have said anything ranging between a location, music, table settings, your best man and colour schemes and everyone would have been pleased with the answer,” he says, and Henry is somewhat impressed that he manages to sum up so many aspects of planning a wedding without any prior thought. He must have been to a wedding recently. “It would even have been acceptable to joke about not wanting such a large cake.”
“That cake should have been the end of the monarchy,” Henry says, and he realises he’s sulking. It’s not a good look on him.
“Well, it almost was, thanks to it toppling on you, and that’s why we’re here,” Shaan replies, irritated. “You did not, at any point, have to criticise the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Anglican Church.”
“Technically I didn’t,” Henry replies. “I was stating a fact. They don’t allow gay marriage. It’s as much a fact as the sun coming up every morning is.” He sighs, looking back at Shaan. Shaan looks at him as if he’s doing the opposite of helping, which he probably is. He tries again. “Besides, you had it handled and I have no plans of doing it again. It was an accident, Shaan.”
Shaan seems deeply sceptical, but also doesn’t protest the point. He pinches the bridge of his nose, something he does when he has a headache, before opening the privacy screen again and asking the driver to turn up the radio. It’s the same blasted American folksy song from the drive there. Of course it is. Henry isn’t sure if he wants to ask Bea about it anymore.
Henry stares through the tinted windows as the city of London passes him by. Beside him, Shaan is messaging someone or writing something down on his phone. The driver hums along to the music under his breath, as if he isn’t sensing the tension at all. If even Henry is sensing the tension so clearly, it must be really obvious.
The song moves alongside the traffic and before Henry knows it, the commercial break comes and goes. He’s not listening. They’ll be at Kensington Palace soon, where he can find Bea and detail to her how he almost caused the end of the monarchy according to Shaan, and she’ll laugh and make jokes at Philip’s expense and everything will be normal again. Bea will have something to say that will make Henry feel better about it. He already knows it. Shaan will pretend to have forgotten about it by morning and no one will be the wiser in a few days’ time.
The news anchor starts with something about a war. Henry decides he needs a distraction. The interview is the type of thing that can make him spiral really fast and he’d rather focus on something, anything, else until he can find Bea. He turns to Shaan. “What’s on the agenda for tomorrow? Anything I need to be aware of?”
“You have a gala tomorrow for a good cause that I will find right now,” Shaan replies, starting to scroll through his phone as he speaks. “And I need you to go through Alexander Claremont-Diaz’s fact sheet again. We’ll be mentioning that you’re going to the White House Three’s New Year’s soiree and you might get questions. The Deputy Chief of Staff says that some information has been added.”
“Does it paint a less annoying picture this time?” Henry asks, the words out of his mouth before he knows it.
Shaan looks up from his phone and raises a single eyebrow. “I thought you and Mr Claremont-Diaz were friends, Your Royal Highness,” he says. Henry can also hear what Shaan isn’t saying: aren’t Alex and him constantly messaging every hour of the day?
“We are,” Henry replies. In the background, the news anchor drones on. It sounds like world politics are a fairly depressing affair. “But I can like someone and find them annoying every now and then.”
“Right,” Shaan says. His face is perfectly neutral, not a hint of any emotion in sight, but Henry knows for a fact that Shaan finds it amusing. “Much like I like you and find you annoying occasionally as well.”
“Hey, that’s not -” Henry starts, but he’s grinning. Shaan hardly ever gets cheeky with him and when he does, he always manages to catch Henry off guard. His attempt to let Shaan distract him was perhaps a bit too transparent. Well, it worked. “Sure, yes. But I find you annoying all the time, so…”
He trails off, right in time for the bit of soft news that ends the hourly news broadcast to soften the blow of the hard news. Henry doesn’t find himself caring about what celebrity couple got married or divorced, what actor is cast in the newest blockbuster or what singer has a new album. But that’s not at all what the segment is about.
“Multiple sources confirm that Henry, Prince of Wales came out as gay during a pre-recorded interview with ITV This Morning. The interview will be released fully tomorrow morning during the regular scheduling of the ITV This Morning broadcast...” The news anchor continues on, but Henry isn’t listening anymore.
He feels dizzy. His view is blurry and he’s definitely panicking. When he turns to Shaan, Shaan is back to typing on his phone. “Shaan -” Henry tries to alert his equerry.
Shaan looks up. He sees the way Henry looks at him and offers a hand to steady Henry, which he takes. When he meets Shaan’s gaze again, Shaan grimaces.“Someone is about to get fired,” he says, “and go completely bankrupt.”
Henry just had to open his blasted mouth.
Alex
When Alex returns to the White House from his classes that day (Cash dutifully tagging along, and Alex still thinks that some Secret Service members should be paying tuition fees for the extensive Georgetown University education they’re getting thanks to him), June is waiting for him. In his room. Sitting on his couch, reading one of his books.
Alex stops in the doorway and glares at her for a second. “Hi June,” he says then, as if it’s normal that she’s there. It’s not. If June needed him, she would have texted him to come by her room. She wouldn’t have been waiting in his room, looking at him as though he’s late for something and she'd been dying to see him all midday.
“Did you read the news?” June asks eagerly, lowering the book she’s reading. She doesn’t even greet him. Her eyes are following how Alex moves as he puts down his bag on his desk chair and starts to unbutton his shirt. “I would not be surprised if you have alerts for whenever your best friend is in the news.”
Alex frowns at her where he’s standing next to his desk, unsure what she’s getting at. No, he does not have alerts set for Nora. Nora would probably argue herself that when she’s in the news, there’s a ninety percent chance it’s thanks to something Alex himself did. The other ten percent would be reserved for something to do with her grandfather, the vice president, of course. And if there was something going on with Nora, surely she would tell him herself and he wouldn’t have to find out through his alerts.
“Do you want to do this in Spanish?” he asks June, and before she can take him seriously and start (or mock him by doing it, which is an option as well), he explains: “You’re not making sense and you might be more coherent in Spanish.”
June rolls her eyes at him. “Henry,” she says impatiently. “Henry, the Prince of Wales? The man you laid on the floor with, covered in cake, in Buckingham Palace? Ring any bells?” she proceeds to explain as if Alex has no idea who Henry is. As if they don’t message daily. As if Henry wasn’t the one that Alex went to for help during the Great Turkey Calamity.
They’re… Friends, probably. Alex gathered. Not that he will admit it to Nora and June, since that would be admitting that they were right and he was wrong about Henry. Besides, he’s not fully there yet. Henry is still annoying and has wrong opinions about Star Wars. It’s two things from a list of things that Alex will cite if he ever gets accused of being friends with Henry again.
“What’s going on with Henry?” Alex asks. He changes his shirt for a sweatshirt, moves over to the couch and plops down next to June. He takes his phone from the pocket of his chinos and opens his browser. He doesn’t Google Henry daily or weekly, how is he to know?
He’s halfway typing in ‘Prince Henry’ on his main search engine (the fact that it’s not getting autofilled is ridiculous considering the amount of hate-reading of Henry’s Wikipedia page he used to do) when June says: “He came out as gay in an interview.”
Alex almost drops his phone. What? “What?” It takes approximately two seconds before his brain catches up with what June said and his inevitable rant starts. “Henry’s not gay. He’s photographed with girls all the time. He danced with you at the Royal Wedding, June. Two months ago he was in Australia with some Australian pop star or dancer or -” He doesn’t know who she was and since he was so focused on making fun of Henry for his moles he paid no attention to the woman, so he trails off.
June gives him her ‘are you done?’ stare before replying. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she says. “He said that he doesn’t think the Archbishop will want to marry his partner and him and then he said -”
In the meantime Alex is quickly searching Henry’s name in the search engine and finds an audio fragment where Henry is supposedly saying what June is saying he said. He presses start and Henry’s voice sounds through his bedroom, clear as day, interrupting June. Alex gathers that the Archbishop of Canterbury must be the Head of the Anglican Church, the man they saw marry Philip and Martha from their television screen as they were getting ready for the celebrations afterwards. He remembers vaguely that the entire Royal family follows the traditions of the Anglican Church, since the monarch is the head of the church. The interviewer asks what he means and much to Alex’s shock, he says as June said he would.
Alex wants to pause the fragment, but when the interviewer asks if Henry is seeing someone, he listens for just a few seconds longer. ‘Hardly enough time,’ Henry’s voice replied, utterly bemused, defiant and frankly irritated, and suddenly, Alex recognises him. This isn't Henry, Prince of Wales. This is Henry, who watches Bake-Off, who knows constellations and ancient history, who hardly seems to sleep and who helped Alex through the Great Turkey Calamity. Alex wonders what made him come out, since he usually seems so put together and seems to lean on his princelike persona so much.
Hardly enough time. Alex remembers when Henry told him that, and a hysterical laugh bubbles up. He pauses the fragment almost immediately and just manages to swallow down the laugh when he sees June look at him. She looks like she’s trying to gauge how he will respond, like she’s worried about what he’ll come out with. It’s almost offending that she thinks it’s something to worry about.
“I don’t mind when people are queer, June,” he says pointedly. “Nora is bi. You know I love Nora.” In hindsight, she might have had a point about worrying about what comes out of his mouth, because that isn’t a great response. It’s the response of a politician who does actually mind but can’t say that out loud. He cringes at himself. “I just mean to say -”
“That you’re going to message him?” June tries, raising her eyebrows. “That you’re going to call him?” Alex recognises she’s trying to get him to do something. She’s not being subtle.
With a sigh, he goes to his contacts and finds Henry’s number. June looks like she’s about to comment on the way that Alex saved Henry’s number (he stands by it) so he quickly presses the call button and waits. It goes straight to voicemail. Alex frowns and quickly ends the call, then pulls up their message window. The latest messages are from Henry from that morning. They detail Bea’s analysis of pop music, leading Alex to conclude he was stuck in a moment of monotony. He tends to do that when he’s in meetings or waiting for something: send long messages that Alex secretly finds fascinating, but he never tells him so.
Alex starts to type. just read the news about what happened, he starts. are you alright? That feels like a stupid question, so he adds: i’m available if you want to talk to someone. The messages get sent, but don’t get delivered.
Next to him, June grimaces. “Am I odd to think that they took his phone?” she asks. “The news outlets reported it hours ago. Ever since, no word from Buckingham Palace. Not even a statement.”
“Is Buckingham Palace supposed to give a statement about the sexuality of the Prince of England?” Alex asks, admittedly puzzled. “He’s gay, it’s okay, have a nice day?” He thinks he heard Nora say that about someone sometime. It sounds like a Nora-ism to him.
Then he thinks about what he said (that Henry can’t be gay because he always has another girlfriend that he’s photographed with) and what he can see on his phone (Henry isn’t picking up his phone and isn’t receiving any messages) and suddenly, it starts adding up. Henry doesn’t seem to enjoy his royal appearances very much. Somehow, he’s almost always around when Alex messages him in the evening and their time difference is five hours. He declared himself a ‘world-class insomniac’ just mere weeks ago, but never got into why that was, almost as if it was obvious. It must have been obvious to him.
“We had something of a…” Alex hesitates. It feels too personal to share, but it feels disloyal not to. June is worried about Henry, apparently Alex’s new best friend. “Heart-to-heart. We talked when I was in London the weekend we were doing damage control. His father’s death hit him really hard. And he only ever talks about Bea and Pez, his best friend.”
June’s eyebrows raise and Alex just knows that she’s burning to tell him that he does have a new best friend, that she was right and that she’s so happy for him, but she doesn’t. Instead, she slumps and sighs, taking his phone over from him and putting it on the table in front of them, on top of the book she borrowed from him. It’s silent between them for a while.
He doesn’t really get why the silence feels so loud. The situation means more than he feels capable of comprehending, which is frustrating for him. He’s usually no stranger to his emotions. He has them: loudly and openly, because he has nothing to suppress or be ashamed of. Right now, though, something is settling in his chest that he can’t grasp, but he wants to. He wants to know why he feels so bad about this besides the obvious.
“You should message Zahra,” June says then. “Make sure Henry’s invited to our New Year’s Eve party. Whatever is going on in England must mean that it’s even more important now to show that Henry and you are still friends.”
Zahra has told him once that they’re constantly five seconds away from a PR disaster because he’s a part of the First Family, which isn’t unfair. He wants it to be, but the memory of the Royal Wedding cake disaster is too fresh. He can imagine that Zahra is already thinking of the inevitable accusations that he’s a homophobe because he pushed Henry into a cake. Like Alex somehow knew and was very unkind about it, as if the internet hasn’t already had a field day making up incredibly wrong theories about the incident.
Alex nods. “I’ll do that,” he says, happy to be able to do something at all. “And keep an eye on my phone, in case he does respond.” Alex recognises that he won’t be Henry’s first choice to message or call when he gets around to checking his messages (surely that will be Pez), but he wants Henry to have the option.
June stands up with a sigh. “Let me know when he responds,” she says as she makes her way towards the door. Alex tells her he will.
Alex messages Zahra, who confirms that Henry is scheduled to attend their party. She has heard nothing of the contrary, though she also doesn’t rule out that the Palace might cancel. Apparently they have a lot going on. Alex doesn’t care. He wants, no, he needs Henry at their party, and he will get him himself from Buckingham Palace if he has to. He’s not taking ‘no’ for an answer and he can be very persistent.
Days pass. Alex goes for his runs, attends his classes, does his homework and his extra studying, bothers Raf and spends some time with his father. The messages don’t just go unanswered, but they’re still not even delivered. It bothers him and he tells himself it’s because June is right that Henry and him became friends. Just because their friendship is mostly banter and jokes doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean anything. Henry is clever and he can be very funny and the way he looks when Alex teases him is -
No, that’s not a thought Alex is going to finish. Absolutely not.
On Friday, Alex, June and Nora meet in the library, as they sometimes do. There’s wine, there’s music and there’s magazines. Much the same as always. Nora uncorks the battle and pours all three of them a glass after taking a swig directly from the bottle. June puts Johnny Cash on the record player. Alex, well. Alex is sitting with his back against the couch and is rereading the statement that Buckingham Palace issued several hours ago.
Buckingham Palace is confirming that Henry is indeed gay, as if the entire world hadn’t already known it thanks to the leaked audio fragment of Henry’s interview. Henry has their full support, according to the statement. They’re very happy that he chose to share this information, as if the sharing hadn’t been done against his will. It’s a ridiculous statement that’s clearly meant to placate the masses and Alex can make nothing of it.
Nora hands him a glass of wine and raises a single eyebrow. “Did he message you yet?” she asks as she sits down in front of him, grabbing the most nearby magazine.
All the magazines have Henry on the front page. He asked June if she picked out the ones with Henry on the front page, but June told him that they were all like that. At any other time, Alex would find that annoying, but now he’s only more worried. The magazines speculate about Henry and about the royal family and their continued silence. Of course, they were published before the statement Buckingham Palace issued came out.
Alex shakes his head, checking his phone to be sure. Nothing. “No,” he says. “And if it were me, I probably wouldn’t be answering my phone for weeks to come.” He snatches the magazine from Nora’s hands, who makes an irritated noise. Alex ignores her. “Look at this. They’re making a big spectacle out of his sexuality, as if they’re getting paid to speculate who he’s been with. It’s disgusting.” He’s indignant. Everyone should be more indignant than they are, he thinks.
“He’s the first gay royal,” June comments from her place by the record player. “It’s a very big deal. I don’t excuse anyone speculating about his relationships, of course, but the fascination is inevitable in this case. It’s news. Henry has always been a popular figure for the media, and now they know he’s into men. They’re rewriting years of speculation about his relationships.”
“He’s the first openly gay royal,” Alex corrects her with a roll of his eyes. “Look, when Nora and I are trying to make them write about us, it’s different. We’re seeking it out. But he’s not seeking anything out. He’s just existing. The audio fragment was leaked, June. He didn’t want to come out. It should have been on his own terms, it should have -”
“I agree, Alex,” June interrupts him. She walks over and sits down next to Nora, from whom she takes a glass of wine. She takes a large sip, then continues: “It’s absolutely horrible. And also is a demonstration of why so many people don’t feel safe or comfortable to come out. Twitter has been awful about him.”
Alex knows. He’s unfortunately been stupid enough to check Twitter a couple of times and the response has not been pretty. It ranges from heartbroken teenage girls who wanted to marry the Prince of England’s Hearts (as if Henry would go for them) to middle-aged men complaining that everyone is gay these days and that a public figure like Henry shouldn’t be gay because it’s a bad example to set. It leaves Alex livid and he wants to reply to all of them, but he knows he can’t and he shouldn’t. It’s also, for once, not about him. It’s about Henry, and Henry isn’t helped by Alex defending him on Twitter.
“It did spark the rumours that cakegate was actually a lover’s spat,” Nora informs them solemnly. “There’s discussions online whether Henry or Alex broke up their relationship. Does anyone care to weigh in?”
Alex pulls a face. “So just because he’s gay and we fell on the floor covered in cake, we must have been sleeping together?” he asks, ignoring her question.
Nora smirks. “No one said anything about sleeping together, Alex, but I guess it’s good to know that’s where your mind goes.” She’s Nora, so naturally she makes it worse immediately. “Of course, he’s not exactly bad-looking. If you wanted to go for a guy, then -”
His phone goes off, and thank fucking God it does. Alex is sure he’s not equipped to have the discussion that Nora seems to be initiating, but he also knows he can never back away from a challenge. They would have had the discussion if he hadn’t been disturbed. He grabs the phone from where it’s laying on the floor next to him and looks at the screen, only to be surprised. Henry is video calling him.
He scrambles to get up and practically runs for the door, ignoring what June and Nora are calling after him; June worried, Nora teasing. He closes the door, slightly out of breath, and quickly answers the call. For a moment he just sees himself, there in the hallway of the White House, but then the call connects and the view of Henry floods his screen.
Henry looks… Bad. He looks like he has barely slept since the audio fragment was leaked days ago. He looks worse than he looked in the only clip that Alex has seen of him since the leak: yesterday, he was spotted entering Buckingham Palace with a man Alex can now recognise as Shaan, Henry’s equerry. He watched it five or six times and it only made him feel worse. Now he at least has Henry in front of him on Henry’s terms, rather than a small clip he didn’t consent to being taken from him.
“I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” Henry asks, concern obvious, as if Alex wouldn’t have run out of any meeting to talk to him. He’s so ridiculous. “I can call you back tomo-”
“Shut up, Henry,” Alex tells him, then immediately regrets those are the first three words out of his mouth. “I told you I was available if you wanted to talk. That’s not just during business hours. You know that by now, right?”
They messaged each other every hour of the day for a couple of months now and as far as Alex is concerned, nothing has changed there. Henry doesn’t seem so sure, though. Alex guesses that other people must have changed the way they behave around him now that they know he’s gay and he’s expecting the same from Alex. Well, he would be in for a long wait, because that’s not going to happen.
“Right,” Henry says. He shuffles where he’s sitting, which Alex guesses is his bed. It’s going towards midnight in London, though that means nothing when it comes to Henry, who is often awake until it’s 2 or 3 AM and messaging Alex whilst watching a show. “So how have you been, Alex?” he tries.
Alex blinks. “Fine,” he says, too fast. “Fuck, I should be asking you that. I was worried when you didn’t pick up the phone or respond to my messages. I mean, I understand that you couldn’t answer your phone, given what happened, but -” He trails off, unsure where he’s going, and sighs at himself. “I mean: how are you doing?”
Henry visibly hesitates; his eyes flick to something in his room and then back to the screen, and he sighs. “I got through the week,” he says with the air of someone who thought at some point that he might not, and Alex knows all too well why he was so worried. “So that’s something. Philip had an impressive meltdown. I thought I saw him angry after the cake incident, but Christ, Alex. That was nothing in comparison.”
He sighs deeply and hesitates again, but then he sticks his chin out and continues to talk. “They found out who posted the audio clip before Shaan and I even arrived at Buckingham Palace. Gran wanted Shaan fired, but I fought against it. Then we had to have days’ worth of discussions about what to do about this -” He closes his eyes for a moment and leans back against his headboard.
It’s Alex cue to slide down against the wall between the hallway and the library. He stretches his legs out in front of him and asks: “That bad, huh?”
At the other side of the screen, Henry laughs a little. The sound is bitter, Alex thinks, bitter and uncomfortable. “The entire rulebook for heirs to the Crown had to be rewritten in the span of days,” he declares. “Once it was decided that I was allowed to be gay, that is. I said eight times that I would abdicate before we got to that point, but no one but Gran wanted to hear any of that and even Gran was hesitant. Although I suppose the hesitation was because everyone would know I abdicated because I was gay and it wouldn’t be good for the family’s reputation.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that the Royal Family actually cared about their approval rating,” Alex says. Of course he knows it. He knows that Henry was, or is, the clear favourite of the British royals. Henry has the nickname to prove it. Alex has made fun of that fact multiple times. It’s just that with the history of royalty, they just sort of seemed to do as they pleased. “So did they rewrite the rulebook?”
“I am deeply unhappy to report that I am no longer expected to have children with my hypothetical future wife, but instead I am expected to find a surrogate to carry my children so me and my hypothetical future husband can raise them together. They will have to be biologically mine or they will not be considered as a part of the royal lineage.”
Alex only has one thing to say about that: “Oh my fucking God.”
“Quite,” Henry agrees.
They sit in silence for a moment. Henry, deeply unhappy, exhausted and clearly done with this week and perhaps with the world. Alex, worried about a friend he barely realised he had before he stopped responding to messages, looking at him thinking about what he could possibly do for him from this side of the ocean. He comes up with nothing.
“At least I won’t have to marry my cousin to take back Casterly Rock anymore,” Henry says. He sounds completely serious, but one corner of his mouth is curling upwards.
Alex snorts. It’s not a charming sound, but he can’t exactly take it back. “How do you even remember that?” he asks. “You have some sort of Nora-like memory, I swear. And that’s a compliment. Hers is photographic, you know.”
“I do know,” Henry says, and the smile that threatened to show up when he made his joke is slowly blooming. “I reread our messages sometimes. That’s why I remember. You’re -” He sighs and glares at Alex, which is impressive considering they’re on a video call. “You’re interesting, okay? You have an interesting way of phrasing sentences and I’m a writer, so I have to study different styles to learn.”
It sounds like an excuse. For what, Alex isn’t so sure. He also doesn’t care, because he’s going to be smug about this forever. “You like me,” he says gleefully. “You like the way I write. You think I’m interest-”
“Alright, alright,” Henry interrupts him with a sigh. He probably already regrets saying anything at all, which was exactly Alex’s mission. The banter between them feels normal. He thinks Henry could use some normal after the week he’s had. “I said you have an interesting way of phrasing your sentences. Since you write without any capital letters, you can hardly take that as a compliment, Alex.”
“It’s good to have a personal style,” Alex says stubbornly. “No take-backs, Your Majesty. You think I’m interesting.” He wants to fold his arms over one another, as though that will further prove the point, but then realises he’s holding his phone with one of his hands.
Henry rolls his eyes. “Anyway,” he says with emphasis. “I was calling to let you know I’m going to have to cancel on the Young America New Year’s Eve Gala.”
“Legendary Balls-Out Bananas White House Trio New Year’s Eve Party,” Alex corrects him immediately, then hears when Henry actually said. “What? No, you can’t cancel.” He vehemently shakes his head at his screen. “No, Henry, you have to come. I tried to ensure it by confirming with Zahra days ago.”
“And I appreciate the enthusiasm, but it’s not a good idea,” Henry says. “The press coverage about my unfortunate coming out has been out of this world and I have no desire to overshadow the good cause that the fundraiser is dedicated to.”
“Okay, then do a huge donation to make up for it,” Alex suggests immediately and Henry sighs. “You have to come,” he says again. “I will personally drag you through Kensington Palace and onto a private plane, I swear.” That probably won’t go any way towards persuading Henry, Alex realises, who he threatened to push in the Thames just three years ago. “Look, there won’t be any press. Just a mandatory photo op and that’s it and I’m still working to persuade Zahra to scrap that as well. We’ll have fun. I promise. I’ll stick around and fend off anyone who asks stupid questions.”
“Fine,” Henry concedes. “But I’m bringing Pez.”
Alex grins widely. “Like I’m not dying to meet your elusive best friend,” he says. “Can’t wait.” With a shrug, he adds: “You have to get out of London sometime. Might as well be for the best New Year’s Eve party you ever attended.”
“With a modest host, too,” Henry says, and much to Alex’s relief, he’s grinning again. “Thank you, Alex,” he adds.
Alex doesn’t ask what for, even if he wants to. Instead, he just grins and asks if Henry spoke to Pez yet, then acts offended when it turns out that Henry called Pez first and then Alex. Aren’t they the best friends the press made them out to be after their weekend together? It’s overly dramatic and stupid but it makes Henry grin and stammer a little bit, so Alex is happy to keep doing it until he’s sure that Henry’s shoulders have relaxed a bit more.
It takes another hour until they hang up. Alex’s glass of wine has gone warm and June and Nora, understandably, already started on the take-out they ordered. June declares they saved him his favourite, though, and shoves a plate at him, so Alex takes it and quickly takes a few bites before answering the questions he knows June and Nora are about to ask him, trying to beat them to asking.
“That was Henry,” he starts, ignoring the way June’s eyes widen and Nora grins, “and he’s doing fine, but he has a lot on his plate. He tried to cancel on the New Year’s Eve Party, but don’t worry: I stopped him. He’ll be there. He’s bringing Pez as his plus one.”
“Alex, don’t you think that Henry has bigger things to worry about than attending a party across the ocean from him?” June asks gently. She’s doing her ‘Alex, this isn’t about you’ thing that Alex dislikes so much. He knows this isn’t about him.
“Of course I know that,” he tells her. “But he deserves a break. He deserves a night where he can drink and dance and have fun.” There’ll be no press present in the White House and everyone will have to sign NDAs and waivers. Alex thinks their New Year’s Eve Party is the perfect occasion for Henry to let loose. If there’s even any such thing, that is. If there is, he desperately wants to see it.
Nora’s eyes are dancing with mischief, but for once Alex doesn’t care to know what scheme June and her are coming up with now or what she’s thinking about Alex and Henry. He’s sure he’ll find out soon enough. Until then, though, he’s content to sip his wine and speculate about the party, and message Henry every now and then.