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It started when Henry was six. One afternoon at school, his nose started bleeding out of nowhere, getting blood all down his shirt. His dad came and took him home early. The next day, Henry woke up with a bruise across his face.
His parents sat him down and explained everything - he has a soulmate, they say. Whenever they get hurt, he’ll get hurt, and whenever he gets hurt, they’ll feel it. It’s nothing to be afraid of - it happens to both of them, and his siblings too. It happens to almost everyone.
"It is lovely that we're seeing signs of her so early," the Queen regarded passively when she was told. She gestures at his face. "Although the placement is rather unfortunate."
Henry isn’t sure how he feels about all this.
In a backyard in Austin, five-year-old Alex Claremont-Diaz got hit in the face with his sister’s frisbee.
Alex finally figured out what was happening when his knees bled through his pants at an event for his mom’s Congressional reelection campaign. He had learned about soulmates in school; his fourth-grade teacher had been very passionate about the topic. Alex was overjoyed that he had one - he had half expected he wouldn’t. But no, he did. He had a soulmate.
He hoped their knees were okay.
For a while, their connection was a series of little, barely noticeable things - a scrape here, a bruised shin there, casual reminders of childhood fun and games. When he was eleven, Henry was required to start wearing bits of concealer at appearances to cover up marks. None of his classmates had to hide - most of them were very proud of their connections and loved to spend time wondering about what their future girlfriends were doing right then. Henry was proud too, but it was a private affair. The comfort he found in knowing he wasn’t alone wasn’t for the whole world to know. It was just for him.
Then out of the blue in the middle of an unusually sunny spring day, Henry was standing in the hallway outside the sitting room when his arm broke, all on its own. He screamed and screamed, scaring his family half to death, any previous sense of calm completely washed away by pain.
He has to wear a cast for two months. He wishes his soulmate would be more careful.
In high school, Alex got hurt a lot, bumps and bruises here and there, but he hardly ever got hurt on behalf of his soulmate anymore. They were both older, Alex supposed. They were less prone to getting hurt as their youths faded into the distance.
It was probably for the best. A selfish part of Alex, however, missed the reminder. His parents were freshly divorced, his relationship with Liam was getting complicated in ways Alex couldn’t even begin to understand, June was about to leave for college. Part of him was glad his soulmate, whoever they were, didn't get hurt too often, but another part of him would like some additional reassurance of their existence. Of the love that would never leave.
Henry got rope burns on his hands when he was fourteen. When he was sixteen, he woke up with bloody knuckles and wondered what the other person did to deserve it. His soulmate hurt their wrist when Henry was seventeen, and he couldn’t play the piano for a week without it aching. They’re trivial, really, but amid the storm, the little injuries from their shared connection serve as a reminder that he isn't alone. That there’s someone - that there is a boy, his soulmate is a boy - that there is a boy somewhere out in the world who is destined for him to love and be loved by.
And then Henry’s father got sick.
In a moment of weakness, when they all knew he was going to die but before the day had come, Henry asked his mother if it had been worth it.
Catherine was already in so much pain, emotionally of course but physically too, because of Arthur - so much so that at first they hadn’t even been sure which one of them was sick. If they hadn’t been together for so long, it wouldn’t have been so bad. She had almost married one of her friends; so many would have agreed if she asked. But when she saw that scar - the same one on her cheek from when she fell off a horse as a girl - gleaming back at her under the stage lights, she never looked back.
Henry used to believe in love, to long for the day he would meet his soulmate and just know. But sitting in the remains of what used to be his life, his family, he wasn’t so sure anymore.
The princess considered the question for a long, long time.
“Yes,” Catherine said, finally. “I think that soulmates, the way you feel the same pains they do, is a perfect metaphor.” She locked eyes with Henry, tears brimming at the edges. “Love hurts, but it’s worth it. It always is.”
Walking behind his father’s coffin, his brother and sister at his sides and his mother leading the way, Henry knows that she was wrong.
*
Everything changed the summer Alex was seventeen.
Alex was awoken in the middle of the night by pain in his leg. Switching on his bedside lamp and tearing back the covers, Alex wasn’t sure what he expected, but- but just above his knee was a thin line, mere inches long, pink with blood. He was confused at first, but a minute later the sharp, hot pain returned, and another line appeared above the first. After another minute, a third.
Alex was inconsolable for days. Not because of the pain, that went away soon enough, but for a person he had never met. He wanted to hold them, talk and listen and promise them they’d be okay, keep them close as long as he could. But he couldn’t be there for them. He couldn’t even seem to find them, and maybe never would. The person he was meant to love more than anyone was hurting, and he couldn’t do anything to help. But here he was, here they were, aching. It was devastation he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling.
There were three new lines a week later, in the middle of the day this time, and higher, on the inside of his thigh, crisscrossing his stretch marks. Alex cried again and decided to do what he could. He started keeping a log. Three last week near his knee. Two this week inside his thigh. Three, two, one, five, two. Different numbers and sometimes different places, but never ever anywhere visible above his clothes. He wanted to believe his list was helping, somehow, sending a sign that someone cared out into the universe on the off-chance it would reach his soulmate.
After several months, the marks stopped, for a bit. Eighty-three days, to be exact. Then one morning in June he found two fresh lines littered amongst the scars.
It took over three years, on and off and on again, before the cuts stopped completely. Tentative and relieved, Alex exhaled.
*
Henry didn’t want to be at the Olympics. Even before everything, he hadn’t given more than the required half a shit about the Olympics, let alone the diving finals. In an ideal world, he would be at home right now, curled up under his stupidly ornate blankets with a stack of Jaffa Cakes and David. He’d even accept an hours-long meeting with his grandmother and Philip over this. But here he was, cobwebs in the place where his heart used to be, forcing a smile for the cameras and pretending like the axis of his world isn’t shattered.
And then, of course, he saw a boy. The boy. The beautiful, stupid, grinning brighter than the sun, boy, his manic energy and careless joy smoothing over the creases in Henry with a look and an extended hand.
But Henry couldn’t afford to get burned again.
And so he ran.
And yet, he couldn’t forget that smile, no matter how hard he tried. He gives in - the boy, as it turns out, has a name: Alex Claremont-Diaz. His mother is running for President of the United States, and the Republican candidate is a powerfully vicious and deceitful old man, but she is tactful and whip-smart and stands a fantastic chance of winning. She does win, and the world’s victory also ushers Alex into Henry’s sphere for good.
There’s something special about Alex, and sometimes when he knows he shouldn’t, Henry selfishly wonders if he’s the only one who can truly see it. Maybe it’s the way he lights up at every public appearance, or how he always knows the perfect answer in interviews without seeming over-rehearsed. Or maybe it’s the familiar way his wrist seems to be set just a bit crooked when he raises a hand to brush back his curls. Maybe. Just maybe.
Alex dates. It is a thing that happens - as much as he would prefer it, he can’t sit around waiting for his soulmate to pop into thin air with a bodily history that matches his own. Alex is a boy that loves, and he needs someplace to put that. Ideally, one with a wit that won’t quit and a nice face.
He and Nora date for a while, and they’re doomed from the start but it was fun while it lasted. They knew they weren’t soulmates - Nora approaches every potential partner carrying a detailed spreadsheet of past injuries - but the attraction was there, and so Alex being Alex and Nora being Nora, they dove right in. They last for all of three months, until June is helping set up a campaign event, drops a sign on her foot, and June and Nora break a toe.
Well, that’s that, Alex thinks. He’s happy for them, really. At least she isn’t going anywhere.
He finds other girls, on and off, and they’re lovely. But none of them is the one.
And then he meets Henry, and he’s… he’s different. Alex doesn’t think they’re soulmates - but whether they are or not, this feels good. New. Right.
Henry kisses Alex under the linden tree. He doesn’t believe in true love outside fairy tales, or at least he doesn’t want to, but Alex is here and they’re friends and one way or another he’s halfway in love with this impossible boy. And so he kisses him, and after that, there’s no going back. He kisses him again and again, in hotel rooms and fancy bars and disgusting bathrooms, and he’s never felt anything like this.
He sections off his life: there is Alex Claremont-Diaz, and there is everything else. They need to stay separate, for his sanity and both their sakes.
In between being tied to headboards and getting absolutely railed in closets, little flickers of his soulmate come in. Heels rubbed raw and bloody, probably from a bad pair of shoes. Skinned knees the next day. Sore eyes, but that one may be on him. A wound on his hand that looks mysteriously like it came from a stapler.
Henry overextends his shoulder in polo practice and feels bad when he has to explain to Alex the next weekend why he can’t lift his arm above his head.
Alex doesn’t seem to mind the change of pace.
Alex is in love with Henry, and he doesn’t know if they’re soulmates - the odds are slim, but the odds are there, but he’s not going to intentionally hurt one of them to find out. But he doesn’t think he cares. No person, place, thing or event has felt more correct for Alex than Henry. Henry, Henry’s arms, Henry’s bed, Henry’s smile, Henry’s careful jokes and quiet moods and giant fucking heart.
But Henry knows how to run. He runs from Alex at the lake, and Alex gets it, he does. Henry is afraid to lose himself to love. But in the same vein, Henry runs back. Because Henry is afraid to never love at all. And that makes all the difference.
They decide they’re together until they’re not. Fuck the universe, fuck whatever cosmic force decided to tie people to each other, fuck their families and the whole stupid world. They’re in love, and they’re not going to apologize. Even when they almost destroy his mom’s campaign. Even when Henry’s family is catapulted into a new era of insane. Even when half the world says they shouldn’t be.
In the chaos, Alex nearly forgets he is supposed to be waiting for his soulmate. He has Henry, and he is more than enough, certainly much more than Alex ever thought he would have.
So he stands in front of the world and tells them. He’s my choice.
Henry pads down the stairs, socked feet on wood steps. The shelter had opened last month, and he was still up to his neck in paperwork, getting everything exactly how it needs to be. He didn’t mind the work, but it had a nasty habit of keeping him away from Alex in the evenings. Soon enough the roles would be reversed when Alex started at NYU in the fall. But until then they had established a simple routine.
He finds Alex in the kitchen, an array of vegetables laid out across the island like a produce summoning circle. Alex had gotten into trying more interesting dishes since moving into the brownstone, things he wasn’t quite confident enough to try where his dad or a White House chef might see him and judge. It worked out, most of the time - no one had been poisoned yet.
“Hey.” Alex smiles, knife stilling. Henry tries to imagine what he looks like: worried hair, probably, sweatpants, and one of Alex’s old lacrosse shirts. Whatever Alex is seeing, he’s looking at Henry with so much adoration that he’s honestly shocked they don’t both melt. It’s so fucking domestic. Henry loves it.
Henry crosses the kitchen, planting a kiss on Alex’s temple. “Hello. Do you want coffee?”
“Please,” Alex groans. He goes back to chopping the carrots. “I’ve been so tired all day.”
Henry smiles. “I’m making decaf, love, one of us has to take care of you.”
“Fine, fine.”
He shakes his head and pulls the coffee grounds off the shelf. He’s halfway through measuring out the water when Alex swears loudly, knife clattering to the marble counter.
In turn, Henry hisses. He looks down to find a little slice on his left pointer finger, blood pooling at the edges.
Huh. Oh.
Alex is his soulmate.
Pieces of the story fly together, slowly, and then all at once.
This doesn’t change anything, not really, he is still just as stupidly in love with Alex as he was two minutes ago. But the little confirmation is... nice. Flesh and blood proof that the biggest mistake of Henry’s life was what led him exactly where he needed to be all along.
He turns. Alex hadn’t noticed Henry’s response, just grabbed a dishtowel, shuffling through their miscellaneous drawer for an elusive pack of bandaids.
“Hey,” Henry whispers. He’s shocked he has any composure at all. Alex looks up, half his attention still on his newly-bandaged hand. But Henry raises his finger in the air like a toast, and when Alex gasps, all the air in the room flys out with it. “How did you break your arm when you were ten?”
Alex’s gaze flits between his hand and Henry’s, finally settling on Henry’s eyes. He hopes he looks calmer than he feels. “A bike accident.”
And then Alex is kissing him, deeper and with more certainty than they’ve ever dared to kiss before. He can feel the message swirling in his chest - I’m yours and you’re mine. I love you, and I’m never letting you go.