Chapter Text
Alex Claremont-Diaz was as pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian as they came, but he had to hand it to King Philip, the new British monarch shaking the United Kingdom out of its post-Brexit malaise and transforming the global geopolitical order. Alex could admit to admiring the young king’s decisiveness and increasingly absolute authority vis-a-vis hundreds of years of parliamentary rule. For a king bent on consolidating power, King Philip was paradoxically destabilizing the highly inequitable class system plaguing British society. He was distributing wealth like there was a tomorrow, building popularity and support among the masses that wasn’t built on forced ignorance and misinformation, but on the delivery of an objectively higher standard of living for the people. Philip was a populist monarch defying political theory. And Alex, having spent the last year trying and failing to navigate a deadlocked and woefully crippled republican political system, was extremely fucking jealous.
But the act that Alex most admired was also King Philip’s most radical act thus far, shocking the world more than the idea of a monarchy seizing power from a duly-elected Parliament to implement Universal Basic Income and tax the fuck out of the rich. King Philip had permitted his younger brother and heir, Prince Henry, to come out of the closet as a gay-as-a-maypole homosexual.
Henry’s coming out had not been as part of some cynical and self-serving display aimed at rehabilitating a staunchly conservative family image. It had been without any fanfare at all. Just Henry, with his male lover, the son of the Earl of Durham, holding hands while seated next to the King at the Royal Ascot in a manner so open and brazen that there could be no doubt they were not trying to hide at all.
Of course, the noble gay lovers had been widely photographed by official photographers, paparazzi and attendees and photos shared around the world instantly all over social media and tabloids - so perhaps it had been a little bit cynical and self-serving. But there had been no statement, no announcement, nothing to suggest that the King thought anything of the matter but unquestionable support for his younger brother and the life he was choosing to live and the gender of the person he was choosing to love. Whatever the play was, it was working on Alex.
Years of resentment towards Prince Henry melted away when he saw the pictures, replaced instead by an uncertain queasiness in the pit of his stomach. The sensation of falling kept overcoming him every time he saw photographs of Henry with his lover - or rather, lovers. Over the course of the ensuing months and years, Henry flitted in and out of relationships, the longest of which lasted about a year. Over the same time period, Alex’s stack of People, Ok!Magazine and the occasionally imported British tabloid full of pictures and gossip about Prince Henry and his paramours steadily grew. His phone and laptop became more and more sluggish with far too many tabs open on news sites and gossip blogs reporting on every purported move.
“You’re obsessed,” June said one day, rubbing her brows in frustration as she opened the third box full of gossip rags that Alex refused to part with after they packed their belongings to move out of the White House. “Like, you need help.”
“Shut up, I’m not.”
“Then get rid of these.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not? This is literally garbage.”
“It’s research.”
June picked up an OK!Magazine from a year ago, holding it up on the page about Henry and an Oscar-winning actor vacationing in the Maldives. “Is your research: how short is too short for booty shorts?”
Alex snatched the magazine from her hands. “No. You know I’m gunning for that job with the ambassador to the UK. I need to…understand.”
“Understand what? Are you anticipating there being an interview question on the number of men Prince Henry has gone out with since he came out? Or do you think the Ambassador is going to ask you questions like, ‘Hey, Alex, why do you think he’s such a serial dater who can’t keep a relationship? Do you think he cheated on his age-appropriate hunky Brazilian boyfriend with that sixty year old oil tycoon with a face like raw leather? Is he a greedy gold digger or does he just have questionable taste?”
Her expression and tone of voice implied she was being facetious, but Alex’s response was entirely too serious. “Something like that.”
June rolled her eyes, making Alex click his tongue in annoyance with her as he shoved the magazine back in the box, the lid of which he closed rather dramatically. “They’re defying all the political rules, June. King Philip is like…a weirdly socialist absolute monarch who is somehow killing it politically. And the second in line to the British throne is openly having gay love affairs and the Royal Family doesn’t seem to see any of it as a scandal!”
“Maybe England is a lot more progressive than we thought. Besides, that’s awfully homophobic of you - why should it be a scandal that Prince Henry is living his best gay life? Get with the times, Alex!”
Alex bristled at the accusation of homophobia - even if he knew June didn’t actually mean it. “It’s not…about that.”
June let out a long suffering sigh. “What’s this really about?” Then her smile turned wicked and suggestive. “Is it because you want to be the one Prince Henry is romancing in the Maldives?”
“Get the fuck out of my room, June.”
**
“God, you can’t even do being gay right, you privileged fuck,” he said out loud, through a mouthful of croissant, as he read an interview with Prince Henry himself by UK GQ. Not that Alex was an authority on the correct way to be gay - being heterosexual himself (mostly). But he was a member of another disadvantaged minority group and so felt he knew how one ought to experience being oppressed by a powerful institution.
In the interview, Prince Henry detailed coming out to his brother not long before Philip became King. Fearful of his brother’s reaction - they were not very close at the time and Philip was famously mercurial (apparently) - Henry nevertheless felt it important to tell Philip that his then-secret-homosexual-relationship had become more serious. Philip had surprised him with a nonchalant shrug and a vaguely supportive, “It’s your life, Henry, live it as you please” as though they were not raised with the crushing weight of duty above self. Apparently, Philip’s only objection had been that Henry’s then-paramour supported the wrong football team.
What the fuck was wrong with these people? Where was the drama? Where was the disgust? The scorn? The overdramatics at the implications and mild inconveniences? Wasn’t that what Royal Families were for? Living out soap operas to amuse and distract the masses while feigning the need to show stability and remain mysterious? Where was the hand wringing about what the Church of England and the public would think about a gay prince, or the threat a homosexual heir posed to the continuity of the royal line? Where was everything promised by novels and films about princes and princesses romancing commoners (of the opposite sex or otherwise)?
It was all…so weird. Alex couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling in his gut, nor could he take his eyes away from Henry’s face in the photos of him with his latest lover walking around in Camden. There was a storm in those blue eyes, visible to Alex despite the low resolution of the photos. What are you thinking, Henry? What are you doing?
And why did he care? Why did Henry occupy such a vast amount of mental space in Alex’s mind? Why do you care??
–
Surprising no one, Alex won the coveted advisor position with the US Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. The fact that he was even interested in the role surprised everyone - it was a sharp detour from his “Congress by 30” plan. The UK Ambassadorship was historically an ornamental role, awarded more as patronage than as a reward for actual diplomatic skill or experience. But that had changed since the seismic shift of Philip’s ascension, requiring a more experienced and proactive ambassador supported by a stronger, agile team. At least that was what Alex had surmised when asked why he wanted the position during his interview. Only June could have possibly detected a hint of the truth about Alex’s motivations, and mercifully, she was not on the interview panel to try and wheedle it out of him.
And so it was a blessing and a curse that Alex was immediately thrown into work upon his arrival at Winfield House, rebuilding diplomatic ties from the ashes of the established foreign service Philip had burned down.
**
It wasn’t long before Alex got what he really wanted - an opportunity to see Henry in the flesh. A reception was being held in Buckingham Palace, one of the many parties held in honour of the first birthday of Philip’s son, the baby crown prince who pushed Henry down the succession order.
At first, the reception seemed not much different than the pompous ceremonies Alex attended in the various palaces as the First Son, and yet the vibe was somehow off. There was a different tension in the air, more foreboding, seedier somehow despite the opulence, as if they were in some darkened alleyway rather than one of the grandest ballrooms in Europe.
Then there was Henry - tall, blonde, warm, from whose angelic ass the sun seemed to shine - a centre of gravity in the room. Alex had to watch him for a while as he interacted with the other guests, but he steeled himself to move in as soon as there was an opening.
“Your Majesty,” he said, grinning as he bowed his head slightly towards Henry. They had been formally introduced earlier in the line-up, so Henry was aware of his presence and the new role he was playing, no longer the First Son.
“You still refuse to learn that it’s ‘Your Royal Highness’. Your Majesty is reserved for the King.”
“Well, he’s as majestic as a wet weasel.”
“Watch it - you could be thrown into the Tower of London for that.” Henry seemed in bright spirits, eyes twinkling with mirth at the dig at his brother, and something in Alex’s chest tightened pleasurably at his easy, magnetic smile.
“And skip the line to see the Crown Jewels? Sign me up.”
Henry looked at him with a quizzical expression, apparently bemused by Alex’s shade-free warmth. “You know, for years, Alex, I thought you didn’t like me. Have you finally grown up now that you’re approaching your thirties?”
“Excuse me, your Majesty - approaching my thirties? The fuck? Why do you have to remind me of my impending death like that?” Alex feigned offense, trying not to grin around the rim of his champagne flute. “I’m 25.”
“You shouldn’t swear in front of royalty,” Henry teasingly admonished.
“Since when did any of the rules of the ancien regime apply in the court of King Philip?” Alex retorted back, referencing the “old rule”, the pre-Revolutionary monarchy in France. He gesticulated all around the room, now occupied more by newcomer technocrats and new money than the old guard of Dukes, Earls and Marquises, to emphasize his point that the British court had changed significantly from its purely aristocratic roots.
For a moment, Henry’s expression darkened and Alex worried he had actually managed to put his foot in it. But he kept his gaze unwaveringly pinned to Henry’s face, as if he could perhaps read the tempest of his micro-impressions. Then Henry was laughing. “No, I suppose none, at least not beyond the absolute monarchy part.” He tilted his champagne flute towards Alex. “To the end of the ancien regime, then?” he said.
“The end of traditions that would have kept you deep in the closet?” Alex tilted his own champagne flute forward towards Henry’s, uncertain but wanting to play at boldness too.
“Indeed.” Henry actually barked out a laugh as he tipped his glass towards Alex’s, until the glasses clinked together. The laugh disarmed Alex and diffused some of the tension Alex felt, and what little remained of his apprehension at finally seeing Henry again. Or maybe, it was the champagne kicking in.
“I did mean to ask you about that,” Alex started to say.
“Was I unkind to you in Melbourne because I had a raging hard-on for you?”
Alex nearly spat out his champagne into the coif of a passing Baroness.
“And every other subsequent time our paths crossed,” Henry added.
Alex composed himself again. Since when did Henry become so…forward? “No…? But I mean, now that you mentioned it.”
“I was a closeted teenager, Alex, a tree could have looked at me funny and I’d have stood like Nelson’s Column.”
“The tree wasn’t looking,” Alex spluttered, defensively.
“Wasn’t it? Hm. Pity.”
“And the last time we saw each other was five years ago. Just after Philip became King.”
“Oh was it? Being closeted must have made me mean.”
Alex wasn’t sure what this conversation meant, let alone where it was going.
“Anyway. I wanted to say…congratulations. On coming out. Living your truth.” He expected a positive reaction, one that affirmed that Henry was pleased to have been able to come out, rather than shoved back into the closet. What he got was the sudden storminess again, Henry’s face becoming inscrutable. He didn’t miss the step backwards the Prince took either, body language closing off.
“That’s one way to put it, yes.”
Alex paused for a long moment, trying to read that indecipherable expression which seemed somehow both sharp and detached from the present moment. “I guess you got a lot more…public attention since coming out though?” Alex grasped at straws. “That must have been really difficult. Must be really difficult.”
“Hm? Yes.”
“Did you not want to come out?”
Henry seemed to snap out of it, giving Alex whiplash in the process. He was smiling again - widely and insincerely. “Of course, I did. Who doesn’t want to ‘live their truth’ as you put it?”
Alex was about to say something when they were interrupted by a beast of a man coming up behind Henry. Henry was tall - 6’2 - but the older man towered over him by a good several inches. The hand which settled on the small of Henry’s back seemed impossibly gigantic and wait - wasn’t that a really bold and highly illegal move - to touch Royalty without permission? Alex willed the man to stop pawing at Henry. But he was a powerless Matilda, futilely squinting at the object of his ire.
“I’m bored of this. Let’s go,” the man said, in a decidedly not-posh accent. Alex tried to place his face against the dozens of faces and bios he had been briefed on, or the latest gossip rags talking about who Henry was dating - but he came up short as to who the man was. But the man seemed very much not a stranger to Henry, especially judging by the way the impossibly massive hand moved to the nape of Henry’s neck. It was only for a moment, but Alex thought he might hurl at how gross and possessive the hold was and the fury it ignited within him.
“Do excuse me, Alex. Duty calls,” Henry said with a wink that didn’t suit him at all - despite the charm offensive he had been putting on.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Alex tried to say, in a bid to elicit a more genuine response with the subverted honorific Henry seemed to be fond of from Alex’s lips. But Henry was already gone, guided into the crowd away from Alex by massive, impertinent hands Alex decided he hated most.