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Henry hates it.
He hates the dull hum of machines; hates the too-white walls; hates how time seems to hang crooked in the air, like it’s lost its footing.
But he hates what’s happening in the bed more than anything.
Arthur Fox is thinner now. Paler. His voice, when it comes, is softer than Henry remembers. He looks impossibly small against the vast white sprawl of bedsheets—like the room has almost swallowed him whole. It twists something sharp in Henry’s chest, this sight of his father—diminished, frail in a way it feels unnatural…unfair.
“You didn’t have to come,” Arthur murmurs, half teasing, his eyes fluttering open.
Henry tries to laugh, but it gets stuck somewhere in his throat. “Don’t be a fool.” He can’t laugh. He is trying but—Henry takes a shuddering breath.
His father gives him a look—tired, fond, a little crooked. “Young lad, don’t call your dying father a fool.”
Henry flinches. Dying…died…dead. The boy squeezes his eyes shut.
Arthur sees it.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur says, voice rough with the brittle edges of weariness. His hand moves, slowly, like it weighs too much, and rests over Henry’s knuckles. “I keep trying to make this easier by pretending it’s not happening. Old habits, I suppose. Denial as comfort.”
Henry stares at their joined hands. At the bones in his father’s wrist pressing against his skin that has thinned like parchment.
“I’d let you pretend,” Henry whispers. “If it meant you didn’t have to leave.”
There’s a long pause. Arthur’s fingers tighten just barely. “Henry—” the tremble in the father’s voice is more noticeable now.
Henry swallows hard. “I know you are trying your best,” he says. His throat burns, his voice cracks, he asks, “Can you please try a bit more, Dad?”
Arthur blinks, slow and heavy. Tears gather, shimmering at the corners of his eyes. “God, I hate this part,” he says hoarsely. “I thought…if I didn’t talk about it, maybe I’d make it to your wedding. Maybe the world would let me stay a little longer.”
“You will,” Henry’s voice cracks, as if something is splintering under weight. “You will be there at my wedding.”
Arthur’s breath hitches. “Sweetheart—”
“No,” Henry snaps. The word lashes out sharp but it softens into a tremble before it can hang in the air too long. His voice breaks with the ache of it, his eyes glassy. “You don’t get to say goodbye. Not yet. I am not ready.”
Silence falls over them, thick and unbearable. Only the steady, artificial rhythm of the heart monitor dares to break it.
Then, Arthur says, “You always do that.”
“Do what?” Henry blinks.
“Hold everything in. Like if you’re quiet enough, the world won’t notice how much you’re feeling.”
Henry’s throat tightens. He looks away, blinking hard. “I was raised that way,” he whispers, the words jagged and small, like a confession from the hollowest part of him.
Arthur closes his eyes. A single tear slips down the side of his face, tracing a slow, sorrowful path down his cheek and disappears into the folds of the pillow.
“I know,” he says, wrecked. “I’m sorry.”
Henry leans forward, pressing his forehead and folding himself into the curve of his father’s shoulder. He feels his father’s hand in his hair, trembling and thin, fingers like paper—creased, worn, beloved. A page thumbed through too many times.
It isn’t supposed to be like this.
Arthur is supposed to be with him his whole life.
Arthur is supposed to walk beside him for all chapters.
Arthur—his Dad is supposed to stay forever.
But he won’t.
“I don’t know how to do this without you,” Henry whispers. “I don’t think I ever learned how to breathe without you there.”
Arthur lets out a broken laugh. “Of course you did. You do. You just never notice.”
Henry shakes his head against him, the motion brushing against his father’s collar, “That is not true.”
“Henry.” Arthur’s fingers slide to cup the side of his son’s face, reverent and warm, though weak. “Listen to me.”
Henry lifts his head, reluctantly. Their eyes meet—blue to blue, storm to sea—and Arthur smiles, soft and glowing with all the pride and love he cannot hold back.
“You are not me.” Arthur says, “You are better than me—”
“Dad…” Henry tries, a protest, a plea..
“Henry.”
Henry nods weakly and swallows.
“You are better than me,” Arthur repeats. His voice is steady now, even as his hands shake. “You’re softer. Braver. Kinder. You don’t have to carry me forever. Let me go…when it’s time. And let yourself live.”
Henry chokes on it. He shatters on the words, because when, not if, lodges like a thorn in his chest. He hates how final it sounds.
“But I just want more time,” Henry says, voice cracking. “I need more time.”
Arthur smiles, wet-eyed. “Every father wants to watch his son grow up. I got to watch you become a man. A good one. A stubborn, incredibly lovable son who I know has such a bright future ahead. That is enough for me.”
Then, with all the love that his heart can carry, he says it—low and unflinching:
“No one will ever love you as much as I do.”
And that’s when Henry breaks. He bows his head to his father’s hand and lets the tears fall, silent and unstoppable.
Arthur’s hand is still in Henry’s hair, brushing through it slowly, as if memorizing it. The lines around his mouth twitch with the effort of staying composed.
“You know,” Arthur says, after a long silence, “I always hoped you’d find someone who could make you laugh when you didn’t want to.”
Henry’s brow furrows.
Arthur doesn’t look at him. Just stares out the window—though there’s not much. But he looks as if he’s watching something only he can see. Or maybe remembering.
“Someone who sees through all that quiet you wear like armor,” Arthur continues. “Someone who doesn’t try to fix you—just… stays with you in the silence.”
Henry swallows. “You talk like I’m already halfway through the story.”
Arthur huffs, a smile barely forming. “You are, love. We both are. Life is not some neat little arc—it’s a mess of moments, it’s just of people finding pieces of themselves in other people, over and over again. Losing them. Finding them. Over and over again.”
He closes his eyes, the effort of speech tiring him now. But after a moment, he opens them again, turns his head slightly to look at Henry.
“There will come a day,” Arthur says softly, “when someone walks into a room, and you’ll feel like you’ve known them before you even say their name.”
Henry’s throat tightens. “Dad—”
“Don’t interrupt, I’m being wise,” Arthur murmurs with a crooked smile.
Henry almost laughs. Almost.
Arthur goes on, more softly now, as if wrapping each word in gentleness. “And they’ll drive you mad. Push every button you’ve hidden. Probably make you feel too much. But you’ll know it’s real because being near them will feel like breathing for the first time.”
Henry wipes at his face.
Arthur watches him with infinite gentleness. “They’ll be kind to you. They’ll listen even when you don’t speak. And I hope, Christ, I hope, you let them in.”
“I’m not good at that,” Henry says quietly. “Letting people in.”
“You are. You just haven’t met the right person yet. Someone who doesn’t knock—just waits at the door until you feel brave enough to open it.”
Henry is crying again. Quietly. His knuckles are white where they grip the edge of the blanket, as if holding on to something he can’t name.
Arthur reaches out and takes his hand again.
“They won’t care what you tell the world,” Arthur whispers. “Only what you tell them.”
Henry doesn’t respond, can’t. There’s too much behind his rib—grief, love, fear. Things too big for language.
Arthur squeezes his hand. “Just promise me something.”
Henry meets his eyes, red with unshed tears.
“When they come—when it happens—don’t run from it. Let yourself have it. Even if it terrifies you.”
Henry nods. He can’t find his voice. But he nods.
And Arthur, with the last of his strength, lifts Henry’s hand and presses it to his lips. Gentle. Final. Fierce with love. “That’s my boy.”
He doesn’t say goodbye.
Just stays, for as long as he’s allowed.
The casket is draped in velvet, deep navy trimmed in regal gold. It gleams under the gray sky with a kind of cruel, stately elegance, as though it has forgotten it belongs to someone who used to hum off-key while making toast.
Henry stands still in full dress uniform, the weight of polished medals tugging at the fabric across his chest. The wind snaps at the edge of his collar. The church bells toll in the distance, slow and patient.
He doesn’t feel real.
Not here, not like this. Not amidst the black horses and braided reins, the polished boots, the sea of silent, solemn faces beyond velvet ropes. Not under the crush of tradition. Not with the relentless clicking of cameras cataloguing every angle of grief.
The performance of grief.
His hands are clasped in front of him, white-gloved and rigid. His jaw aches from the effort of keeping it clenched.
Somewhere, a bishop is speaking. Reading scripture in that practiced, palatial cadence. Words about dust, and eternity, and God’s plan.
Henry doesn’t hear him.
He hears his father.
“Life is not some neat little arc—it’s a mess of moments, it’s just of people finding pieces of themselves in other people, over and over again.”
The coffin begins to lower.
“When they come—when it happens—don’t run from it. Let yourself have it. Even if it terrifies you.”
Henry’s breath catches.
He remembers being eight—maybe nine—sitting cross-legged on the floor as Arthur knelt behind him and taught him how to tie a proper bowtie.
He’d looped the fabric once, twice, too tight. Henry had cried. Arthur had undone the whole thing and started again, voice low and patient.
“It’s alright to come undone. Start again as many times as you need.”
A twenty-one-gun salute cracks the air.
Henry doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t cry. His throat burns with the pressure of it.
His mother takes his hand. Her grip is cool and ceremonial, like a statue reaching out to another marble figure. Not unkind—just… distant.
Arthur’s hands are—were—always warm. Even in the end.
“You, Philip, Bea. You take care of each other, alright? And give your mum a kiss on the cheek from me when I can’t. And Christ, no matter what, remember to make her laugh. She has a wonderful laugh, son.”
Henry’s eyes drift up to the sky.
“You don’t have to carry me forever. Let me go…when it’s time. And let yourself live.”
The priest is saying something now. Commendation. Final blessing. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes.
Henry bows his head.
And under the weight of it all—the loss, the crown, the terrible ache of the future pressing in like frost—he feels something stir. A whisper beneath his ribs. A memory that holds its shape.
His father’s voice, steady and certain, even now.
“No one will ever love you as much as I do.”
Henry exhales.
And finally, coldness runs down his cheek.
Just for a moment, he lets go.
Let the grief be his.
Not the monarchy’s.
Not the country’s.
Not duty’s.
His.
The ballroom is a blur.
It’s too warm for tuxedos and too loud for real conversation. Cameras flash. String music hums in the corners, ignored and ornamental. Gaudy even. Delegates from a dozen countries glide around with champagne flutes in hands and faces pulled in overly polished smiles.
Henr—His Royal Highness, Prince Henry stands near a column in his formal suit, posture perfect, expression blank and hands clasped neatly behind his back in the way only years of royal discipline can teach. His shoes pinch, and his Windsor-knotted tie is suffocating like a noose and his collar scratches his neck, but he says nothing. Shaan hovers nearby with a calm expression and an ever-vigilant eye.
And then—
“Hey.”
The voice is sudden. Low. American. Already slightly out of breath, like it’s spent the entire time trying to run to catch up.
Henry turns slightly. Just enough. And his eyes are met with something illegal.
His world tilts, almost falls off the goddamn axis.
The boy in front of him is shorter than expected, golden-skinned, with dark curls in disarray and a half-buttoned collar like he only dressed up because someone made him. And beautiful, Henry’s traitor mind tragically supplies. There’s a glass of caipirinha in one hand and the other buried deep in the pocket of his trousers—tight pockets of tight pants. Christ, chinos.
Henry registers it with the clinical precision of a man about to fall off a very high ledge. His brain short-circuits somewhere between the curve of the boy’s wrist and the stretch of fabric across his thigh.
Henry is going to drool.
It is, objectively, a pocket. A hand. A pair of trousers.
And yet Henry feels perilously close to bloody losing it.
Because the boy isn’t doing anything—he’s just standing there, relaxed and unbothered, like his very existence isn’t a test of Henry’s composure.
And Henry—poor, doomed, publicly dignified Prince Henry—is going to absolutely lose his mind.
His smile could power a city, end wars, disarm nations…rewrite history. Henry tries not to visibly gulp.
“You’re Prince Henry, right?” the boy says, grinning. “Z’s flipping off somewhere so let me get this right. Your Majesty?"
Henry’s jaw ticks. The boy’s lucky he is cute. “It’s Your Royal Highness. Your Majesty,” he says tightly, “is reserved for the Queen.”
“Oh.”
“Mhm.”
He is lucky he is cute, Henry repeats.
The boy grins wider, unbothered. “Right. So, Your Royal Highness, then. That’s a mouthful.”
Henry blinks. He thinks of spiritual homicide. Or maybe the balcony’s not too shallow. He can throw himself off of it. If necessary. Because—Christ!
“Anyway, I’m Alex.” The boy continues, unperturbed, “First Son. I guess you could call me America’s backup prince, since, y’know, we don’t have one.”
Alex offers a hand. To shake obviously.
Henry stares at it. Stares at the hand; the hand which was just inside the pocket of his very tight pants, presumably warm, his brain unhelpfully supplies. Henry begs his brain to shut up.
There’s a pause.
Alex keeps smiling, clearly expecting conversation, still somehow convinced this is going somewhere.
But Henry offers nothing. He doesn’t know if he can even if he wants to.
Now Alex’s grin falters a little as he retrieves his hand with a slight air of bitterness.
“Didn’t think I’d get to meet you here,” Alex presses on but this time his voice has taken on a soft note. “Thought you were off doing top secret Royal things. You know, waving at parades and speaking Latin or something.”
Henry lifts his gaze, just barely, eyes flicking up to meet his—and immediately regrets it. Henry takes in the undone collar, the chinos, the caipirinha, the complete and utter disregard for spatial awareness and Henry thinks of the press; thinks of protocol; the protocol that has been ingrained into him since birth and he thinks—thinks of the fact that no one, absolutely bloody no one, has clearly subjected this boy—Alex, First Son, American, to so much as five minutes of basic media training.
It’s appalling.
It’s reckless.
And almost horrifyingly, Henry notes, he kind of finds it fascinating—almost endearing.
Alex shrugs. “No offense. It’s cool. I just didn’t think you were real. You’re like… those guys who show up on stamps. You exist, but also don’t.”
Henry blinks, slow.
“Anyway,” Alex says, taking a sip of his cocktail. “I like your suit. You look like a Bond villain. In the best way.”
And that’s all it takes. Henry feels like he has been doused in a bucket of cold water. It’s supposedly a harmless comment. It’s nothing—some throwaway words but it hits Henry harder than he thought it would to be reminded.
And Henry drowns in the cold water. He drowns in grief.
He quickly looks away.
The silence stretches between them like something physical. Thick. Unbreakable.
Alex exhales, laughing softly at himself. “Okay. Well. This was a very successful diplomatic mission.” He sounds defeated. Henry doesn’t blame him. He has tried. “I just thought maybe…” Alex breathes out, sounding disappointed, “I don’t know what I thought. But see you around. I guess?”
There’s a question. A hesitation. A door left ajar.
And that—that—Henry panics. It starts low and hot—behind his ribs, something catching fire. Because somehow, it starts to sound a lot like Alex expects more. A future that stretches past this room, past tonight.
And Henry—
Henry has never expected anything. He shuts the fucking door. Because he can’t spend another moment with Alex. Because Alex is so—
Alex is so….
Alex is vibrant.
Loud.
And alive.
He’s alive in a way Henry has never been allowed to be. Bright and reckless, like he has never checked the mirror before smiling, never measured the way his voice sounds in a room, never told what kind of boy he is allowed to be.
Alex is all brightness and belonging and bare-faced hope.
And Henry is…a devastation. A car wreck—mangled and bloodied beneath the immaculate polish.
And feeling… this, about someone like that—someone so bright, so unrestrained, so utterly fierce—is going to set Henry on fire.
It will ruin him.
He can already feel the shape of it in his chest: too big, too warm, too dangerous. And if he lets it sit there for even a second longer, he’s not sure he’ll be able to make it go away.
It’s too much. Everything is suddenly too much.
So, Henry does the only reasonable thing he can think of—he runs.
He turns slightly, voice clipped and too steady for how much he’s shaking inside, and murmurs to Shaan just loud enough, “Can you get rid of him?”
Alex freezes. The grin slips off completely.
Henry doesn’t look directly at him. He’s already turned back to the hors d’oeuvres table, a champagne flute dangling loosely from his fingers, as if studying canapés could somehow make him immune. As if pretense might protect him from the war just waged in the brief space between glances.
Alex doesn’t say more, but Henry swears he hears him mutter, “It was nice to meet you too, Your Majesty,” as he turns away, even though it wasn’t. It was anything but nice.
He shouldn’t look back.
He knows he shouldn’t.
But he does.
He sneaks a glance and sees Alex walking away. And for a fleeting second, the confidence peels back.
Underneath it—something raw. Something brighter. Something Henry isn’t supposed to notice.
But he does.
And it catches in him. Lodges behind his ribs like a spark desperate for oxygen.
And it shouldn’t matter.
But it does.
Alex halts a few feet away, two girls flanking him in conversation. He throws one last look over his shoulder, a glare sharp enough to draw blood. It’s everything but indifference. It’s everything Henry isn't allowed to reach for.
And just like that—
“There will come a day…”
Henry hears it like a whisper in the back of his mind.
“Someone who sees through all that quiet you wear like armor…”
His father’s voice. Years ago, in a quiet garden at Kensington. Teaching him not how to rule—but how to feel. Back before the world expected him to be a symbol. Before the weight sat so heavily on his name. Before the world expected him to be anything other than a boy.
Henry swallows hard, his throat burning like it's holding back the tide.
“…when someone walks into a room, and you’ll feel like you’ve known them before you even say their name.”
Back when they still talked like that. His father, not as sovereign, but as man. Telling truths before time made them dangerous.
He stares at Alex until he turns his attention back to the two girls, but the damage is already done.
Perhaps for the best.
The look of Alex—just for a second—felt like something cracking open different from the world Henry lives in.
Something real.
And standing there, Henry feels something he doesn’t have a name for yet. But it pulls at him, in the center of his chest. A dangerous, sparkling ache.
And when he watches Alex in conversation—messy curls bouncing as he laughs, all light and wild grace—he shouldn’t want to follow. Approach.
But he does.
And he knows he’s going to remember this.
That stupid smile.
That hand.
That look.
That freedom.
And the part of himself he already knows will never be allowed to chase it.
It’s warm.
Christ, it’s so warm.
It spreads beneath his palms, blooming out to the tips of his fingers. It hums low in his stomach, unspooling into his limbs, curling around his knees, spilling into his toes. A golden heat, languid and effervescent—like champagne has become blood and every vein sings with it.
It’s warm in his mouth.
In the press of lips against lips, in the shape of something forbidden made real for one impossible second.
Even the slight wind feels warm against him. And the world—God, the world has disappeared.
It’s dark, yes, but not lonely. Not now. It’s the kind of dark that feels celestial, velvet-black and scattered with starlight. Like space. Like floating. Like being unmoored from everything that ever mattered. Henry is weightless—dizzy and unthinking and alive in a way he’s never allowed himself to be.
It’s unreal.
And then—just like that—
It ends.
The warmth disappears as he staggers backwards, like he’s touched something he shouldn’t have—someone he shouldn’t have. His chest contracts with sudden dread as if his body knows—knows—he’s crossed a line he can’t come back from. As if he’s touched something sacred with unworthy hands.
Someone sacred.
Someone he should never have touched.
Alex stares, wide eyes, pupils blown, confusion painted across his face like a bruise. Lips parted, cheeks flushed from either the cold or—God help them both—the kiss.
He looks young like this. He looks utterly vulnerable and lost.
And Henry?
Henry feels like he’s just committed the greatest mistake of his life.
Because he kissed him.
He kissed Alex.
At fifteen minutes past midnight with the ghost of last year still clinging to their coats and mingling with the snowflakes that fall upon them. He kissed Alex on new years.
“Shit,” Henry curses, walking further back, wishing the distance can undo what he’s done. “I’m sorry.”
All at once, all the air’s been sucked out and he’s breathing wrong, too shallow or too much. His fingers twitch at his sides like they don’t know where to go as he hurries inside. His mind is a pinball machine, slamming around memories from just an hour ago, maybe less—
Alex, smiling under golden lights.
Nora’s hand in his.
The kiss. The one Alex gave her.
It slices through him now like a cruel joke. He saw it. He knows he saw it. They were laughing. She had her hand on his neck and Alex leaned in. Henry has watched, painfully. But he didn’t let the knife to his heart show. If there is one thing he knows it’s how to keep his facial expressions in order.
So why couldn’t he just—
Why would he think he could just—
“Christ, I’m such a fool,” he mutters under his breath. His throat feels raw, thick with shame.
He doesn’t know how to be here; doesn’t know what to do with himself—with his skin, with this night, with this version of himself that somehow managed to fuck up the most important thing in his life and shattered something so precious and now he doesn’t even know where to put his eyes.
He can’t look at Alex. Not now. Not when it’s written all over his face—that he wanted this. That he felt something. That he hoped for—
No.
No.
Don’t. Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t let it live, Henry.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Life is not some neat little arc—it’s a mess of moments, it’s just of people finding pieces of themselves in other people, over and over again.”
That wasn’t what his dad meant, because—
“Losing them.”
His stomach turns. Henry barely makes it past the door when his world is tipped sideways. He staggers. There’s sickness building up in his throat so he claws at his suit as if to peel it off. His throat burns and he gags. He almost throws up dry air, salt and grief.
The kiss—the kiss—still burns on his lips like an imprint of a wound on his mouth; like a brand screaming this is everything you can not have!
He was supposed to keep it buried, like always, pressed deep beneath duty and decorum. Quiet as if sealed off under centuries of practised silence. Locked so deep it would have left Alex guessing.
Now it’s shattered. All of it. Out in the open where it never should’ve lived.
Henry swallows down a noise that crawls up his throat—laughter? A sob? A scream? He doesn’t know.
He kissed someone who doesn’t want him.
Worse—he kissed someone who wants someone else.
Hoarsely, he coughs, before looking inside, searching for Pez. His eyes dart across the room, frantic now as his hands grip the edge of the door. Where is Pez?
He excuses himself through the crowd with breath still way too thin. People blur around him. Sequins and champagne—all of it too loud and absolutely none of it real. And then—thankfully, his friend, Pez, standing out inside the crowded hall with his newly dyed pastel pink hair and throwing his head back laughing.
“Hazza, my dearest, where’d you go?” Pez grins, a French 75 in one hand, cheeks flushed with leftover laughter and champagne bubbles. But it fades fast when he sees Henry. Because Pez has always known how to read Henry.
At public events. At home. His cocoon phase. All the real parts. All the parts hidden under the shining armour.
But this? This isn’t one he’s seen before.
Henry’s face doesn’t match the party around them. Doesn’t match him.
He looks gutted. Henry’s still struggling for air, trying to find a way to hold himself together with trembling hands and sickness twisting inside his chest.
He opens his mouth to answer.
Nothing comes out.
He shakes his head once, sharp. Like words are too dangerous, too fragile to touch right now. And Pez is moving before the silence even finishes falling.
Gone is the easy grin, the party-boy charm. His eyes narrow, soft and alert all at once, like someone just yanked the fire alarm in his chest.
“Henry.” His voice drops low, close, threading between the thump of music and the chatter around them. “Tell me. What is it?”
Henry swallows again, hard. He doesn't answer.
“Losing them.”
Henry feels like drowning. So, his fingers find Pez’s wrist and he holds onto it very tightly.
“We need to get out of here.” That’s all he says. Barely more than a whisper. But it’s enough.
Pez nods before Henry can even finish the sentence.
“Alright. Let’s go.” He doesn’t ask for more. He will scorch earth if Henry asks him to. Just Pez—steady, real. The same best friend who held him tight when grief had swallowed Henry’s family whole, including him.
They push through the crowd together, Pez keeping a hand on Henry’s shoulder like it’s anchoring them both. Henry doesn’t look back. He doesn’t dare. Not toward the garden. Not toward the boy he kissed under fireworks. Not toward the part of himself he just let slip out for a second too long.
They reach the coat room. The hallway. The door. And air hits Henry like a slap, but it’s cleaner now. Cold, yes—but real. Honest.
Not warm.
Anything but warmth. He starts walking, not knowing where. Just away.
Pez jogs to catch up, zipping up his coat with one hand, the other already pulling out keys. “The car is down the corner.”
Henry doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking, head down, breath still ragged.
Away.
Away.
Away.
And away, until Pez grabs him by the arm and pulls him back into the tragic reality.
The car unlocks with a chirp. “This is us,” Pez says.
Henry nods, dazed and apologetic, but Pez has already opened the door before Henry can get to it. He slides into the backseat and immediately curls in on himself, presses his forehead to the window, letting the cold glass bite into his skin.
It’s the only thing that doesn’t feel like a mistake.
The engine hums to life but the car doesn’t move.
Instead, Pez flicks the heater on, letting the silence bloom inside the vehicle. No music, no small talk, the silence gathers like fog on a windowpane. Pez’s hand rests idly on the gear shift.
Watching.
Waiting.
Henry doesn’t move. His breaths are still coming ragged. Not unsteady enough to draw attention from strangers, but fast enough that Pez notices. Pez always does.
“You’re not okay, mate,” he says softly. “You don’t have to tell me why, not yet. But you’re not okay.”
Henry squeezes his eyes shut. And there it is again—the kiss, the panic, the way Alex had looked at him like maybe he wasn’t horrified, but maybe he was. And the kiss with Nora. And the warmth. And how stupid Henry was for hoping. How stupid—
“Did he do something to you?” Pez asks, voice careful now. It’s not suspicion, it’s protection.
Henry flinches. Shakes his head—hard. Too fast.
“No. It’s not—” His voice gives out halfway through. He clears his throat. “It wasn’t like that.”
Pez waits a beat. He doesn’t push.
And then, quietly, “Do you want to go home?”
Henry nods. Then, a second later, shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he rasps.
And God, it’s the truest thing he’s said all night. He doesn’t know where he belongs right now. Not at the party. Not at home, either, where the silence might feel like punishment. The plane ride even more so. Like confirmation that this—that he—was a mistake.
“When they come—when it happens—don’t run from it…”
Henry flinches, guilt fills him further.
Pez watches him carefully.
“Okay,” he says. “Then we’ll just drive.”
“Where?” Henry asks hoarsely, lifting his head from the window just enough to glance sideways.
“To somewhere,” Pez corrects gently. “Until your brain catches up to your heart. Or the other way around.”
Henry exhales slowly. It trembles on the way out. He looks into Pez’s eyes, his best friend for years, and whispers, “I kissed him, Pez.”
Pez blinks.
Henry’s throat tightens. “I kissed Alex.”
Pez nods once. Not surprised. Not judgmental. Just present.
“Okay,” he says again, like it's not the end of the world.
Even though to Henry, it feels exactly like that.
“I saw him kiss Nora,” Henry adds, the syllables jagged, like he is chewing glass to get the words out. “Earlier. Before. I saw him. And I still—Christ, I still—”
His voice catches. “I thought maybe—just for a second—I thought maybe he’d…” Henry trails off. “And now I don’t know what I’ve done.”
There’s silence. Pez nods. Once, twice. And then he gives half a shrug, and says, very simply, “You did something brave.”
Henry lets out a sharp, miserable breath. “I did something stupid.”
Pez doesn’t argue. He just studies Henry, quiet and sharp-eyed. That’s when it first hits him that Pez—champagne and cocktail drinking Pez, is behind the steering wheel.
Henry squints at him, “Are you supposed to drive?”
“Of course not, strumpet, but wouldn’t want you to spill the beans to everyone now, would we?”
Henry huffs—more breath than laugh, tired and sharp around the edges. “Where’s our security detail?”
“Probably still lurking near the canapés,” Pez mutters, switching the car to autopilot with an elegant flick. “Or they’ve decided to unionize and give us five minutes of dignity.”
A pause, before he gives Henry a light pat on the leg and says, “Care if I join you back there?”
Henry waves a hand to the seat next to him.
Just as Pez climbs back into the backseat, a man in a suit slides in. “Oh, hello…Martin?” Pez pipes up. The man grunts so Pez amends, “Sorry, Robert. Drive us to the edge of the world, please, or until Washington DC fails to make sense.” The man grunts. “You are certainly a joy, Robert. Just drive us to my flat. I’m feeling delicate—
“It’s the gin,” Henry supplies.
“—and I’m pretty certain I got a bottle hidden underneath the sofa.”
Ten minutes later, they are side by side in the hush of leather seats and as the city lights blur past the windows, Pez glances at Henry and breaks the silence, “It can be both stupid and brave.”
Henry tenses. He shakes his head, too fast. “Don’t,” he breathes. “Please don’t make it worse.”
“I’m not,” Pez says, voice low but firm. “I’m just saying… there’s no one right version of the story yet. You only know yours.”
Henry doesn't answer. He sees the stars beyond the city lights.
But he hears. Losing them, he shudders.
“I’ll leave,” Alex says, “as soon as you tell me to leave.”
They’ll drive you mad, Arthur had said.
“Alex.”
Push every button you’ve hidden…
“Tell me you’re done with me,” he continues. “I’ll get on the plane. That’s it. And you’ll live in your tower and be miserable forever, write a whole book of sad fucking poems about it. Whatever. Just say it.”
Probably make you feel too much.
“Fuck you.”
Henry can’t do this anymore. He can’t breathe. Maybe this is what dying feels like—
“Tell me,” Alex says, “to leave.”
But being near them will feel like breathing for the first time.
And Henry moves before he thinks. His hands find Alex’s chest and his palms are splayed over his heartbeat—lub-dub, lub-dub—threaded like a pulse through the prose of their existence.
Henry crashes into Alex like a tidal wave.
Hard and hot—his mouth is on Alex.
It’s hot. It’s scorching. It’s all teeth and tongue.
And Henry can breathe again.
“Let yourself have it, Henry. Let it in. Even if the world’s watching.”
The gravel crunches beneath Henry’s shoes as he walks the winding path lined with yew and elm, each step softened by moss and silence. The air is thick with stillness, the kind that settles over centuries. The kind that listens.
He has crossed the wrought-iron gates etched with crests and Latin—memoriae aeternum—and entered the secluded royal graveyard, hidden on the far side of the estate. No tourists here. No cameras. Just the dead, and those they leave behind.
In the center, circled by a still lake and weeping willows, rises a domed stone mausoleum. Regal. Cold. Untouched.
Henry stops before the last stretch of path. For a moment, he can’t move.
Behind him, a man—his soulmate, his everything, stands with his hands buried deep in his pockets. They aren’t chinos, Henry muses. The breeze flutters the collar of Henry’s coat.
He walks.
The tomb bears no name carved in arrogance but in adoration.
His Royal Highness Arthur Fox, Prince of Wales
Cherished Son, Devoted Husband, Loving Father, and Celebrated Actor
1962-2015
“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
Henry stands before his father’s grave. He reaches out, reverently and rests his palm against the cold, unyielding stone. “Dad—” he sniffs, “It has been a long time. I’m so sorry. It is just…” Henry trails off, the wind rustling his hair. “I have been in New York. All this time.” He shifts his weight, adjusts the sleeve of his coat, fingers fidgeting with a loose thread. “You are probably wondering how? Yes, well. I wonder the same sometimes.”
Henry clears his throat. The wind picks up. “I am getting married,” he says, “I will have a husband. Sometimes—Dad, sometimes I don’t even know how it happened. How…” he breaks off, “But I am happy. I am very happy. Alex makes me happy.”
He pauses and glances over his shoulder for just a second, where Alex stands a few steps behind smiling, waiting, watching. “And that is my fiancé, Alex,” he says, with a faint smile that’s more habit than ease. “Loud, brass, American—he is everything Gran resents in one defiant, incandescent package.” Henry laughs, a bit too loudly, “I love him,” Henry says, softer now, “So much that it scares me sometimes. Like my ribs weren’t built to hold this much feeling.”
Henry’s eyes glisten, “Sometimes, I think…it's wishful thinking but I think if you had a hand in it. Maybe you saw how hollow I was becoming and sent him to me. And like a storm, fire and noise, he knocked the dust off me and knocked me off my feet.”
There’s a silence that settles after that—not empty, but full. Of names unspoken, of years that passed too quickly. Of a thousand things Henry wishes he’d said sooner. “You know, I almost ran away,” he huffs, “I didn’t hold all my promises. I did run. And I did hurt him. And me…I suppose. It was terrifying.”
His voice drops to a whisper.
“But Alex…Christ, Alex wasn’t the kind to knock. Actually,” he chuckles quietly, “he wasn’t the kind to wait either. He’s the fierce kind. The fierce kind to scream and bang and…and fight. For me. For us.”
He exhales.
“And he thinks mum is a laugh, Dad,” Henry chuckles wetly, “He remembers to make all of us laugh. Even Pip. He makes mum laugh. She still has a wonderful laugh, Dad. And he told me I have a wonderful laugh too. Dad he—” he chokes out, “he makes me laugh.”
Tears stream down Henry’s face. Red-rimmed eyes look back at Alex’s solemn figure, pauses and then he looks back at the tombstone. “I’m getting married over this weekend to the love of my life. And I miss you, I wish you were here.” Henry takes a deep breath and smiles, tears running down his cheek. “I will be walking down the aisle. Gran resented the idea, of course. She made her feelings clear in all the ways she knows how—sharp silences, clipped tradition and narrowed eyes.”
Henry breathes in the cold air, letting it fill the space between the living and the dead. “But I did not bend to it. Not this time. I didn’t.” He pauses, “She'll never understand. Not really. She won't understand that I’m done running away. Done shrinking myself to fit into the quiet palaces and shadowed hallways. I’ve spent too long turning away from everything good and bright and mine. Alex,” he laughs, “told me it’s okay to stop running. He taught me to fight. Taught me to stay. He is so stubborn. He held me in his arms and made sure I knew that running away this time wasn’t an option. He fought for us.”
Henry takes a long breath. A trembling smile and he says, “Years ago, I made you a promise. I broke it so many times. Too often and too much. But when I marry Alex in front of the entire world this weekend, I will keep your promise. This time, I will keep your promise.” Henry closes his eyes, “You told me to have it. This is me, your son, Henry. I am letting myself have it. Even if it absolutely terrifies me. I am letting myself have it.”
There's a heavy silence in the air as the wind rustles the trees, but for the first time, it feels like a soft embrace.
That’s my boy.