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All right, I’m listening.”
Hes so sweet Im gonna CRY
“It sounds like you did your best.”
He just … Well, he gets told he’s great a lot. He just doesn’t often get told he’s good enough.
“Oh my God, Alex,” she says, lunging at him to yank him into a rough hug, “you made a friend!”
It’s time once more for the Legendary Balls-Out Bananas White House Trio New Year’s Eve Party.
“Alex, I don’t—” “Here,” Alex says, moving his own hips, “watch me.” With a grave gulp of champagne, Henry says, “I am.”
“Oh my God, Henry,” Alex yells, seizing Henry by one lapel as the music pounds on, “you have to dance. You have to dance. You need to understand this formative American coming-of-age experience.”
“Did that man just say ‘sweat drop down my balls’?”
His knuckle brushes the back of Alex’s hand at their sides, a little zip of warmth in the cold night.
“You can’t ever leave well enough alone, can you?”
Nope :)
maybe it would be helpful if Henry could take what he can handle, and Alex could handle the rest. Maybe he can absorb some of the “much” from the place where their shoulders are pressed together.
“D’you ever wonder,” he says slowly, “what it’s like to be some anonymous person out in the world?”
Henry shakes his head ruefully. “I’d be a writer.”
“The options I’d like…” he says, dragging the words out. “They don’t quite seem to be options at all.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Alex says. “You don’t?” “No.” “You really don’t?” “I really, really don’t.”
“Christ, you are as thick as it gets,” he says, and he grabs Alex’s face in both hands and kisses him.
AAAAAAH
“Oh,” Alex says finally, faintly, touching one hand to his lips. Then: “Shit.”
But beneath it all, there’s the Prince of England kissing him under a linden tree in the garden, moonlight in his hair, and Alex’s insides feel positively molten, and he wants to throw himself down the presidential stairs.
He feels like a dog that has to be taken on walks to get his energy out. Especially when June says, “You’re like a dog that has to be taken on walks to get his energy out.”
Straight people, he thinks, probably don’t spend this much time convincing themselves they’re straight.
But he thinks about Henry, and, oh. He thinks about Henry, and something twists in his chest, like a stretch he’s been avoiding for too long.
Theyre in love your honor
he stems the bleeding with a Captain America Band-Aid from his bathroom cabinet.
Thats so cute
He needs a list. So: Things he knows right now. One. He’s attracted to Henry. Two. He wants to kiss Henry again. Three. He has maybe wanted to kiss Henry for a while. As in, probably this whole time.
Henry, who knows him. Henry who’s seen him in glasses and tolerates him at his most annoying and still kissed him like he wanted him, singularly, not the idea of him.
“Aren’t you from Texas?” she says through her mouthful. “I’ve seen you shotgun a bottle of barbecue sauce.
Alex forces a laugh. “So, knowing me as well as you do—” “In the biblical sense.” “Numbers on me being into dudes?”
“Prince Henry is a biscuit,” Nora says, “let him sop you up.”
do not interrupt me—and
Let the queen speak
“Alex,” she says. “He likes you. He’s freaking out. You’re gonna have to decide how you feel about him and do something about it. He’s not in a position to do anything else.”
His footsteps stutter, as if he’s thinking of making a run for it. Alex is not above a flying tackle.
God I fucking love Alex
He’s not even into British accents. He’s into Henry’s British accent.
“Shut up, shut all the way up, oh my God,” Alex hisses, and if he weren’t already hell-bent on destroying Henry’s infuriating idiot face with his mouth right now, he would consider doing it with his fist.
“I’m going to die,” Henry says helplessly. “I’m going to kill you,” Alex tells him. “Yes, you are,” Henry agrees.
He hears Henry swallow. He wants to follow the sound down his throat.
Alex is. Well, Alex is probably losing his mind.
Me too babe
He doesn’t, he reminds himself, even have feelings for the guy. Really.
For sure.
There’s something different about the way he’s kissing now—it’s measured, deliberate. Soft. Alex isn’t sure why, or what to do with it.
“You were jealous,” Alex says. “You want me.”
he says in a low and deadly voice Alex has never heard from him before, “Yes, you preening arse, I’ve wanted you long enough that I won’t have you tease me for another fucking second.”
Lord have mercy
There’s something about the two of them, the way they ignite at different temperatures, Alex’s frenetic energy and Henry’s aching sureness.
He kisses Henry until it feels like he can’t breathe, until it feels like he’s going to forget both of their names and titles, until they’re only two people tangled up in a dark room making a brilliant, epic, unstoppable mistake.
“Well, come on, Your Highness,” Alex says, shifting his weight to give Henry a last tease before he stands. “You’re a dick,” Henry says, but he follows, smiling.
“Quit stalling,” Alex says, pointedly interrupting the moment. “Bossy,” Henry says, and he complies.
He opens his eyes to see Henry bringing his hand demurely up to his elegant royal mouth to spit on it.
Oh MY goodness
“Do you ever stop talking?” Henry says. “Such a mouth on you.”
Consider me deceased
Henry is speechless again, looking as if he can’t believe his fucking luck. “Okay. Of course.”
Henry drops his head back on the pillow and groans something that sounds like “fucking eyelashes.”
Alex doesn’t know or care what sounds or words come out of his mouth. He thinks one of them is “sweetheart” and another is “motherfucker.”
He’s blissed out, dead. Ascended to the next plane, merely a pair of eyes floating through a dopamine haze.
He’s sure he used to know quite a lot of words, in more than one language, in fact, but he can’t seem to recall any of them.
