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Worse things could have happened on the day of his mother’s inauguration as the first female President of the United States. Logically, Alex knows this.
But as he sits on the floor of his ensuite bathroom, shivering and dripping blood from at least three wounds, he’s really not sure there could be.
It turns out January 20, 2017 is also Alex’s Gooseday.
—
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Zahra whisper-screeches into the phone.
“It’s my fucking Gooseday, you fucking heard me,” Alex whispers. He can still hear the hissing from the other side of the bathroom door.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“I can tell you with 100% certainty that yesterday I had no goose, and today goose.”
By this point, Alex has made it to his feet, albeit shakily, and is staring into the bathroom mirror. Thank god he’d managed to grab his phone before locking himself in here. He surveys the damage: one scratch above his eyebrow, bleeding profusely; one scratch across his forearm, which would have likely been his face if not for some lizard-brain level of self-preservation that kicked in at the last moment; another gash dripping from his calf where the goose had bit him as he ran for safety.
There’s silence on the other end of the line.
“Zahra?”
“I’m still here. Just trying to figure out how you managed to create a literal manifestation of my worst nightmares.”
“This is not my fault!”
“Like fuck it isn’t. How am I supposed to incorporate a goose, much less your spawn-of-Satan goose into today’s schedule? Hmm?”
“You haven’t even met my goose yet!”
The sounds of a demonic squeaky toy echoes through the tiled room. The goose has jammed its bill under the door and is shrieking at Alex. The screech activates the part of Alex’s lizard-brain that fears dinosaurs and remembers birds are not that many evolutionary steps away.
“Well, I’ve met you kid, there can’t be much difference,” Zahra says. “Jesus, is that it? What are you doing to it?!”
“Nothing! Hiding! It already got my face once, now will you please send someone to take care of it.”
“Alex.” Zahra’s voice takes on a quality that means she is methodically going through a mental list of all the ways she can kill Alex and leave the country before anyone finds out. He knows about this list. She likes to recite it to him when she thinks he needs to be kept in line. “Don’t make me explain to you how a soulmate goose works. You know the fucking drill. We just can’t do it today.”
Alex sighs. He does know the rules. When you get your goose, you are supposed to a) survive your first encounter and b) follow your goose as it leads you to your soulmate.
And today is not a day he can do that.
“Fine. What are we going to do instead?”
“I’ll think of something,” Zahra says, exasperated. “Gimme ten.”
—
Zahra’s solution is Cash. Not actual money, as Alex initially assumed. You can’t pay off a soulmate goose. They don’t respond to reason, safety, or love. Ironic, really.
Cash turns out to be a very large and very calm bodyguard. He’s wearing a suit with a welder’s apron layered on top, thick leather welder’s gloves, and a welder’s face shield.
When Alex is finally allowed to leave the bathroom, he finds his room a complete wreck. Furniture lies broken, bloodstains artfully decorate the sheets and carpet (his blood, Alex thinks distantly), and Cash is on the floor pinning down Alex’s goose.
Alex feels an instinctive pull to rescue his goose but only makes it a step closer before the bird honks aggressively at him.
“Well, fuck,” Alex says.
—
The inauguration is, in a word, a shit show. A goose-shit show, Alex numbly thinks to himself. He’s too tired, angry, and injured to even laugh at his own joke.
There’s only so much that makeup can do to cover up Alex’s actively bleeding wounds, and his face is the most photographed piece of the entire debacle.
What’s worse is that Alex has a literal Prince tell him just how awful he looks.
Alex is standing to the side of another receiving line as people progress through, both congratulating his mother and attempting to steer clear of Alex and his honking, hissing demon-spawn of a goose.
Cash is now permanently assigned to Alex as PPO & Goose Wrangler (an official title that is now part of recorded US history, Alex fumes. Great, exactly how he wants to be remembered in the history books). Cash is standing behind and to the side of Alex, holding the goose in a full-body grip, which is only partially minimizing the threat. Taking the goose farther away from Alex only resulted in hospital visits for two other PPO that morning.
Zahra tried to put an American Flag bandana around the goose’s neck (“Literally anything to make this something the voters will get behind,” she’d said) but all she’d gotten for her efforts was a scar of her own.
Alex is trying to look calm and put together even as the bandage over his eye itches and he feels his leg wound oozing. He shudders every time he hears the goose behind him and he’s honestly not paying attention when a figure steps in front of him.
Alex looks up and blinks. His shocked stare is met by bright blue eyes disdainfully looking down at him. An eyebrow on that perfectly sculpted face quirks up.
“Alex Claremont-Diaz, I presume?”
“Yeah, uh, yes. That’s me.” Alex flinches as he hears an even louder honk from the goose behind him. Several (probably very important people with whom Alex would have liked to make a good impression) glance over before hurrying away from the imminent bloodshed.
“Prince Henry,” the man introduces himself and Alex nearly has to physically grab his eyeballs to stop them from rolling back into the last century. Fucking royalty.
“Are you too good for a last name?” is the only thing Alex can think of in reply.
“Ah, no, I have several, but it feels a bit pretentious to say them all out loud.” Henry pauses, eyeing the goose behind Alex that has started to make alarming noises now that a prince is in his presence. At least that’s one thing Alex and his goose have in common: shared hatred of the monarchy and any other forms of government dictated by inheritance and nepotism.
“Pardon me, I did not realize you had a… situation going on today. Happy Gooseday, is it?”
“Oh, this?” Alex gestures a bit frantically behind him at the goose and beleaguered Cash, who’s now grunting with the strain of holding Alex’s goose back from causing an international incident. “This is fine. Everything’s fine.”
Henry looks skeptically over Alex, eyes taking him in from head to toe. “Your face doesn’t look fine.”
Alex has had it nearly to here today and this is the last straw. It must show on his face.
Henry, the Prince, looks stricken. “I’m–my apologies Alex, I—”
“Sorry, is something wrong with my face?” Alex smiles with too many teeth. He’s bandaged, he’s bloody, and he’s being haunted by an increasingly loud malevolent spirit of a demon trapped inside the too-small body of a goose. Sarcasm is just the cherry on top.
“N–no, your face is fine, as always,” Henry stammers.
“Huh?” Alex is genuinely thrown by this. “So is my face fine or not fine?”
“Fine, perfectly fine. Nice face, nice goose.”
At this Henry peeks over Alex’s shoulder for the first time and said goose makes a noise that will legitimately haunt Alex in therapy for years to come. Henry’s face pales, color draining away as he and the goose begin what is possibly the strangest staring content outside of Grimm’s fairy tales. Where else do Princes and geese throw down? Apparently here, in the fucking White House.
Alex looks between the two of them. The goose is now pumping his head up and down, which definitely doesn’t seem like a good sign. Henry looks like he’s either going to faint or throw up.
“Um,” Alex says. “I think my goose hates you?”
“Right. Of course. Hate. That’s the feeling. I’ll just be going then?”
Henry runs for the door before Alex can say another word, and it’s thankfully not a moment too soon because the goose behind him manages to poke Cash in the eye with a feather and make a violent break for freedom. Henry makes it out of the room before back-up is called.
In the end, it takes three more PPO to tackle the goose to the ground and, somehow, it’s still not the worst day of Alex’s life.
Happy fucking Gooseday indeed.
—
The problem with Alex’s goose is that it doesn’t actually want to lead him to his soulmate.
Given that this is the entire point of a soulmate goose, Alex is pissed. Mostly, the goose follows him around, hissing and snapping at anything and anyone, but especially Alex. It seems that Alex isn’t meant to find his soulmate. He’s just supposed to suffer at the beak of a deliriously vicious fowl.
His mother’s powerpoint on the entire issue does not make the situation, or Alex’s mood, any better. Alex sits through over an hour of “Your Goose & You,” including slides such as: “Take a Gander at Finding The One,” “Fast & Goose: Evasive Maneuvers for Air and Land,” “Critical First-Aid,” and, unfortunately, “Give us the Bird! (The Media & Your Goose).”
The media is, of course, having a field day. Primus Goose (a nickname even Alex has to begrudgingly admit is pretty clever) and the First Son are a national sensation. If he weren’t being molested by the creature at every opportunity, Alex might enjoy being in the spotlight. But not like this.
There is a GooseWatch twitter account that follows his every move. There are weekly pundit shows discussing the apparent failure of the First Son to find his soulmate. There are online quizzes you can take to find out if you might be Alex’s missing soulmate.
Once the media realizes his goose isn’t actually going anywhere, rumors start flying. Conspiracy theories abound. He has literal swarms of people, mostly women, show up on the White House lawn, like some sort of perverse dystopian Cinderella where they all think that maybe his soulmate has to come to him to deliver the kiss that will release Alex from this feathery hell. On those days Alex stays inside and tries to avoid getting another scar from Primus.
As much as his goose hates Alex, Primus does seem to like his sister June and their best friend Nora. Alex has tried kissing Nora, hoping that because his goose likes her that she could be the one. She’s a good friend. They’ve dated before.
But no luck. One kiss and Primus went for his shins.
The bruises take a week to fade.
—
“You know, Alex,” Nora says one day while they’re all sprawled across June’s bed. “They say that the more aggressive the goose, the more repressed the person.”
“Who the fuck says that?”
“People. And based on your goose, I’d give you 87% odds that you are fucking repressed.”
Alex scoffs. There’s no reasoning with his goose or with Nora’s numbers.
“Look, not everyone has a Gooseday as easy as yours.”
During a sleepover about a month prior June and Nora woke up with an adorable tiny gosling snuggling on a pillow. After a brief series of candid photos which, naturally, went fucking viral, they kissed to seal the deal and then carried on with life as usual.
“What’s even going on between you two?” Alex asks indignantly, waving a hand between his sister and his ex-girlfriend-slash-best friend.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Nora waggled her eyebrows.
“Ugh, no. On second thought, leave me the fuck out of it please.”
Nora rolls over and looks at Alex, who is now glaring at Primus. The goose in question is sitting in the corner, seething. As geese do.
“So what is it Alex? Why don’t you want to meet your soulmate?”
“Trust me, I would if I could. But Primus won’t fucking take me to her. He just sits there, subsisting solely on spite and my own flesh and blood.”
June and Nora exchange a glance. A shuffling sound comes from the corner and their heads whip around in unison. Primus’ beady eyes are locked on Alex and he’s pumping his head up and down; a sure sign of danger.
“Alex—” June starts to say, but Alex is already off the bed and out the door.
“I know, no goose-related violence in your room,” he calls over his shoulder, hustling for the stairs.
Primus releases a battle cry and waddles after Alex.
—
After Alex departs, Nora rolls back over to June.
“He’s a disaster. When do you think he’ll figure it out?”
June sighs. “I can only hope soon. But knowing Alex? Probably never. We just have to hope his soulmate is smarter than him.”
—
When the second year of his mother’s presidency rolls around, Alex thinks he and Primus have achieved an agreeable, if tenuous, alliance: Alex doesn’t try to kiss anyone and Primus only attacks him about 15 times per day. Alex is counting it as a win.
There is one, singular time that Primus makes a break for it. Alex is so shocked he nearly doesn’t follow, but Cash—scarred, tired Cash—raises his voice (the only time Alex ever remembers him doing so) and bodily picks Alex up and follows the goose.
“Holy shit, put me down,” Alex yells while squirming in Cash’s grip. He’s using a fireman’s carry, which is both demeaning and undignified for the First Son of the United States, no matter how many pictures of Alex fleeing a goose live on the internet, preserved for eternity in meme form.
“Not on your fucking life kid, this is our one shot, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred goose dollars, do not stop in free parking. Follow the goose. Find the soulmate. Give me peace.”
Alex finally negotiates his release and he, Cash, the goose, and a hastily scrambled contingent of PPO take to the streets of DC in a convoy of cars, with Primus’ head sticking out of a moonroof, leading them to Alex’s One True Love like a compass of love and eternal devotion and soul-rending rage.
Unfortunately, this is an extremely obvious ploy only made worse by Primus’ loud honking. By the time they’ve made it as far as Dulles International, the convoy is swarmed by a gaggle of paparazzi, journalists, and local residents who have been waiting for this exact moment like it’s the second coming of Christ and the Rapture is about to begin.
Alex can barely hear the roar of the crowd over his own heartbeat thumping his ears like a drum at a middle school orchestra concert—enthusiastically and out of rhythm.
The team soon realizes that a) they can’t just get on a commercial flight with the First Son of the United States for an unplanned international jaunt and b) they are being followed by a pack of feral journalists who will spin this story 87 different ways that will probably inspire Zahra to actually (finally) murder Alex in cold blood.
It’s Cash, giddy like a child at an arcade with a bagful of quarters, who devises the plan: his PPO and Zahra talk with TSA. The plan is to sneak Alex and his goose back into the airport, avoiding the crowds by heading straight for the tarmac. They’ll scoot around in one of those little golf cart things until Primus selects the flight meant for Alex.
Step 1: Release the goose.
Step 2: Follow the goose.
Step 3: Profit. (Or, in this case, finally stop living every day in the terrifying shadow of a murder-bird and maybe find someone Alex likes enough to kiss once.)
The plan works, praise be to the bird-gods. Cash has Primus bundled back into their car while Alex heads inside to the gate of the flight his soulmate goose chose for him.
Alex looks at the screen above the desk. It’s a nonstop flight with United, leaving at 10:06pm and arriving at LHR around 10:30am. London Heathrow.
Alex takes a deep breath. It can’t be that bad, can it? British accents are nice, even if the people who have them drink too much tea and can’t fucking season food worth shit.
In the dead of night, Alex and a small crew of PPO—along with Primus Goose—all get on a chartered private flight to London. They arrive and hustle into cars with tinted windows.
Cash and Zahra have taken to the entire venture like, well… like ducks to water. With the possibility of freedom from Alex’s goose on the horizon, they frantically throw together a plan.
They will pretend to be tourists. Cash will act like Primus is his goose (they’ve spent so much time together at this point, they’re practically wingmen) with Alex in tow. They will follow the goose around until Alex’s soulmate is discovered. Happily ever after. Cash can retire early with a healthy pension and a goose-free future ahead of him.
Unfortunately, the goose takes them to Kensington. As in, the palace.
Alex stands in front of the gates for far too long, every minute increasing the risk of paparazzi finding him.
“Fuck no.”
Zahra makes a stifled screaming noise. Cash sighs, reaching into his bag for the welder’s gloves.
“Nope, not doing it. This is some colonizer bullshit, and I can already feel several generations of ancestors trying to set it on fire.”
Alex begins walking away, and Primus is having none of it.
He gains a new scar that day, and spends the flight back to the colonies sulking.
—
It’s August of 2019 and Alex is sleeping. He thinks he’s safe, since Primus consented to being locked in his cage overnight. But instead he wakes up with a heavy weight on his chest and a beady bird eye staring at him.
He knows better than to make sudden movements. They have a several-minutes long staring contest before Primus opens his mouth, and drops a magazine on Alex’s chest.
It’s one of June’s magazines.
“What the—” Alex manages to get out before Primus is suddenly, violently shredding the magazine to pieces.
“Wait, no!” Alex shouts, grabbing for it. A page rips off in his hand. He glances down and sees one blue eye staring back at him, framed by pale skin, blond hair, and a hint of freckles. It’s an old picture of the Prince of England. Henry. Alex knows this picture by heart, because he used to sneak into June’s room and stare at it, wondering if he, too, might be in a magazine one day.
He remembers the pit of seething jealousy that formed when he realized how easy it must be for Henry, compared to Alex. With his perfect royal hair and beautiful blue eyes and a jawline that Alex could cut himself on if he got too close.
Primus snaps at his hand, drawing blood and irreparably tearing the picture again.
Alex is close to his breaking point. He’s had a murderously violent goose as his closest companion for over two years. He hasn’t heard of anyone else who’s had a goose for this long.
Primus gobbles the last of the magazine and eyes Alex like he’s thirsty for his first taste of blood that day.
“Just tell me what you want, goose. Literally, anything. I’ll do it. Just tell me,” he begs.
—
“Nope. I’m not doing that.” Alex tosses back the rest of his champagne. They’re at a Royal wedding, something that goes against at least 50 of Alex’s personal principles, starting with the excessive waste of taxpayer money, winding its way through meaningless heteronormative rituals, and ending somewhere with the outdated institution of the monarchy.
He’s also valiantly trying to stifle the memory in the back of his mind about that one time his goose led him here to London, to a fucking palace, and he is definitely not prepared for whatever goose-truth awaits him.
“Alex,” Zahra hisses at him, doing a fairly good impression of Primus. “This is an international event, for which you are representing the entire fucking United States of goddamn America and when I say talk, you say, ‘yes sir may I please have some more please sir.’”
“Really? A Dickens joke? Here?” Alex waves a hand at the opulence around them. He heard the wedding cake alone cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000.
“Now, Alex, or so help me, I will release your goose.” Alex knows it’s an empty threat. He is blessing every single ancient Roman goose-god he knows that Primus is quiet and well-behaved today.
Suspiciously quiet, now that Alex really thinks about it.
Zahra and Alex both look down at Primus, who is currently standing next to Alex, looking for all the world like a completely ordinary, regular goose.
They are not fooled.
Not even the tiny bowtie around Primus’ neck or the artful leash attached to his harness can hide what he truly is. A menace. A demon bird sent straight from the seventh circle of Dante’s hell as a personal torture and trial for Alex Claremont-Diaz.
Alex grimaces. “Fine.”
He grabs another flute of champagne, and begins to stalk his way over to where Prince Henry is hovering by the towering cake. His Royal Pain-in-the-Highness is silently sipping his own champagne and looking so calm and buttoned up and perfect that it makes Alex want to scream. He doesn’t. Barely.
It’s truly unfair that centuries of colonizer procreation has created someone this handsome, but it’s just the reality that Alex has to live with.
“Prince Henry!” Alex says too loudly, pasting on his most smarmy politician grin.
Henry has the decency to look nervous about this approach. He eyes Alex’s goose, who is placidly standing by Alex’s side.
“Er, hello again Alex. And goose.”
“This is Primus, you’ve met before.”
“Ah. A name. For your goose.”
“It’s not just any goose. It’s a soulmate goose. My soulmate goose. You’ve heard of those from your aloof seat on the throne?”
Henry appears to be lightly sweating now, and trying to take small steps away from Alex. “Yes, I have. Unfortunately I have not had the pleasure”— he says the word like it’s poison—”of receiving my own, but you seem, er. Happy? With yours?”
Alex does not know how to answer this. Happy is not a word he would use to describe Primus. Happy does not live in the same space-time continuum as Primus. Happy is something other people have. People who are princes who live in palaces and don’t have scars from goose-related second-degree assault.
“So what, you think you’re above it all? Falling in love? Soulmates? That’s just slosh for the rest of us commoners?” Alex shoots back. Henry is always just so… pretty. Perfect. Poised. And Alex hates it and wants to poke holes in that porcelain mask to see what will leak out.
That, and Alex is mad because his fucking goose seems to like Henry, sidling up next to him and even stroking his head against Henry’s leg. Henry looks terrified at this development, and keeps trying to back away.
“Er, no, I did not say that, precisely. Love is perfectly nice for people who can find it, I suppose.”
“Well maybe you just haven’t gone looking yet.”
Henry’s eye twitches and Alex watches rapturously as Henry’s throat swallows several times.
“Ah, did I hear my name?” Henry looks around wildly, probably seeking any marked EXIT signs, but Alex is clinging to this conversation with a tenacity that surprises even himself.
“No, really, Mr. Prince Charming, there’s no princess you want to sweep off of her feet? Not even a single modest tower you want to scale?”
Henry is already flushed and nervous, and jerks when Alex’s goose attempts to wrap his neck around one of Henry’s legs.
“What in God’s name is your fowl attempting to do to me, Alex?”
It’s the realization that Alex’s own demon-goose likes Henry better than he likes Alex that does it. That the goose can’t be bothered to do the one fucking job it has and instead exists solely to torture him physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
It’s a level of unfairness that has Alex nearly black out with frustration.
Alex is just about to tell Henry what he actually thinks about his stupid pretty face when the Prince tries to flee again. Without thinking, Alex reaches out to grab his shoulder.
He’s interrupted by the sound of his nightmares.
A bone-shattering honk echoes across the room, amplified somehow by his goose’s infernal rage and Alex jerks, yanking Henry’s shoulder on reflex to interpose himself between the Prince and Primus, but the goose takes fucking flight and knocks into them both, which in turns knocks them into the cake.
The giant, ostentatious, horrendously expensive wedding cake.
It’s a deluge of buttercream and misery.
It’s not the first, nor the last time Primus causes an international incident.
—
It’s three months later. If someone had told Alex a year ago that he would be forced to befriend a goddamn Prince of goddamn England because of a soulmate goose-related cake catastrophe, he would have released a shrill laugh and signaled for one of his PPO to remove that person from his sight immediately lest his goose get any fancy ideas. Unfortunately, that idea came to Primus all on his own.
So here Alex is, sitting in his bedroom and resentfully nursing a little glowing ball of heat in his core that flares up every time his phone dings and he sees a text from Henry. He feels seismic shifts across his body whenever he sees Henry’s name or picture pop up in the tabloids (Alex isn’t looking at them only for Henry, ok, it’s just important to keep up to date with the gossip).
Alex would also like to point out how unfair it is that Henry gets to exist and look like that in pictures when Alex has had a minimum of five make-up artists quit in the last month because “I didn’t sign up for this, I’m not a horror movie makeup artist and covering up a gash that big is not in my contract.”
It’s weird for Alex just how quickly pretending to be Henry’s friend turned into being Henry’s friend. At least, he thinks they’re friends. Probably.
This evening, Alex is furiously texting Henry. It’s Monday night of Thanksgiving week and there are developments in the goose department.
Alex has been thrice cursed. He’s perched on his bed, staring at the disaster in front of him. It’s of his own making. He can literally blame no one but himself.
Primus, his failure of a soulmate goose, has apparently found his own soulmate in the Thanksgiving Turkey (christened Cornbread) that Alex insisted upon hosting in his own room instead of a luxury suite at the Willard. He offered because a) gross government waste of taxpayer dollars, and b) he already has a fowl-appropriate cage permanently installed in his room because of Primus.
But now?
Regrets. Alex is full of them.
Alex & 🦢
did you know that 12-20% of geese pairings are gay
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
I was going to ask to what I owed the pleasure of our
correspondence this evening, but I am remarkably lost for words.
Alex & 🦢
turns out birds are pretty gay in general
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
I’m concerned. Should I be concerned?
What are you insinuating?
Alex & 🦢
buckle up buttercup, you’re about to go on a
David Attenborough style tour of geese and turkey
mating habits like you’ve never seen before
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
I can have Shaan call Zahra. Blink once if you’re
being held hostage, twice if they have guns
(doesn’t everyone in the colonies?), and
cough if this is all because of your goose.
Alex & 🦢
did you know that there’s actually a bisexual
goose in new zealand that fell in love with
a black swan named henry?
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
I’m not sure of the answer here. Aren’t birds
allowed to be gay? It’s not a crime.
Alex & 🦢
if there was ever a bird that lived by the
motto “be gay do crimes” it’s primus
especially now
but seriously, swan-henry and his lover
thomas the goose had 18 years together
and THEN they raised a family together
in a poly triad with another goose!!!
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
Projecting heteronormativity on birds is a human flaw, Alex.
Birds can be gay if they want to. They can leave your
heteronormative assumptions behind. Cause your birds
are gay and if they are gay, then they’re certainly bird-friends of mine.
Alex & 🦢
did you really just reference Safety Dance while I’m
having an actual, honest to god personal crisis right now
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
I am a man of many hidden depths.
...
One of which is a love for 80s dance hits.
Alex & 🦢
HOW LONG WILL I BE STUCK WITH PRIMUS HENRY?!!??!
I CANT DO ANOTHER 18 YEARS OF THIS, NOT NOW
NOT WITH CORNBREAD IN THE PICTURE
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
I’m sensing that I’m missing several important pieces of
information here.
Alex & 🦢
it’s pretty simple henry
geese are very gay & bisexual and apparently like to get around
Primus is a goose and there’s a turkey in my room
therefore I am cursed
HRH Prince Dickhead 💩
Answer your phone Alex.
Alex?
Alexander!!
ANSWER YOUR PHONE OR I’M CALLING ZAHRA
Alex finally caves and answers Henry’s call just as the amorous sounds of mingled gobbles and honks start giving him a headache.
“What the bloody hell is that noise,” Henry immediately says.
“That is the sound of my last shred of hope dying.”
“And to what do I owe the dramatic flair this evening?”
“Primus has found his soulmate.”
“What,” Henry sputters. Alex can’t blame him. It’s just as ridiculous as it sounds.
“Well,” Alex starts, and then explains the entire stupid scenario to Henry, who is literally crying with laughter by the end of it.
“I swear to fucking god Wales, this is not a joke! This is literally my life! My entire life, up in flames that will somehow not harm my goose because he is a literal product of hell and hellfire only makes him stronger.”
Henry is gasping now, barely able to breathe.
“You are such a dick.”
“I am going to refrain from making a very timely bird-related joke about that,” Henry wheezes.
“And that’s not even the icing on the cake,” Alex finishes. “Pun definitely fucking intended, by the way. They’re both males. The vet confirmed it on her last health check. So Primus is living his best gay life with his gay turkey lover, in the goddamn White House of the United States of America, probably having gay bird sex if that’s even possible, and I’m here, alone, goose-ridden and soulmateless.”
Henry makes a choking sound, before clearing his throat.
“Well, at least he’s able to have the person he loves.”
Alex sighs. “That makes one of us.”
“Alex, I don’t want to pry but–”
“I know what you’re going to ask and before you do, the answer is no. I have no idea. Primus only tried to lead me somewhere once and”—the memory of Kensington Palace flashes in Alex’s mind and he vaguely wonders if that’s where Henry is right now—“let’s just say it didn’t amount to much of anything.”
Henry is silent for too many seconds and the sound of cooing and rustling feathers fills the room.
“Are– Are they literally together right now?”
“Henry, you complete ass , yes for the last fucking time. This is my actual life right now. National Geographic should pay me to film this shit.”
Alex shoots off a picture in a text to Henry of the canoodling birds as proof, and Henry just responds: cute.
“Now, can you please talk to me about literally anything else? Distract me from my guaranteed lifelong suffering.”
A soft laugh echoes across the Atlantic, sliding straight into Alex’s bones and settling inside him. He doesn’t think too hard about it.
Henry does distract him, at least for a few hours. They talk about Henry’s pets and Alex’s fear of large birds, and Bake Off, and eventually Henry tells Alex to go to sleep.
Alex sends him one last picture of the two gay lovebirds, who’ve fallen asleep tangled around each other. Henry sends back a picture of himself in bed, surrounded by Jaffa cake wrappers and his dog tucked up against his side, and Alex feels a twisting in his stomach.
Henry looks so cozy and his bed looks so soft. The opposite of Alex’s bedroom, which is a constant battlefield, war waging between man and goose. Alex lays down to sleep, wondering what it would be like to be there with Henry, snuggled into bed with David and snacks and no goose to terrorize him.
God, he hasn’t had peace like that in years.
Alex smiles to himself. It would be just like a good old-fashioned sleepover. Like the kind he used to have with Liam before his mom ran for the presidency. Alex blushes at a memory, hiding his face in a pillow. Ok, maybe not exactly like a sleepover with Liam.
Alex falls asleep memorizing the shades of Henry’s face and the perfect sleepy rumple of his hair, lulled by the soft cooing of two very gay birds who found love against all odds.
—
By the time New Year’s Eve arrives, Alex is pretty sure he’d call Henry a friend. If you’d asked him four months ago how he felt about the younger Prince of England, his answer would have to be redacted for legal reasons related to threatening bodily harm upon a member of the British royal family.
But much to Alex’s dismay, it turns out Henry is actually… kind of wonderful. He’s not at all what Alex thought he would be. He’s witty and nice, and deeply passionate about many things, and he has quite a mouth on him.
Alex is now living in two time zones, his and Henry’s. He knows when Henry wakes up and when he goes to bed because his texts are the first and last things he sees every day. His phone is full of pictures he’s sent to Henry (Primus and Primus-related wounds on Alex), and images he’s received in return (David, usually accompanied by Henry in various states of undress depending on the time of day). If Alex stares at those pictures a little too long, it’s just because David is scrumptiously cute.
The upside of this new schedule is that Primus is unusually extremely well-behaved whenever Henry’s on a call or Facetime with Alex, which has made Alex’s life considerably more bearable these last few months, and probably has led to the increasing number of hours he spends a day glued to his phone, talking to royalty an ocean away. Alex is chalking it up to Primus’ new love interest, Cornbread the turkey.
Well, and the fact that Henry’s voice is the only magical balm that can soothe Primus when he’s on a murderous rampage. Alex has called Henry more than a few times (several dozen if he’s being honest) just to have the Prince talk down his soulmate goose.
So he and Henry are friends now. Good friends, even. But Henry’s friend Pez? He is something else. He waltzes into the White House decked out in a silk bomber jacket that’s a riot of colors, leading two… peacocks? Alex blinks. But no, there are definitely two actual peacocks on silver chains leading Pez into the room. Henry stands back, smirking as he watches Pez approach June and Nora.
Both women turn, squeal over the peacocks, and then make introductions. Alex can’t really process what’s happening as June and Nora lean in and each give Pez a kiss on the cheek.
The peacocks vanish in a cloud of glitter.
“No fucking way,” Alex snarls.
“Well, that was quite a show,” Henry mutters from next to Alex.
“Do you even know how rare it is to get two soul geese?”
“Those weren’t technically geese–”
“I know what I saw, Wales, no need to fucking rub it in.”
“How long did he even have them?”
“Oh maybe a couple days?” Henry muses while Alex sputters.
Henry gives Alex a soft smile, shaded around the edges with something Alex wishes he could identify beyond just tense. “Some people are just lucky, Alex. And then there’s the rest of us.”
The party celebrating the arrival of 2020 is wild. There’s glitter and lights and the music is so loud Alex feels like it’s vibrating in every cell of his body. Henry is drinking straight from a champagne bottle and Alex keeps looking at his long fingers curled around the neck of the bottle, the way Henry’s mouth quirks to the side when he’s amused, how Henry’s body—lithe and strong from years of fucking polo—moves to the music.
If Alex is honest, he’s drinking to forget. But if he’s being really honest, he’s drinking to be brave.
He gets progressively drunker, gyrating on the dance floor with Nora and June and their new (partner? friend? lover?) Pez when Alex looks over and catches Henry’s eyes on him. He smiles and Henry gives an approximation of a smile back.
He wiggles over to Henry and pulls him into the swirling crush of bodies.
“You gotta get your groove on, Wales,” Alex yells into Henry’s ear.
Henry gives him a tight smile.
“Where’s your better half?” Henry yells back.
“Fuck you.”
“No seriously, I haven’t seen Primus in hours.”
Alex rolls his eyes and points to a special stage erected along one wall. There, Primus struts regally, honking in time to the music and occasionally nuzzling a very large turkey lounging on a cushion.
“Living his best gay life, remember?”
Henry jerks, spilling champagne on Alex’s shirt.
“What the fuck, Henry?”
“Sorry, I— I need to go. Get some air. You’re— it’s hot in here.”
Henry spins on his heel and weaves his way through the revelers, heading for the door.
Alex feels cold, even with all the people, even with the alcohol buzzing his system. It’s like an arctic breeze slips in through the cracks and freezes his organs.
And even over the bass beat he hears it. The ominous shriek of an enraged goose.
“Jesus fuck, what is it now Primus? What the possible fuck could it be?”
He’s almost resigned as his goose and his goose’s lover, who has been well-trained by Primus at this point, chase him from the room. He’s abandoning his own goddamn party and there’s not a thing he can do about it.
It’s ten minutes to midnight and he’s going to be alone. Again. Forever.
Alex runs for the door to the back garden, stumbling in the sudden dark. He’s sobering up quickly from the adrenaline. He’s also tired and being chased by barnyard fowl now bent on committing violence against his person.
It’s a relief when he hears Henry’s voice.
“Alex?”
“Oh thank fuck, save me,” Alex stumbles into his arms, vaguely waving a hand behind him at the twin murder birds, beady eyes flashing in the darkness.
“I’m not sure I’m the one meant to save you, Alex,” Henry murmurs, his voice strangely sad.
Alex looks up, concerned, and suddenly realizes how close he and Henry are. Henry’s long, strong arms are wrapped around Alex, holding him up. All Alex can think is that he doesn’t want Henry to be sad, especially not about him. That, and he doesn’t want Henry to let go.
Without realizing it, Alex’s hands are on Henry’s face, cupping his cold cheeks. The faint plumes of their breath fill the inches between them and Henry is shivering. It’s not from the cold.
“Alex, what are you–”
“Shhhh. Don’t talk,” Alex whispers. “Are they still there?”
Henry can’t move his head, but his eyes flick over. “Er, yes. But they’re just… Uh. Doing what two birds in love do.”
Alex groans.
“Why me, Henry?”
“Why indeed,” Henry breathes. His pupils are so huge there’s barely any blue left, and Alex distantly notes that Henry’s cheeks are blazing under his hands.
Fuck, Alex thinks.
Alex isn’t even sure who leans forward first, he’s only aware of a faint screaming in the back of his mind when Henry’s mouth is finally on his, and their lips are pressing against each other and oh god it’s everything. Henry’s lips are soft and moving against him with purpose, like Alex is a dessert to be savored . Henry lets out a tiny moan that Alex swallows and his knees decide to lose all structural integrity.
When they finally break apart it’s strangely silent. Alex whips around, and both goose and turkey are gone.
He turns back to Henry, who’s standing there looking as if a fucking goosefeather could knock him over and holding onto Alex like he’s the only tether he has to this universe.
“Oh,” is all Alex’s mouth says.
Henry takes a shaky breath and clutches desperately at Alex again, hands fisting in the fabric of Alex’s shirt. He leans forward, bringing their foreheads to touch.
“No fucking way,” Alex breathes, and Henry laughs, high and hysterical.
“It would seem that you finally found your soulmate Alex.”
“Cool, cool.” Alex pauses. “Ok, so, just checking, but if you’re my soulmate, I guess that means… I’m bi?”
Henry stares at him for a second, mouth hanging open. “Christ, you really are as thick as it gets.”
“Motherfucker,” Alex says. “C’mere—” and then he’s pulling Henry’s face roughly back to his own, clashing lips and teeth and suddenly Henry’s tongue is licking into Alex’s mouth and oh , that sets Alex on fucking fire. He releases a strangled moan, which only makes Henry kiss him harder, twining his hands into Alex’s curls and pulling him flush against Henry’s body. They’re at risk of committing some very indecent and very long-overdue exposure when Henry finally wrenches his mouth away from Alex, panting.
“So, what now?” Henry says.
“Well, I guess we’re about to make history, huh?”