Work Text:
FIVE!
Henry still doesn’t know how he ended up here, in the middle of the dancefloor in the White House, excited bodies bumping into him, and Alex Claremont-Diaz counting down the final seconds of the year at the top of his lungs.
He can’t rationalize how the events of the last few months could have possibly led him to this moment, but god he’s not going to question it. Because for once in his life he actually feels like a person.
Just another slightly drunk, twenty-something-year-old counting down the new year with his friends. He has that now. Friends.
Alex is one of those friends now. Henry still has trouble believing it sometimes, but after tonight even his most persistent disbelief is for once silenced.
It's just a fact. There’s no way to deny it. Alex had danced with him all night, laughed with him all night, smiled at him all night.
Tonight, Alex had been all around him just as he always is.
Alex is always everywhere. In his mind and in his phone and on TV and in his dreams. He resides in every single room in Henry's palace; in every single corner of his mind.
FOUR!
Sometimes, Henry thinks looking at Alex can feel devastating.
Devastating with his boyish smile, beautiful brown skin, and brown eyes that are so warm and framed by eyelashes so long it should be illegal. With his dark curls and calloused hands he looks like a perfect manifestation of every single one of Henry’s most impossible dreams.
It would be easier if that's where it stopped. If it was only the physical things that kept drawing him back to Alex but it's not. It never was.
THREE!
While it had been his smile that first caused him to stop in his tracks in Rio all those years ago, it had been his laugh that stayed in his head.
While it had been his eyes that made him pause the TV channel, it had been the way he moved entire crowds with just his words and resolve that made him unable to look away.
And here he is, years later still unable to look away.
He’s never been able to look away from Alex Claremont-Diaz.
TWO!
Henry likes him. He likes him so fucking much he swears the ache he feels in his chest will swallow him whole someday.
He looks at Alex and he wants and he wants so bad.
He wants an ounce of the freedom Alex possesses. Just a tiny bit of the confidence that surrounds him. Just a little bit of his ability to let go for five minutes of his life and do something as simple as dance. To spin and shout and drink until he’s heady with the same heady feeling that's going through Alex at this moment.
Henry sways to the music, closes his eyes for just a moment, and feels Alex’s phantom touch on his hips.
ONE!
He opens his eyes, lands on Alex, and feels his heart drop to his stomach.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, the part that desperately tries to make the sad things beautiful turns everything into slow motion.
Detached from his body, he watches his glass heart hit the ground and shatter into a million tiny pieces.
The shards spread out over the dance floor where they’re stepped on by flashy heels and sleek loafers that sway to the beat of the music.
And all his mind can conjure is a weak ‘of course’.
Of course, he should have known. He should have known it was always going to end with being Alex carried away in the arms of some beautiful person who was never going to be him.
He knew this. So why does it still hurt so fucking much? Why does the tie around his throat feel like it's choking him?
And you knew this and yet there had been that whisper…maybe.
But now he knows.
He knew this.
But it's different knowing something is a distant possibility and seeing it play out right in front of you.
It’s completely different seeing the boy he’s falling in love with kissing someone else, happy without a care in the world.
Because suddenly that cloud he was standing on disappears and he finds himself falling and being dragged back down, hitting the earth so hard he swears the impact will be felt for miles and miles.
Suddenly Henry’s back in reality and it doesn’t seem so nice anymore. The rose-colored lenses crack making everything fade into sharp, hyper-realistic visuals; the crowd no longer sways with him but against him jabbing sharp elbows into him. The electricity that made Henry feel alive a moment ago turns painful and he’s left there in the center of the dancefloor with sweat down his face, the aftertaste of alcohol on his tongue, and a resounding sense of disappointment he feels so deeply and is so familiar with it almost makes him want to laugh if it didn’t make him want to cry.
And more than anything it's the sharp reminder of it all, the one he almost let himself forget about. It's the realization that he’ll never be able to recreate that image with anyone he truly cares about, let alone with Alex for two crucial reasons.
One, Alex isn’t interested in him like that. Might not be interested in men like that at all.
Two, no matter if by some miracle Alex was interested, they could never have that so openly.
Henry could never be himself so openly because the fact of the matter is that in this reality, princes aren’t allowed to kiss boys in the middle of a dancefloor when the clock strikes zero on New Year.
Standing there in the center of the chaos, Alex turns to him and gives him that devastating smile that he feels is the final blow.
It sobers him up so quickly it almost gives him vertigo. A violent wave of nausea hits him. He feels physically sick and he can’t tell if it's the alcohol or the scene in front of him that's making his stomach twist violently.
All around Henry, the party continues, and the new year treks forward. The clock continues ticking, unwilling to wait, leaving everyone who’s ill-prepared behind. Deciding to see himself out, he goes out into the cold Washington night, beyond the people and parties and the boys with devastating smiles. Back to the familiar biting cold, he’s never really been able to shake off.