Henry starts texting Alex every day, and it takes the edge off the deathly monotony of royal life. When he's in meetings or Phillip is being particularly obnoxious, or when he's bored on the way to an appearance, he'll check his phone. Henry responds with comments on some quote from Alex's latest interviews, which he's taken to watching in the dead of night (not weird at all), or once with a picture of David wearing the bright green Slytherin scarf Bea got him for Christmas last year, at Henry's insistence that yes, they had to get the dog a present as well, to which Alex replies:

, and Henry laughs and explains that David, not him, was Slytherin. Besides, he's always thought of himself as a more Ravenclaw type person, not that Alex was hearing any of it.

Alex replies with long, rambling messages and whenever Henry reads them he gets this stupid grin on his face that's drawn some strange looks from whoever's near by. Alex never bothers to censor himself, but Henry doesn't mind; there's something intimate about being one of the few people who really know Alex, not just 'America's Golden Boy' or the front he puts on for the public, but who he really is at heart, without all the glamour and fake laughs.

He thinks Alex might even be starting to like him. He hopes, anyway, because whenever he snorts out loud in the middle of an important morning meeting, the strange feeling in his chest grows a little more. Every time his phone buzzes, Henry feels a leap in his chest; a skipped heartbeat; a missed stair.

Bea notices his sudden mood shifts each time he checks his phone, and probes him about it one evening, while the two of them are sprawled on Henry's bed, watching Bake-Off and snacking on Jaffa Cakes once again. Mr Wobbles sits purring on Bea's lap, and she strokes him as she starts speaking.

"You've been....different lately, Hen." Henry pauses the show, turning to look at Bea, expression instinctively guarded. Bea raises her eyebrows pointedly, and he relaxes a little, remembering that this is his sister; he can talk to her. Right?

"What do you mean?" He starts, cautiously, carefully.

"I mean. You've been acting different. It's good."

"It is?" Henry lets out his breath in a whoosh, frown swiftly replaced by an easy grin- his face changing between one second and the next.

"Sure. You're so much happier now, but I just wish you'd tell me why."

"I, um, I suppose Australia did me some good." Henry attempts to shrug nonchalantly. He hates lying to his sister, but he just isn't ready to tell her about Alex. She already knows he's gay; there's literally no hiding that fact from anyone who's ever truly known him, but telling Bea about Alex is...it's different. What he has with the First Son- this shaky, tentative friendship- it feels too private, too intimate to share.

After that, Bea has more or less stopped interrogating him, except for a few pointed questions and prompts that Henry always determinedly ignores. Pez, on the other hand, is delighted with Henry's sudden change of heart, goading him to join him in the increasingly crazy stunts he pulls off, like going base jumping in Malaysia, which he confessed was absolutely terrifying, and which Henry adamantly refused to take part in.

***

Henry's lying bed, surrounded by boxes of Ellen Claremont campaign buttons with Alex's face emblazoned on them, that had arrived that morning at around 11am- Shaan had dragged Henry out of a lazy morning in bed to check he hadn't been mailed a bomb or something.

He'd had to stop his equerry from calling in the sniffer dogs. Bea had been upset when Shaan had relented, no doubt disappointed by the lack of the 'adorable cinnamon rolls' that are dogs; apparently David doesn't count, as all he does is sleep and eat and bark at squirrels until it drives you mad.

Henry rolls over onto his back, scrolling through his messages and feeling his face break out in a grin when he spots a text from Alex: he's somehow gotten himself landed with the task of looking after two enormous turkeys until the American pardoning ceremony the next day. How Alex has gotten himself into this mess, he has no ides, but it's so typically Alex-like that he has to grin.

the message reads,

Henry can't help letting out a strangled laugh, clamping a hand over his mouth and glancing anxiously at the door- he half expects Bea to wake and demand to know who's texts are making him act so weirdly. After a few seconds of reassuring silence, Henry lets out a breath and types back:

An image arises in his mind; Alex sitting on the floor of some fancy Whitehouse bedroom, surrounded by a ring of angry turkeys with a lust for blood. He grins as a picture of the least terrifying animal ever pops up on his screen.

.

He smiles down at his screen, flicking on a bedside lamp and gazing around at his shadow-crowded room; the hundreds of pictures of Alex's face printed on the campaign buttons staring back at him; all perfectly styled curls and bronze skin and soft, curved lips that drive Henry crazy thinking about at ridiculous times of the night like this.

He jumps as his phone vibrates in his hand, singing out his ringtone of Your Song by Elton John.