Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shawn Crowe-Lee: And you began to date in secret?

Alex: It was kind of a fling.

Henry: A fling is a very American idea. A fling has an arc. Maybe Alex flung himself into it, but I don’t want to speak for you.

Alex: I do throw myself into things. Fling myself. 

He mimes casting a fishing lure. Henry rolls his eyes, but he smiles.

Henry: He’s very carefree in many ways, compared to me.

Alex: There’s not a lot of carefree-ness to Henry’s life.

Henry: I had to be more intentional.

Alex: What were your intentions?

Shawn: Good question.

Henry (shy smile): I suppose I intended…to take what I could get once it became clear that we would…have a physical relationship. 

Alex’s grin is tenderness and tempered glee.

Henry: But I had to keep the ending in mind.

Alex: You didn’t think we would become anything?

Henry: How could we have?

Neither of them had loved anyone before. Not really. You couldn’t use the word to describe Alex’s entanglements—a classed-up way to talk about hook-ups and short-term arrangements that fizzled because there was always something else, something more, something bigger. Alex flung himself into everything he put his mind to. He didn’t really put his mind to the people who wanted to touch him and have him touch them. Not until Henry. 

I don’t know how to describe Henry’s involvement with other people. Is there a word for the kind of half-relationship a person cracks open a door for? What about when that person’s baseline is mild heartbreak?

Oscar saw this heartbreak. It brought out something warm and nurturing. He had the time and space to notice things like this. His position in the Senate was secure, and he hadn’t remarried or taken up with someone new. Or maybe he just wanted to spend more time with the family. 

Whatever it was, Oscar was the one who helped Henry set up the brownstone during Congress’s summer recess. While Alex dove headfirst into preemptive reading and outlining and drinks with neurotic 1Ls, Oscar put up Henry’s art. A portrait of David the beagle. A small oil painting of Henry from his cricket days. A photo of Bea with one of her guitars in her lap, positioned in the classical way. A circa 2005 photo of Catherine, Arthur, and the three siblings. A single shot of Philip and Mary posing together in their country gear, a long-dead hound at Mary’s side. 

“They should really change the cover,” Oscar said, holding up a copy of The Mozart Season, about a twelve-year-old girl preparing for a violin concerto competition. “I thought this was going to be one of those books about a violinist during World War II.”

“Only a dad would go straight to books about World War II,” Henry said. “Bea read it when she was the main character’s age, I think. She bought me that copy. It’s quite good. It’s even set in America. Portland.” 

Oscar was there when Henry alternately sighed and fumed at shipments of furniture from Philip.

“I know what he’s doing. He’s terrified that I’m going to degrade myself and buy my own furniture.”

“I don’t know what I just heard,” Oscar said. “That some kind of old-money thing?”

“You could say so.” 

“But he put in the time and energy to ship you old-ass furniture.” Oscar ran his hand along the back of a sofa that may have been haunted by Queen Charlotte. “He cares, in his way.”

Henry snorted.

“Hey,” Oscar said. “Nothing says you can’t still buy your own furniture. Get yourself a credenza or something. You might feel better.” 

Oscar did fatherly things like finding and repairing minor faults with the inherited furniture. He reveled in the physical labor, even when a splinter found its way into a finger that hadn’t touched anything more treacherous than a long policy paper in years. 

“Well, son,” he said as Henry waited with him for the car that would take him to to JFK. “Thanks for putting me up.” 

Their embrace was warm but brief. Henry’s eyes smarted as he watched the car carry Oscar away. He blinked hard, scanned his surroundings to see if he was being photographed and recorded, and ran back up the steps of the brownstone. 

“H, stretch me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Stretch my hamstrings. The hams. My hammies.”

“Your hammies.”

“It’s good to stretch. Everyone should do it. Before you go to sleep is a good time for it.”

Henry did what was requested of him. It looked and felt ridiculously, comically sexual. 

“I think that’s what they do to warm up for rugby practice.”

“Erm, yes.” 

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What? You get cut from the rugby team or something? Is that why you had to play cricket and polo?” 

“That was actually rather good, the accent.” 

“I’ll show you what’s rather good,” Alex said, his voice lazy. 

“I highly doubt that.”

“What? Why would you doubt me?”

“Well, you say you’ve slept five hours a night for the past week, which I’ll take to mean you’ve actually been sleeping four. You couldn’t beat a small dog in a wrestling match in this state.” 

Alex tried to grapple with Henry to argue his point, but Henry was right. Henry won handily.

“Who says I didn’t lose on purpose?” Alex said, wiggling deeper into bed in spite of himself, eyelids heavy. 

“Of course, of course.”

“I didn’t say to go.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. I’d have thought the legal scholar would need his rest.”

“Mmmm.” Alex let his arms fall heavy around Henry, who rested his head fall against Alex’s chest. They listened to each other breathe. 

A phone buzzed. 

Henry inhaled sharply and picked his head up. “I’ll leave you to it. Get some sleep.” 

Alex didn’t let go. 

“Yes?” Henry said after a moment. 

“I’m conflicted,” Alex said, scratching heavy, lazy circles on Henry’s scalp. 

Henry put his chin on Alex’s chest. “What about?”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know.” 

“H, this is not a kiss-on-the-forehead kind of conversation.”

“Mmm. Sorry.”

“It’s not an apology kind of conversation either.” 

Alex made an exasperated noise and thumped his head onto the pillow.

“Use your words,” Henry said.

“I really want to rest.”

“Right.”

“But I also want, like, you.”

To that, Henry said only, “Well.” 

What happened, then? In later years, they might say, tongue in cheek, that Henry performed an act of service. Alex might say that Henry gave him a blow job. A gentle one. It soothed almost as much as it relieved. Alex fell asleep almost immediately afterwards, his head listing to the side, his mouth half open. 

Henry admired his work, wiped his mouth on the back of his forearm, and went to his office, where he wrote until most of Park Slope retreated to their homes and turned off the lights.

Alex: I’m not interested in other guys you’ve had sex with. Are any of them famous? Have I met any of them?

Henry: No. No and no. 

Alex: I’m not scared that you’ll go after anyone else either. I mean, it would be hard to tear your eyes and your mind away from Alex Claremont-Diaz. 

Shawn: Henry, has Alex addressed your concern?

Henry: What I was saying was that—well, there might come a time when you see someone who gets your blood up.

Alex: So I’ll continue to be a person. So what?

Henry: Do you think you might want to pursue…anything?

Alex: I mean, everyone loves the ACD. Shawn, is there a right way to answer a hypothetical like this?

Shawn: I invite you—both of you—to consider the question behind the question. Is there another question that would get you closer to the answer you’re looking for?

Henry looks at Shawn for a long moment.

Henry: The thing is, Shawn, you resemble a prominent lawyer Alex has a crush on.

Alex: Whoa. What? Who?

Henry gives Alex a look.

Henry (to Shawn): You’re sort of his type. The women, anyway.

Alex: Okay, you’re also making me sound way dorkier than I am. I promise at least some of my celebrity crushes are like, musicians or athletes or whatever. I bet you have celebrity-slash-real-life crushes on musicians. Like, a classical musician? Have you ever met Joshua Bell? Do you have a crush on Joshua Bell? How about that one Australian violinist?

Henry: What? Who?

Alex: You were playing him the other day. The “Symphonie…” (snaps his fingers) “espagnole.” 

Henry: Ray Chen. That was Bea. 

Shawn: I’m going to pause the conversation here for a second. Alex, I notice you making jokes. That could keep you from listening and engaging deeply. 

Alex: I’m not trying to deflect anything.

Shawn: I understand. Are you feeling anything? Is there an emotion that’s making you uncomfortable? I’m asking because your ears are a little red, and you’re talking quickly. I’m going to invite you to slow down.

Henry’s question was not about who Alex wanted to be with or have sex with. They’d fallen in love young, and decisively. Of that there was no question. 

But Henry was a native of the world of duty. Nestled within his conversation with Alex was something he never brought himself to speak out loud. How should a person be? Who should a person be with? Were love and effort enough to keep the answers from changing?

Alex and Henry had no way of knowing the long arc of their relationship, their marriage. Their life. Nothing is fated when you’re young and still creating yourself. 

By comparison, their families’ origin stories were set by some celestial chisel. Because even if Ellen and Oscar did divorce, Alex never tired of the photo they took on their first date. They have the nonchalance of working-class kids who don’t have anything to lose yet. They look rough and brilliant, like they might dazzle you in one breath and cut you down in the next. Their eyes glint with the same promise and the same dare. With the benefit of retrospect, it’s easy to say they look destined for a few good bouts with the lion of history. 

Whereas Henry’s family lived in the lion’s den and paid tribute to the beast. There are at most a handful of confirmed photos of Catherine and Arthur’s early relationship in the public record, all of them from tabloid journalists. The images are blurry, the figures like apparitions of sacred deer. But once the engagement was announced—Mary did it through gritted teeth that passed for a smile, but she did the job—the eccentric, intellectual princess and the versatile actor were sanded down to Pomp and Circumstance Barbie and Ken. 

The constraints of royal life were less like manacles and more like fine steel threads that pulled on every part of a person. The sly smile that had been such an asset as Bond became a liability for the consort of the future queen, so the solution was not to smile. Arthur let himself be steered as if Alistair Davies, Mary’s trusted communications staffer, were a particularly persnickety director. Media commentators would interpret Arthur’s rare smiles in official photos as evidence of unhappiness with royal life. Maybe it was. He was dead before he could give interviews or formally share his thoughts on that era.

Alex: I pick good people. I have a good picker. Everyone in my family picks good people. I’m serious. There’s my parents. And then my mom picked Leo. That’s three good people right there. And then there’s June and Evan. Good guy. June and Nora.

Henry: I maintain that the June and Nora thing is a freudian nightmare.

Shawn: What do you think about the people you’ve picked in the past? Let’s start with you. Henry?

Henry: Oh. Er. Truth be told, it felt less like I was choosing and more…I’m not sure how to describe it.

Shawn: That’s okay.

Henry: In my position—the position I was in—you don’t exactly get many options.

Shawn: Alex?

Alex: No real complaints. Everyone was good people. Like I said, I have a good picker.

Shawn: Alex, I’m hearing from you about picking and choosing. Henry, you’re talking about options. We have a bit of a theme.

Henry: Well, one is always thinking about choice, right? Without choice, one can get trapped in unpleasant circumstances. 

Shawn: You have something specific in mind?

Henry: There's always the media. And (a breath) the thing is, there will be times when I’m cold and incomprehensible.

Shawn (quiet): Why do you say that?

Henry: Well, medication helps, but depression and all that are notorious for changing shape. (He scratches his tricep through his shirt.) I’m sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Shawn: How often are you waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Henry: Always.

Shawn: Would you describe the feeling as dread?

Henry: I’m not sure. (To Alex) It’s more that I don’t want to hurt you. You’re not trapped here with me.

Alex: You won’t hurt me.

Henry: Yes, I will. Maybe not the next time or the time after that. Maybe it will feel alright for a while. But eventually, I will hurt you.

Shawn: I want to explore this idea, Henry, that you don’t want to hurt Alex. Are you saying that you don’t want to hurt him ever?

Henry: Isn’t that the idea?

Shawn: Is it realistic to never hurt other people?

Henry (visible surprise): Well, I, er. I suppose I see my problems as something to keep contained.

Alex: Babe, you won’t hurt me. Your depression’s the perfect size for me.

Henry (a beat): That was horrendous.

Shawn: Alex, I’m going to turn to you because you’re making a joke. What’s the emotion under the joke?

Alex: Oh. (Looks at Henry) It’s actually not that deep. I think what it comes down to is, I chose you. I’ve chosen you the whole time.

Henry raises an eyebrow.

Alex: Okay, since that New Year’s gala.

Henry (dryly): Since the New Year’s gala.

Alex (small smile): Yeah. So why wouldn’t I keep choosing you? 

Shawn: That’s a beautiful thing to express, Alex.

They also chose Shawn. They kept choosing her even though she sent them away from that session with a list of referrals.

“It might make sense for you to work with someone who doesn’t remind you of Alex’s lawyer crush,” she said. 

But they both found Shawn good and smart and competent. They trusted her. So, they continued to choose her.