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Chapter Text

As a child, Alex was, as his sister puts it, ‘incapable of shutting the fuck up’. He was restless. He loved being the centre of attention, so his best friend Nora suggested he try an acting class to channel that compulsive draw to the limelight into something productive. One day at the start of a hot sticky summer when he was nine, his parents dropped him off at a drama group in a rundown community centre while they went off to work and well, he fell in love. It wasn’t love at first sight. He struggled with the practicalities of playing someone else, of learning the lines, and not being able to just go off-script and say whatever he wanted. But once he got it, once he learned how to slip into a character and forget everything else that was going on in his life, he couldn’t stop. He still loves it. Every time Zahra, his agent, sends him a script it’s a new person to meet, a new friend or enemy to make, a new head to get inside of that isn’t his own.

Alex’s parents have never really understood his drive to be part of a world made of cameras and lights. They’re lawyers, born from long days and sleepless nights, still drowning in student debt twenty years later – they’re pragmatic and sensible, but they’re supportive. They don’t really get it. He knows they don’t get it, but they’ve both taken time off work and flown out to LA to support him, to willingly be in the same room as each other at the premiere of his new movie. 

It’s a low budget indie movie with minimal star power, but heaps of passion. It’s a story that’s close to his heart – a tale of a man, desperate for the chance at a new life who makes the journey to cross the Mexican border into America and pays with his life. Longshot isn’t a story of hope. It’s brutal and heartbreaking and horrifyingly real. It’s a cry for help and change, art trying to influence policy, spearheaded by renegade director and producer Rafael Luna. For the critics and the juries it’s probably just awards season fodder – an aptly named attempt at making it on the nomination list, and Alex is just a diversity tick box exercise, but for him, it’s... it’s personal. It’s a story like the one his grandparents lived, like millions of other Americans live every day. Alex is lucky that his family’s story has a happy ending, that they’re safe and happy and successful. He knows that there are thousands of people who make it through safely every year, but there are also hundreds that don’t. He can only hope he’s done it justice. 

Alex is… well, he’s terrified. It’s his first big starring role. He’s done small things before – a lot of theatre, background parts, the obligatory role as a victim on CSI, a recurring part in a political drama that got cancelled after one season – but this is his first movie and his first leading role. The first time he’s been talked about as a leading man, an awards contender. They’re the wildcard of the season. Alex loves being a wildcard. He came into the film as the wildcard too. He knows they saw people more experienced than him, bigger names who could bring them more press and probably more funding, but they went with him. Raf had told him they’d seen something in him. 

Barely anybody even knew they existed until a couple of weeks ago when the early pressers went out, and suddenly there was a wave of chatter about it, about them, about him . He’s not a star. Most of the time he feels like a funny shaped rock in this town – rough around the edges, but with a bit of care and polish, a funny shaped rock that could be a diamond. One that could shine clear and brilliant, brighter than the sun. 

Alex has already seen the film. He thinks they’ve done a good job. It’s everything he had hoped it would be. There’s no way to tell how the critics and the public will react but he’s proud of it, and that’s the most important thing. Or at least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. His agent-slash-publicist Zahra – who does both jobs for him because there’s no way in hell he can afford both – thinks he’s done a good job too. Or at least, Alex thinks that she thinks he’s done a good job. She’s a woman of few words, and those that she does use are usually expletives aimed at him and the latest sticky situation he’s got himself into. She’s lined up appearances and interviews for weeks trying to capitalise on Alex’s success: magazine interviews, photoshoots, panels, video interviews. If anyone wants to talk to Alex, he’s theirs. This is his chance to go mainstream and he knows it. This is his best opportunity to put himself into the spotlight, to be the next go-to Hollywood leading man – a kid from Texas who is very obviously not white. It’s a big deal. 

Despite the early murmurs of it being a potential awards contender, it’s not a big flashy premiere – it isn’t filled with star power, camera lights or fucking champagne fountains or whatever those premieres have. He doesn’t know, he’s never been to one. There’s no budget for that. It’s an old theatre filled with people involved in the movie and a few film critics. The women are all in the dresses bought off the rack and make up carefully applied in the bathroom mirror after work. Alex got himself a new suit for the occasion, but he thinks he might be the only one. There aren’t any interviewers lining the streets asking questions or photographers desperate for a shot that will go viral. There’s no red carpet, just a backdrop taped to a wall to take photos against, but it’s got heart. 

His family are waiting at the theatre. His sister, June, is dressed in a gorgeous gold strapless dress looking like the glowing sun with her girlfriend Nora – and Alex’s ex-girlfriend, he tries not to dwell too hard on the weirdness of that – next to her in a tux. His dad is broad shouldered next to June, talking to Rafael Luna. Alex’s mother stands with her husband Leo, at her side. He looks, as always, like he has no idea how he’s ended up there, but he seems pleased to be there nonetheless. Alex feels a swell in his heart at the sight of them, his weird hodgepodge little family, drawn together from different corners of the country, and held together by their love for each other. Despite the way his parents spend half their time at each other’s throats, Alex has never doubted that under all that animosity and anger, there’s love mixed in there somewhere. Deep down. Very, very, deep down.

They pull him into a crushing hug and there are too many limbs to fit, but he laughs and grins and lets them fawn over how proud they are of him, and he tries to ignore the nervous bubble settling in his chest. He leads them into the theatre and sits anxiously as the lights dim and they watch it together for the first time. 

Alex isn’t exactly the most modest person but he thinks the film is fucking great. It’s raw and gritty and a call to action. He plays a desperate young father trying to fight for his family, who walks through the desert for weeks through extreme temperatures and with little food or water to try and reach a better life. He doesn’t make it. It’s not pretty or uplifting, and he knows a lot of critics will hate it. He knows there will be people who say it’s too sad and that it’s unrealistic but, well, it’s not. Alex knows it’s not. He’s done too much research, read too many stories and talked to too many people not to have had his veins turned to pure ice and anger at just how real all of it is. 

Everyone is silent the whole way through the movie. The entire auditorium is quiet, as though the whole crowd are holding their breaths for the full two hours of the film. You could hear a pin drop if it weren’t for the swelling music and the dialogue, the grunts of the fight scene and Alex’s broken sobs that play into the theatre. Alex’s fingers grip at the armrests of the seat, finding the frayed fabric there and he plays with the threads there until the credits roll on the final shot of his weary, blood-stained face and the lights come up.

The room is still as the credits music plays. He can’t look around, he’s too nervous. Too afraid to look up to see the thin, pretend smiles staring back at him, the look of disguised disappointment and fake praise.

His eyes stay focused on the back of the head in front of him. The man has grey streaks in his hair. Alex’s eyes follow them and he traces the way the silver winds through his hair. But then someone – Raf, maybe? Or Nora? – hauls him to his feet by the shoulders and a thunderous applause roars through the theatre and he exhales, goosebumps rising on his skin. He can feel his jaw shaking as he looks around in wonder. The sound runs through him like a heartbeat. He tries to look around, but his own eyes are wet and blurry. He wipes them with his sleeve. 

The sight of tear stained faces and the thunderclap of cheering and clapping is like nothing he’s ever known. He looks over at his mother, tear tracks and makeup streaking down her face. Her pale skin is red and blotchy and her shoulders are still shaking with sobs. June pulls him into a hug with a muffled cry and tells him how proud she is, how great he is, and from the corner of his vision, he sees his dad wiping his eyes. Leo hands his mom a tissue. Nora pulls Raf into a hug. Alex sighs in relief, and wraps his arms around his sister. 

‘You did good baby bro,’ June says in his ear. ‘You did so, so good.’ 

*** 

He’s woken the next morning by a phone call, the low rumble of his phone vibrating against his side table. He’d tried to stay off the booze for the most part at the after party, wanting to keep the night clear in his mind, but then his dad and Raf had plied him with celebratory tequila. Then Leo had bought him more drinks and June and Nora had joined in with whiskey. And Alex? Well, Alex’s head didn’t stay clear for very long. 

Which is why he thinks it must be a hallucination when Zahra calls him the next morning and says, laughing with an almost manic glee, ‘You absolute wonderous little shit.’ 

‘Huh?’ he asks, rubbing his eyes. The light bleeds through the curtains and he squints at it. There’s a crack in the plaster above the curtain rail that runs down the side of the window. 

She laughs, sounding half-delirious and Alex faintly thinks he’s never heard her sound so pleased, or at least definitely not with him. And then, as Alex lies in bed shirtless and hungover tracing the lines of the crack in his wall, Zahra says the words that are going to change Alex’s life forever: ‘You have just been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor.’ 

And then, she says another set of words that make Alex want to run away, return the nomination and say thank you very much to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association but, absolutely fucking not: ‘Oh, your BFF is also in your category.’ Alex freezes. He feels the hairs on his arms stand up and his mouth falls open and then closed again on repeat like it’s a door flapping on a broken hinge but nothing comes out. His blood is ice cold because he knows exactly who she means and he is not Alex’s BFF. Unless BFF suddenly stands for Boring Fucking Fake, or something. He’s Alex’s mortal enemy, absolutely everything he hates about the industry – a generically attractive man with blonde hair, blue eyes and high cheekbones, with a lot of money, a British accent and a part of an acting dynasty that stretches back generations. 

Henry fucking Fox.  

***

It’s not that Alex doesn’t like Henry Fox. It’s that he really fucking hates him. Mortal enemy is perhaps a strong term when the guy literally doesn’t even seem to know Alex exists, but it’s how he feels. He hates literally everything about the guy. Alex isn’t exactly a big deal in the industry but he’s been working really hard on building his profile over the last couple of years, but he’s still more or less the smallest fish in the pond. A tadpole at most. He gets invited to the occasional event for up and coming actors – usually right at the last minute because they’ve suddenly realised every single person around the table is white, and he’s just about the only diversity they can find at such short notice. His agent, Zahra, is a bloodhound, always on the lookout for an opportunity. So Alex and Henry have run into each other a few times. Henry is usually fronting a panel and Alex is sat right at the other end of the table, lucky if he can get more than five words in. Henry has always been unbearable – uptight, and with a stick so far up his ass that it’s probably the only thing supporting his ridiculously straight back.

Henry is everything Alex isn’t: part of a dynasty of great English actors – his grandmother played every Shakespearean part she could. She’s racked up eight Oscars, and she swept awards season last year playing the Queen. Henry’s parents – the son of a Welsh miner and the daughter of English acting royalty – met playing opposite each other in Henry V, had an epic Hollywood-worthy opposites-attract romance and promptly sent the world into a meltdown when they named their third child after the play that had brought them together. After a career making his name as a Shakespearean actor Henry’s father, Arthur Fox, made the switch to movies where he played actual fucking James Bond. His brother was one of the principal actors at The Globe in London playing Romeo, Hamlet and a bunch of historical kings, then won an Oscar for putting some mud on his face and playing a soldier in yet another war epic, and now seems to pop up like a bad rash in every film Alex has ever seen made in England. His sister, Bea, is the only one who didn’t follow the family career path into acting, but even she’s won seven Grammys by the age of twenty-five, so Alex thinks she can’t be doing too badly. 

And then, there’s Henry: twenty-three years old, five-time Oscar nominee – three for Best Supporting Actor and two for Best Actor – and zero time winner. He got his first nomination at nine, playing a precocious little kid in a historical drama, then his second at thirteen, his third at sixteen, his fourth came at seventeen, at which point he announced he was taking a career break and enrolled at Oxford University to study English. He did one more film at nineteen, Rio, and got yet another nomination for Best Supporting Actor, despite being on screen for all of about ten minutes, and then nothing else. He didn’t even show up for the Rio awards season. He probably thinks he’s done it all before and it’s not worth his time. He’s odds on to get his sixth nomination this year with his “grand return” to acting and everything about it itches at Alex’s skin. He’s playing a repressed prince whose correspondence with his gay lover is leaked to the public, causing a massive scandal. Alex has seen it, dragged June and Nora along to hate-watch it with him. It’s brutal in a lot of ways and Henry’s acting is... well it’s frustratingly good. He’s full of simmering, pent up anger, but he’s also tender and his relationship with his costar Percy – Pez – is like nothing Alex has ever seen before. 

It’s been a box office smash, packed full of raunchy gay sex scenes that have been widely praised, and with a happy ending where the Prince abdicates for love and quite literally runs off into the sunset with his lover in a cornflower meadow. Henry’s performance has been celebrated as the best of his career, which Alex thinks is pushing it for a man who is literally only twenty-three years old but like, whatever. But Alex’s real problem with all of this, is the fact that the guy isn’t even gay. He’s tragically heterosexual, always appearing in magazines dating some Belgian heiress or an anonymously pretty blonde actress who he looks vaguely related to. And Alex has a real fucking problem with the way that guys like Henry keep taking these roles. How a straight actor will take a role, play some gay trauma and get an award for it, or how he’ll see a casting call that will say they’re looking for an actor who isn’t white, and then a year later there’s a guy looking like Henry front and centre on the billboard. It’s fucking exhausting. 

So, when somebody asks him in an interview a few days later how it feels to be nominated for a Golden Globe, he stumbles over his words slightly, talking about how thrilled he is and about the importance of authentic stories told by own voices. The reporter pounces, zeroes in on the undercurrents of what he’s saying, and links it to Henry’s nomination straight away and well, Alex doesn’t hold back. When he’s asked about his thoughts on Henry, an ostensibly straight man, playing the lead in a gay love story, he says exactly what he thinks: 

‘I mean, I’m not necessarily the right person to be talking about this exact issue. But I just think we should be giving these opportunities to actual members of the LGBTQ community and letting them tell their own stories, rather than a pretty white boy playing gay because he knows it’ll play well at awards season.’

It goes viral. Before he knows it, Alex is all over Twitter and Instagram and Zahra is calling him to scream at him down the phone. Henry is universally beloved. He’s Twitter’s white boy of the month, every fucking month. The entire world has watched him grow up, grieved with him over the death of his father, and now, Alex has decided to pick a fight with him. June hits him over the head and calls him a dumbass. Nora throws a piece of popcorn at him and says, ‘you’re a fucking idiot.’ 

It’s not all bad though. Alex picks up a lot of new followers on social media from it. He goes viral online being called a woke king. He’s the new guy coming in and dismantling Hollywood traditions and fighting for the unheard. Zahra thinks they’ll be able to spin this whole thing into something positive and he agrees. Or at least, he does until he’s scrolling through Twitter and catches a video of Henry, blonde and wide eyed, listening intently to a question about Alex’s comments and nodding. He responds simply, ‘Who?’ And then, ‘Oh well, I don’t think I really need any more career advice but ah, I’ll bear it in mind.’ 

The internet goes wild again. Henry’s fans come to his aide lambasting Alex for being a no-name jumpstart trying to take down their golden boy. It’s a whirlwind few weeks of interviews and press shoots and Zahra forcibly removing his phone from his hands so he can’t tweet any further thoughts on the matter. 

He’s somehow managed to avoid Henry thus far in the run up to it all. Henry missed the pre-event tea for the Golden Globe nominees, where they all stand around and tell each other how amazing they were, and do some interviews, saying the same things they’ve said a hundred times before. He probably thought he’d done it all before, or was too busy jerking off to pictures of himself or something. 

The Golden Globes themselves are… insane. It’s almost terrifyingly loud. Alex is pulled through the crowd by the arm and deposited on a spot on the carpet. A woman barks at him to stay still, to look at the camera and then to move on to the next spot. He’s dressed in burgundy velvet – it’s his first awards show and he’s always said he’s not going to be just another guy in a boring black tux. He stands in front of the lights, and he’s nervous but he remembers everything Zahra told him: ‘Don’t clench your fucking fists, smile like the girl from the new Marvel movie has just asked for your number, watch where you’re putting your fucking feet, and don’t – under any circumstances – fuck this up.’ 

So he grins, wide and open, and turns to face the wall of lights. He looks good. He knows he looks good. He’d know he looked good even if Nora hadn’t turned round to him and said, ‘you look hot,’ and, ‘if i wasn’t dating your sister, I’d bang you again’, but it definitely helped. Nora is nothing if not unfailingly honest. The warm colour of the velvet makes his skin glow, and a team of hairdressers spent hours carefully scrunching his dark curls to fall in a way that looks effortless. He never thought he’d have actual hairdressers or a stylist, or people sending him this much free shit, but apparently that’s how this all works. An army of people working to make him look like he’s just rolled out of bed. It’s his whole deal – the boy next door, universally appealing with dark eyes and a mischievous smile. 

Flash. 

‘Alex, look over here for me.’ 

Click. Click. Click. 

‘Alex!’ 

Flash. Flash. Flash. 

He’s at home here, despite the piercing bright lights before him and the rat-a-tat of camera shutters clicking. There’s something about the blur of the lights that he can just tune out, the haze of shouting and chatter that happily overrides the noise in his own head. He gets shoved along the procession line and June joins him in a skintight navy gown with a plunging neckline that makes her look like a supermodel, her dark hair tumbling down her back in soft waves. Her hand is at his waist, strong and steady, just like the rest of her. 

Zahra pushes him towards a microphone and suddenly he’s being asked all sorts of questions – ‘Who are you wearing?’ ‘Who did you bring with you tonight?’ And, of course, ‘What will you do if you win?’

Alex replies with a relaxed smile. ‘Ah man,’ he says. ‘I’m not gonna win. It’s such a competitive field. I’m just like, so happy to be here. It’s crazy. I just want to have a great time and enjoy it.’ It’s the truth, mostly. Of course he wants to win but he’s not exactly holding out much hope in a field of industry vets where he is the absolute wildcard. While he hates Henry and everything his performance stands for, it’s a great one. He’s going to win, and the real best performance of Alex’s career is going to be his polite clap and the smile on his face when they call Henry’s name. 

There’s a roar of noise from the other end of the carpet and he looks around, expecting to see Angelina Jolie or Zendaya or someone else cool and hot, but instead it’s just Henry, wearing a plain black tux and looking as though he’d rather be literally anywhere else. Pez, his co-star and best friend, is right behind him in a dashiki. He doesn’t understand the two of them. He’s watched so many interviews of them, both separately and together, and Pez is Henry’s polar opposite. He’s vivacious, enigmatic and generous. If he’s not acting, he’s spending his time running acting schools for disadvantaged children across the world. Henry, on the other hand, is a wet noodle with the personality of a robot who constantly looks like someone has forgotten to put the batteries in. The media and the public have spent months fawning over his grand return to acting, after his break to get a degree from Oxford. Alex suspects that was probably handed to him, just like everything else.

June forcibly ushers him inside before he can do something stupid like tell an interviewer his thoughts on this. He’s grateful, he supposes. Zahra would probably kill him for actually tanking his career before it’s even started. 

They arrive at the table inside. It’s a cavernous room, filled with the who’s-who of Hollywood and more tables than Alex can even count. They find theirs, and it looks like every other – pristine white table cloth, ornate floral centrepiece, bottles of champagne covering the table. He looks around at the seating plan, reminding himself of what Zahra told him. It’s him, June, Raf, Nora who is technically attending as Raf’s guest as he’s a notorious loner who didn’t have a guest to bring, and then Alex’s heart stops. 

Percy Okonjo. 

Beatrice Fox. 

Henry Fox. 

Well, fuck.

Chapter Text

Alex might throw up. This is definitely not what he thought was his table. This is definitely not what Zahra specifically told him his table was going to be. He’s meant to be sitting with the girl from the new Marvel movie. He’s supposed to meet her, charm her, make her fall in love with him and become Hollywood’s new power couple. Or something. It’s whatever, not like he’s put any thought into the idea or spent hours daydreaming about it or anything. He’s scrambling his phone out of June’s clutch bag to text Zahra before he can even think, but there’s already a message from her:

Don’t say a fucking word. The camera is going to be on him all night, which means the camera is going to be on you all night. His team suggested it. It doesn’t do his image any good to be in a petty fight with the new guy. Suck it up and play nice. Make a scene and I’ll have your balls for breakfast. 

‘I am going to fucking murder her,’ Alex hisses to June as he hands the phone back to her. He feels hot under the collar. He wonders if it’s too late to leave.

‘Err, hello,’ says a voice from behind him, clipped vowels and horrifyingly British. He knows that voice. He’s just about as familiar with it as he is with his own at this point. He summons a deep breath, and when he turns around there’s Henry in a black suit and bow tie, sandy hair and sloping nose. Next to him is a short woman with thick black eyeliner and a wicked grin, who Alex recognises as his sister, Bea – lead singer and sometimes bass guitarist for The Windsors, seven time Grammy award winner and the black sheep of the Fox family. She’s dressed in a long black lace dress with a thigh high slit and towering black heels. Her earrings almost definitely cost more than Alex’s car, and probably all the rent he’s ever paid in his life combined. 

Alex understands the media fascination around Bea. She’s the singer and bass guitarist for the hottest band in the world. She’s got the whole hot, rebel wild child thing going on. She’s all high cheekbones and pointed chin with dark eyes and a wicked grin. She looks like knows things, like she has stories. Alex gets it. He doesn’t understand why they’re all obsessed with Henry. He is about as interesting as a piece of wet lettuce. 

Henry stares back at Alex with a face that’s almost impossible to read, eyes fixed on Alex with straight lips and a clenched jaw. He wants to poke at Henry’s placid face until it cracks, wants to see him display a shred of actual emotion and see how he really feels about Alex. But Zahra would kill him and he would definitely destroy his career before it’s even started if he makes a scene so he just blinks at Henry and, with a clenched fist, turns back to Bea. 

‘Well, this is going to be fun, isn’t it?’ Bea says with a smirk, and her dark hair curls gently around her heart-shaped face. She holds a hand out to June who takes it with a dumb nod. ‘I love your dress,’ Bea tells her and June’s eyes bug so wide that Alex thinks she might have lost the ability to speak. 

Nora elbows her in the ribs. ‘Babe,’ she says. 

June blinks. ‘Sorry, this is just... really weird. Like– We grew up sharing a bedroom in an apartment in Austin and I had a poster of you on my wall,’ she says to Bea. She turns to Alex with glassy eyes and a wavering voice. ‘You took acting classes because it was the only way we could get you to shut the fuck up for like five minutes and channel all that energy into something useful, and now you’re here and I’m just– I’m really proud of you.’ 

‘Bug,’ he says softly. Unforgivably, his own voice cracks on the word. Shit, now June is going to make him cry too. And he’s definitely not going to cry in front of Henry.

Nora whacks him on the arm. ‘Not to like, break up this nice moment or anything, but no crying. This is a good night, no tears. Z will kill you if the cameras get you looking drunk and weepy this early in the night.’ 

June waves her hands in front of her face and gives Alex a watery smile. She clears her throat before turning back to Bea. ‘Hi sorry, this is– I’m June. I’m a huge fan. This is my girlfriend, Nora. And well, I guess you probably know who Alex is.’ 

Nora grins from her spot next to June and waves. Alex notices Henry’s eyes flick between the two of them and heroically fights the urge to roll his eyes. So he’s a homophobe playing gay. Fucking great.

‘Good evening, mes amis,’ a loud voice exclaims. It’s Pez, in a black dashiki and a pink buzzcut, wrists packed full of bracelets. He pauses, looking at June and his voice lowers. ‘And hello, who are you?’ 

June’s cheeks flush red and holds out her hand. ‘June, Alex’s sister. This is Nora, my girlfriend.’ 

Pez takes June’s hand and presses his lips to the back of it, and then, making eye contact with Nora says, ‘Enchanted.’ Nora smirks back with a glint in her eyes and Alex decides he’s going to actively ignore any interaction the three of them have for the rest of the evening. He definitely does not want to know. 

Alex meets Henry’s eyes across the table. He looks entirely unfazed and not in the least bit surprised that his best friend appears to be hitting on both Alex’s sister and her girlfriend. June glances at Alex nervously. Raf arrives and stands there, looking on as though he’s regretting every choice about his life that has led him to this moment. Alex doesn’t blame him one bit. 

They take their seats. They’re served dinner, with typically tiny portions and Alex is still starving at the end of it. Henry’s fingers curl around the neck of the bottle of Moët as he pours champagne for everyone at the table except for his sister. Alex drinks the champagne and glares across the table at Henry’s stupid face, as he talks quietly to Pez, and pours himself another glass. 

They’re most of the way through the TV portion of the night. Alex has spent the entire evening talking to Raf, while Nora cackles away with Pez and Bea, and June talks politely to Henry, smiling and laughing and looking like she's actually enjoying herself like an absolute fucking traitor. Alex is pouring himself another glass when Henry glances across the table at him and narrows his eyes at the bottle in Alex’s hand. There's a disapproving curve to his lips, lifted at one corner, like he’s repressing the urge to tut. ‘You might want to slow down on that,’ he says.

Alex narrows his eyes at him. ‘And why might I want to do that?’ 

Nora reaches over and smacks Alex over the head with her hand. ‘Because you might have to give a speech yet, dickwad.’ 

Alex scoffs. ‘Yeah, no I’m not,’ he says and continues to pour himself another glass.

Henry blinks back at him, his lips pressed into a thin line. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ he says.

Alex doesn’t know what the fuck that means, but he doesn’t get to ask, because they quickly move on to more awards. Pez loses Best Supporting Actor to an eight year old, and then before he knows it, they’re at his category: Best Actor.

‘Good luck,’ Henry says, right as they start to read out their names and Alex wants to roll his eyes because of course Henry has to say that, especially to the guy he’s about to beat. Of course he has to appear gracious and welcoming to the outsider when he’s the runaway favourite to win. Alex doesn’t really focus on what’s happening. He hears glasses clinking and tries to focus on looking interested for the camera. He just knows that June has switched seats and is gripping his hand and then there are the words, ‘And the Golden Globe goes to…'

June’s hand tightens around his and then:

‘Alex Claremont-Diaz for Longshot .’ 

And his brain can’t parse the two phrases together but June’s arms are around him, and Nora’s, and Raf’s voice is there too yelling in his ear. June is wide-eyed and laughing in disbelief with tears in her eyes, holding Alex’s face between her palms. From the corner of his eye, he sees Henry smirk and nod in a way that seems to be more ‘I told you so’ than ‘I can’t believe you beat me’, which is really fucking confusing. He doesn’t understand, but June is pushing him towards the stage and... he doesn’t have a speech.

He’s handed a trophy – a golden rectangle with a globe on its top, a trophy he’s seen in a million pictures and a million dreams and never believed he might hold in his hands. It’s surprisingly heavy and solid, and he’s slightly terrified it might fall out of his shaking hands onto his foot and he’ll go down in history as the guy who dropped a Golden Globe and broke his foot in the middle of his speech. He'll end up as the main feature in one of those horrifying YouTube montages of most embarrassing moments. He’s in front of a microphone standing before a sea of faces, and faintly, he wonders if he’s wearing clothes because he’s definitely had nightmares that have started just like this.

‘I uhh, I don’t have a speech,’ is what comes out of his mouth and he’s pretty sure he can see June and Nora roll their eyes and curse him under their breaths in a terrifying coordinated unison at the table all the way from the stage. ‘I wasn’t... I wasn’t expecting this to happen so I didn’t write anything.’ Alex exhales, blinks through the shining glare and the heat of the lights on him. 

‘I– Jesus Christ.’ There’s a ripple of laughter. He clears his throat. 

‘Earlier my sister said to me how insane it is for a guy who shared a bedroom with his big sister until he was twelve to end up here. I don’t think I ever believed when I was a kid that someone who looked like me could end up on this stage, and I still don’t really believe it now. I’m not sure I ever will. So uhh, thank you I guess.’ He inhales and his voice finds its footing, stronger and clearer. 

‘Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for this, and for recognising this film, for shining a light on this story, and the millions like it. This story might be fiction but there are thousands of similar ones out there that aren’t. This is happening today, in our America, hundreds of people die every year trying to reach our borders for a better life. I don’t know the answer to how we fix that but… we need to do better than we are now.’ 

Alex’s voice wobbles and he’s seen these things enough times to know that he doesn’t get long. That he needs to start actually saying thank you to people before the music starts and he gets shooed off the stage. ‘To our incredible cast and crew, Rafael Luna, our phenomenal director. Raf, you understood and championed the importance of this film and its message, from day one. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better to learn from. Zahra, my agent, whose life I make a living nightmare on a daily basis – I know I’m an ass a lot of the time so thank you for putting up with me and for y’know, not firing me when I do dumb stuff. I don’t know what I would do without you, and I promise to never mention this or say anything nice to or about you ever again. Until maybe the next time I ever win something, if that ever happens again. Thank you to my parents – Mom, Dad, Leo – thank you for everything, for giving up your weekends and sitting through hours of truly awful community theatre productions so that I could do something I loved. I love you. Nora, who has been my best friend since I was tiny and was the one who encouraged me to put my inability to shut up to good use and go to a drama club. You’re the one who put me on this path and you’re probably the reason I’m here so like, thank you and I forgive you for dumping me for my sister.’ 

There’s another ripple of laughter that runs through the room at his frenzied breathless speech, and Alex pauses. ‘And Bug. June, you are… you are the best sister I could ever ask for. You’re the other half of me, you’re my rock and the most supportive, wonderful person I’ve ever known and I love you so much. Thank you. I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone and if I did then I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I love you. Thank you thank you thank you.’

Alex exhales, stares back at the crowd, the thunderous round of applause and blinks, trying to take it all in, just for a second. Who knows if this might ever happen again? Then before he can even take in the sight before him, he’s ushered off stage and deposited in a crowded press room in front of another backdrop and a barrier of cameras.

It’s a whirlwind of questions and interviews, a blur of camera lights and he doesn’t understand how this happened, only that the statue is solid and heavy and there, in his hands. 

He doesn’t understand how he won. 

Henry was meant to win. 

Alex was the underdog, the outsider. He’s meant to be the one who comes in, shakes things up, makes a bunch of industry connections and comes back again and wins in two years. That’s how this goes. He’s not meant to win this time around. He’s seen Henry’s performance… he was meant to win. 

June and Nora eventually find him through a sea of people he doesn't know congratulating him. Nora punches him on the arm and says, ‘Good job.’ June hugs him and shoves a phone in his face and his mom cries down the phone at him until Leo gently gets her to hang up. His dad sends a series of texts filled with expletives and says he’ll call him tomorrow and to have a drink or seven for him. Raf finds him, grinning and almost falls over himself in his rush to tackle Alex. They take what feels like a million photos of them in various combinations posing with Alex’s award. Alex feels like he’s floating. 

He passes the trophy off to June to hold while he disappears to the bathroom. She’s just about the only person in the world he’d trust with it. He slips into a nearby bathroom on a quiet corridor and is relieved to find it empty – a brief moment of quiet in the madness. His fingers clutch at the smooth marble of the sink and he sighs and lets out a slightly delirious laugh. Fuck, he thinks. 

His incredibly verbose and insightful internal monologue is interrupted by the door opening. He really shouldn’t be surprised to see Henry standing there, but for some reason he is. 

‘Oh,’ Henry says surprised. ‘Sorry I didn’t know anybody else was in here. It’s usually empty because it’s out of the way… just… I err… a bit of space, from all the madness, you know?’ Henry says and then trails off, scrunching up his face. He looks like he wants to be ejected to another planet. 

Alex stares back at him, confused. 

‘Congratulations,’ Henry says after a pause when he's apparently recovered. His lips quirk up into what Alex thinks is meant to be a smile. 

‘Uhh, thanks.’ It strikes Alex that this is the first time they’ve been alone together. ‘I— I thought you really had it in the bag. I think I’m still in shock. You’ll have to give me tips on polishing it or something.’

Henry hesitates, as though he wants to say something. He bites at his lower lip, then he sighs. ‘Is there a reason that you seem to dislike me so much?’ he asks finally. ‘I know that you disagree with my taking the role in The Waterloo Vase. There’s more to the story that I cannot say, but even before that… every time we’ve met you’ve been well, really quite rude to me, and you seem to be perfectly reasonable to everyone else. So… well, I’d quite like to know why.’

Alex looks back at him, finding a strange confusion in his ocean blue eyes. ‘You really don’t remember?’ 

Henry blinks at him a couple of times and seems surprised by what Alex has said. ‘Err, enlighten me?’ 

Alex sighs, staring back at his own face in the mirror, Henry next to him tall and pale and stately. He looks up to the ceiling. There’s a gold chandelier there, on the ceiling of the bathroom. There’s a fucking chandelier on the bathroom ceiling and he’s just won a Golden Globe and now he’s talking to Henry Fox in the bathroom. How the the fuck is this his life?

‘I had a walk-on part in Rio ,’ Alex tells him. ‘We never had any scenes together and they fucking cut my line in the end but I– We were on set together at the same time, and I came up to you and I really wanted to talk to you because you were just… you were so experienced with this whole world, and I’d just got the audition for Longshot and I wanted it so badly and I thought you might… I don’t know, have some advice or something. I knew nothing and nobody and so I went up to you, and I introduced myself and you turned round to your agent and you said “Can you get rid of him?”.’ 

Henry’s face wrinkles, his eyebrows pulling close together. ‘Right. Yes. Err, well. Yes, does sound fairly horrendous of me. I’m sorry.’ He sighs, his hand reaching up to run his long fingers through his tawny hair. ‘I… Rio was the first film I’d done since my father had died fourteen months earlier and I– I was still an arse pretty much every single day of my life, really. I was tied into the contract and couldn’t get out of it and I tried. I really really tried to get out of it and I really didn’t want to be there. I was horrendously unpleasant to be around at the time– just ask Bea and Pez, they’ll be the first to tell you – and I took it out on a lot of people, the wrong people. Including you, apparently. I know that doesn’t justify it or make it better, but I’m sorry.’

He pauses. ‘I know that you don’t agree with me taking the role of George, and I understand why. I… I can only say that I have my own reasons for being… passionate about the role but I understand why you think the things you do, and I don’t disagree with you.’ 

Alex looks back at Henry, unsure what to say, and finds nervous blue eyes looking back at him. 

‘Look, I’ve done enough of these things to know that they’re a circus and you see the same people a lot, and well, they’re much better when you actually know the people you’re seeing every multiple times a week,’ Henry says. 

He’s… not wrong. He’s fully aware that he’s just been put on the fast track to being nominated for every other awards show this season. He’s already got a couple more nominations for things that have already been announced. He knows that everybody is going to want a piece of him, and Henry– well, Henry knows this stuff. And he does seem sorry. And most importantly, Zahra will be pleased if he seems like he’s making an effort to smooth things over. If the two of them are seen together, it’ll be great press for him and make her life ten times easier. Which makes Alex’s life easier.

Alex groans and makes a split-second decision he definitely doesn't understand. This entire night is one confusion after another. He holds out his hand.

‘Fine, Fox. Give me your phone.’ 

Henry startles slightly, his eyes widening like a deer, as though Alex is going to take it and run. Or maybe leak all his darkest secrets. Although he doesn’t know what kind of secrets someone as boring as Henry could have that would be worth leaking to the press.

‘Christ, I just– I’m just going to give you my number. If we’re going to end up seeing a lot of each other and you want to be friends then I at least want to get to know the real you… Who you are when you’re not wearing one of those boring-ass suits, anyway.’ 

Henry huffs indignantly, but he hands Alex his phone anyway.

Chapter Text

Alex

this gift bag is obscene

it’s worth more than my fucking apartment 

you people are insane why do you need all this free stuff

award-winning dickhead 💩

I wouldn’t know. I stopped taking them years ago – Shaan donates the contents to charity for me.

Well huh. That’s unexpected. 

Alex doesn’t reply, but a few days later, he sends: 

when i said i wanted to know who you are when you’re not wearing one of those fucking boring suits this isn’t exactly what i meant

The texts are accompanied by a link to TMZ, full of pictures of Henry shirtless on the beach in a pair of minuscule bathing trunks. 

award-winning dickhead💩

What’s wrong with my suits? 

Alex

your suits are everything that’s wrong with men’s red carpet fashion 

award-winning dickhead💩

I’m an actor, not a catwalk model. 

Alex

red carpet’s a catwalk baby, gotta be both. 

Henry then sends him a photo a few days later – an Ewok on a television screen playing Return of the Jedi with the comment, ‘ I didn’t know you were in this.’

They fall into a pattern of sending each other the odd news story about each other with sarcastic comments. But a couple of days later when he sends Alex a picture of his own face on a massive billboard for Longshot, along with the words GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD WINNER FOR BEST ACTOR, Alex’s phone almost falls out of his hands. He can barely even read the text which is some quip about Alex’s expression looking like someone was wafting a bad curry next to him, because holy fucking shit, that’s his face on a billboard. A fucking massive billboard. He’s seen them before; for other films, obviously. He’s dreamed about the day it would be him, but Longshot didn’t have the budget for that sort of thing. They didn’t have the budget to actually campaign for awards, just to turn up and hope for the best. But someone, somewhere, has found the money for it. 

holy fucking shit. is what Alex replies. 

that’s my face. 

holy SHIT. 

award-winning dickhead💩 

Have you not seen them before?

Alex

what kind of big ass budget films do you think i work on fox. where is it?

Henry sends him a pin of his location and before Alex can even think he’s running out of the door. Henry is still there when Alex arrives, leaning casually against his car, which Alex finds oddly surprising. Henry just smiles easily as Alex stares up at the billboard at the side of the freeway. Alex is grateful for the fact that he doesn’t mention the tears springing up in his eyes. 

‘Well, someone had to be here to record the moment,’ he says, and then takes a series of Alex standing under the billboard in various poses. Alex posts them to his Instagram. June comments seventeen times with a series of crying emojis, and then again an hour later: I’m still crying

‘I um, thanks,’ Alex says, once they’ve taken the photos and they’re standing by their cars. 

Henry smiles at him, and Alex thinks it looks nothing like the smile he’s seen on so many red carpet photos. It’s softer, from his eyes rather than his mouth. ‘The diner over there is pretty good,’ Henry says eventually, sounding unsure. 

Alex finds the idea of sitting in a diner with Henry Fox isn’t as unappealing as it was a week ago. ‘I guess I owe you a coffee or something for sending me this. Don’t go wild though, Fox. They don’t give you money for winning one of those things.’

A laugh slips from Henry’s lips, but what he says is, ‘You don’t owe me anything, Alex.’ 

They take a seat in the diner. It’s a garish retro affair and Alex can’t help but laugh at the sight of Henry, rigid in a light blue cashmere sweater, against the backdrop of waitresses in poodle skirts and beehive hair. 

They settle into a conversation surprisingly easily. This Henry is a world away from the one he’s seen on red carpets and in interviews. He’s relaxed and makes jokes like any other twenty-three year old rather than the robotic image he projects. He’s dynamic and engaged and Alex is horrified to find, terrifyingly well-read and intelligent. He has a writing credit on his film, The Waterloo Vase . So like, fine, maybe that Oxford degree is real. 

‘Why doesn’t anyone else see this side of you?’ Alex asks eventually, stirring his coffee.

There’s a little crease between Henry’s brow. It gets deeper when he looks confused and Alex doesn’t know why, but he wants to take his thumb and smooth it out again. ‘What do you mean?’ 

‘Just like… in every interview you’ve done you’re so… rigid, and, well, boring,’ he says with a shrug. 

Henry sighs and looks down at his hands. His long fingers twirl a small ring around his little finger. ‘When you come from a family like mine there’s… there’s a certain image to project.’ 

‘What the fuck do you mean a family like yours? You’re not royalty, Fox.’ 

Henry lets out a laugh but there’s no humour behind it. ‘We may as well be in this town. There’s just a lot that’s expected of me when it comes to my career. It's been planned out for me since before I was born. I was expected to go to the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts in London, then do a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company like everyone else in my family, fall in love with my co-star, then make the move into films with a prestigious role and win an Oscar first time. My uh, my grandmother likes to remind me that Philip had already won one by the time he was my age.’ He tilts his head with a slight grimace and picks at a napkin. ‘My father never cared about any of that. He just wanted us to be happy. He didn’t even want us to act really. He tried to encourage me to be a writer. But, when I was young I saw this casting call for The Clockwork Prince and I was desperate to audition because I wanted to be just like him, just like all of them really. I don’t know why. I always hated the press and when people would take pictures of us as kids, but I’d always felt… different, I suppose and I was desperate to fit in. Gran didn’t want me to – “child actors are so gauche”, she’d say, but Mum and Dad let me, and well, I got the part and… now I’m here I suppose.’ 

Alex considers what he’s said. ‘Do you even like acting?’ 

‘Of course I do. Who doesn’t like slipping into another person’s shoes for a bit and getting to be someone else?’ 

‘Yeah but like, this town is full of people who would kill to be in your shoes. You’ve got every director in town banging down your door, girls hanging on your every word and... I don’t know,  you just don’t seem that fussed about any of it.’

‘It’s ah, it’s complicated, I suppose. I’ve been around it my entire life. I’ve seen what this world does to people. What it takes from people.’ 

So Henry talks. On a January afternoon as the buzz of the city rushes past them, the two of them sit in a booth in a quiet diner, and Henry tells Alex about his father. How he hated the media circus and always tried to keep Henry and his siblings away from it. He tells Alex about his brother – overbearing and uptight and pushing, pushing, pushing for them to be the best, and for the Fox name to be synonymous with quality, effectively an instant ticket to the dual prize of box office and awards success. The best, always the best. 

Henry tells Alex about his grandmother, Mary Mountchristen, the grand dame of the industry who vets every role they choose. She refused to let him take this one, he says. It wasn’t “suitable”, but Henry argued and argued until she acquiesced. There’s an unspoken current that runs beneath the conversation – that he has to win the Oscar for it to prove her wrong. Quietly, he tells Alex about his sister: that before she switched to music she was just another teenage actor, shoved into the limelight too early. She got in too deep with the wrong crowd and fell into a spiral of cocaine addiction after their father’s death. Henry explains that his career break was to grieve for his father, and to care for his sister. He tells Alex in hushed tones about his mother – the vivacious leading lady, whipsmart and vocal and with the biggest heart of anyone for miles, until their father got ill and her guiding light was snuffed out. How she barely leaves the house these days.

Alex finds himself sharing too. About his parents and their little one bed apartment in downtown Austin, in a neighbourhood that he watched fade whiter and whiter over his lifetime until he didn’t even recognise it anymore. He tells Henry about sharing a room with June and how they’re some of the happiest memories of his life, about how June still worries and watches over him. He tells him the unacknowledged truth between them: that she probably wants to be in San Francisco or New York, but she’s here in LA because it’s where he is. 

He’s surprised to find that once he starts talking to Henry, he can’t stop. He tells him about the divorce and his parents straining to keep their fighting hidden until they just couldn’t anymore and the arguments seeped into every conversation they had, both of them overworking and desperately trying to keep the family afloat. He pauses, and then he tells Henry about the time he went off to a drama camp for the summer on a scholarship, had the best time of his life and came home to find his dad gone. Alex tells him how he didn’t speak to him for a year. 

He tells Henry too, about how it got better, when his mother remarried and got elected to the state senate and now she spends her days making a difference to the communities he grew up in, always fighting for the little guy. How his dad works as an immigration lawyer for a non-profit making absolutely no money but that he seems happy. 

It’s odd, how freely the words come out. June always says he needs to talk about this stuff more, that he can’t only talk to her and Nora about it. He can’t put a name to it, but there’s something about Henry’s blue eyes and the knowing quirk of his lips that makes Alex feel at ease, entirely willing to sit across from him on the worn and threadbare seats of a diner booth and spill all of his deepest thoughts to the guy he’d thought was his mortal enemy up until a couple of weeks ago. He doesn’t even notice the sun setting outside, the slow and easy way that the sky bleeds from blue to orange to midnight black.  

It’s only when they step outside and Alex drives back through the LA traffic to his apartment that he registers just how long they were in there. June is on the sofa, a bowl of pasta in her hand with Nora curled up at her side. She looks up at him as he enters. 

‘There’s more in the pot if you want it,’ she says, not taking her eyes off the screen and the episode of Parks and Rec they’re watching that Alex knows June has seen a thousand times before. 

He shakes his head. ‘I already ate.’

June’s brow furrows as she turns to look at him. ‘Have you been out this entire time?’ 

‘Uhh.’ Alex raises a hand to the back of his head. ‘Yeah I– I was with Henry? I don’t know, it was weird. He sent me this picture of the billboard and then... we ended up at a diner after and we just talked for ages I guess.’ 

June and Nora exchange a look, one of their private glances. Their shared bond is a fortress that Alex will never even begin to be able to breach. ‘Huh,’ Nora says. 

‘What?’ 

‘Nothing. Just... nothing.’ 

Alex sighs and sits himself in the armchair next to them. He stares blankly at the screen while they watch reruns of Parks and Recreation and Alex tries to piece together the bits of information Henry told him, and all the things he’s learnt through his texts and in interviews over the years. It’s as though Henry has handed him a pile of broken jigsaw pieces and no picture on the box. He doesn’t know what to do with them, can’t quite work out how the Oxford graduate, the overbearing family and the dog named after David Bowie all fit together. 

Eventually, he drags himself off to bed, his brain still swimming as he retreats to his room, ignoring the gazes of Nora and June that follow after him. It takes him an age to get to sleep, but when he does, he sleeps deeply, with dreams of packed auditoriums and glossy magazine pages, of retro diners and, inexplicably, Henry’s long fingers tearing at a napkin and the creeping blush on his cheeks as he confessed his favourite author is Jane Austen.

Someone snaps a photo of the two of them grabbing coffee later in the week, and it makes its way onto Twitter. Their fans are apparently divided on the move. Some love it, and quickly jump on the two of them as the next great Hollywood bromance – Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for a new generation. On the other side are a solid portion of people crying that it’s all PR, another camp are firm in the belief that Alex doesn’t need to cosy up to Henry to get the roles he wants, and a group of Henry’s fans are adamant that Henry shouldn’t cave into the idea of needing to be friends with Alex, that he’s too good for him. Alex finds the whole thing ridiculous, how so many people have an opinion on something they know absolutely nothing about. 

Zahra sends him a screenshot of the article, with the headline: NEW BROMANCE ALERT: Henry Fox and Alex Claremont-Diaz put differences aside as they grab coffee, with a text that just says ‘?????’ 

Alex replies, i’m playing nice. 

like you told me to.  

It’s not a lie, he thinks, but there’s something about it that doesn’t feel like the whole truth either.

Chapter Text

The Critics Choice awards come next. The press has been on a rampage, lining Alex and Henry up as warring rivals for weeks, like they’re modern day Montague and Capulets to the point that they seem to have forgotten there are even other people in the category. As far as they’re concerned it’s a two-horse race – reduced down to two sides: New Hollywood, diversity and Alex, or Old Hollywood, tradition and Henry.

Except, Alex isn’t so sure he believes that anymore. 

Since their afternoon in the diner, he and Henry have been messaging almost constantly and he’s nothing like Alex thought. He’s funny and kind and intelligent. Alex is scrolling through Twitter in yet another ridiculous hotel room as a hairdresser sorts out his hair with more product than he’s ever seen, when he sees a picture of Henry walking down a street alongside a pretty blonde woman with the headline: FOXY LADY: WHO IS HENRY’S MYSTERY BLONDE? He thinks that he probably shouldn’t have had that burrito because his stomach twists and turns like a sea of restless waves. 

He’s going to the awards alone this time. When he’d asked, June had given him a sad smile and said she had to be in the office for a meeting the next morning, and Nora had thrown an edamame bean at his head and reminded him she had a big deadline for the thousandth time.

So Alex finds himself back on a red carpet in front of a wall of flashing lights and flickering camera shutters, outside the giant disused air hangar they use as a venue, this time dressed in a deep forest green tux and black bow tie. The cheers for him are louder this time despite it being a smaller show, the sound of his name ripples down the carpet. He grins, turns to the cameras again, lifts his chin slightly higher, and then lowers it again so they get a good shot of his eyes. 

He turns and sees Henry next to him, in deep navy blue and a bow tie made of burgundy velvet. ‘Holy shit!’ he exclaims and Henry laughs from his spot along the carpet next to him. An actual laugh, not one of those fake ones he’s seen him do before. It stretches wide across his face and makes the skin around his eyes crinkle.

Over the roar of the photographers, he sees Henry grin easily at him, hears him shout, ‘I thought you might make a scene if I wore plain black again.’ 

Alex grins back at him and shakes his head, laughing. They get a photo of that too – the two of them joking. The reporters pounce on him as soon as he gets to the press line. 

‘I saw your little exchange with Henry Fox over there. There was a fair amount of tension between the two of you at the start of this awards season. Can you tell us a little about that?’ 

Alex shrugs and smiles. ‘Ah I mean. I don’t know, this whole season is crazy, man. It’s cool to have someone else who gets it, who’s done it all before. We’re friends, it’s cool, he’s cool.’ 

The reporter nods, clearly having hoped for a more interesting and juicy response. ‘And you’re both up for the Best Actor award. Any thoughts on how that will affect your friendship if one of you wins tonight?’ 

‘I’m just riding the wave. I’m just turning up and having a great time and expecting nothing. I’ve met some incredible people and I’m making some amazing friends. I won a Golden Globe! If that’s all I come away from this season with then like, that’s already more than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.’ 

The reporter smiles thinly back at Alex and he ushers him into the auditorium. Henry is there, looking impossibly tall. The rich navy colour of his suit pops against the paleness of his skin. It brings out a shade of blue in his eyes Alex has never noticed before – a dark blue thread that runs through his iris, tying all the other shades together. 

He finds himself on a table with Henry again; Pez; and surprisingly, Philip, Henry’s older brother; and his wife, Martha. Raf is across the room on another table, clearly having requested a different seating arrangement with some actual adults this time. Alex doesn’t really blame him. Philip is older than Henry and his wife is another generically attractive blonde actress. She looks like every woman he’s ever seen Henry photographed with. The Fox men clearly have a type. Alex doesn’t feel the same frenzied buzz as he did at the Globes – it’s a far more relaxed affair. Philip sits with an unnaturally straight back and an even straighter face. He can’t help noticing the differences between the brothers. They have different eyes. Henry’s are a clear, vivid blue, speckled with a million different shades whereas Philip’s are a simple, solid brown. Next to Henry’s high cheekbones and strong jaw, Philip looks like a budget waxwork version of him, all flattened out with none of the definition. 

‘Henry,’ Philip says once they’ve cleared the starters. ‘How was your date?’ 

Henry’s fingers twitch and tighten around the neck of the bottle he’s pouring. But his face betrays none of the tension. ‘What date?’ he asks smoothly. 

‘The girl you were pictured with – blonde, attractive.’

Alex doesn’t think it’s a very helpful description considering Henry seems to be pictured with a different blonde girl every week, but he keeps his mouth shut. ‘She’s a friend from uni,’ Henry says. ‘She was here on holiday. That’s all.’

Philip looks over the rim of his champagne glass at his brother and his eyes seem to narrow slightly. ‘Henry–’ he says in a low tone that almost feels laced with a warning.

He’s cut off by Martha delicately placing her hand on his elbow. ‘Darling, not here,’ she murmurs, so quietly that Alex barely hears it. Henry’s hand grips the stem of his glass in a tightly curled fist. He’s staring across the table at his brother, eyes hardened and lips pressed together so tightly they’ve almost disappeared. Pez leans across and starts to ask Alex about June and Nora, absorbing the tension between the brothers. Alex thinks he seems very experienced in the role. 

There’s still a tension bubbling across their table when when their category is announced, Henry and Philip glaring at each other across the table and saying nothing. The camera pans between the nominees and Alex tries to keep a straight face but he finds his mind wandering to Henry and Philip and the odd tension between them. 

‘And the ACTA goes to….’. The man on stage looks down at the card and beams. ‘Henry Fox!’ he says and a cheer erupts instantly. Alex knows that he’s worked with Henry before, half the people in this room have. Alex finds that strangely, he doesn’t mind losing. It’s expected almost and he’s oddly pleased for Henry. 

Philip nods at him from his seat across the table with pursed lips, but makes no movement to hug or congratulate Henry. There’s no celebration from Philip – winning is merely what is expected of Henry. Pez gives Henry a hug and then Henry catches Alex’s eye and for a second, he looks as though he’s about to apologise. So Alex rolls his eyes and laughs and pulls him into a hug before pushing him up onto the stage. The wool of his suit is soft under Alex’s hands and it’s tight across the broad planes of Henry’s shoulders. There’s something about the presence of Henry in Alex’s space, in his arms that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, but Henry is gone and up on the stage before Alex can even think to consider what it is. 

His speech is heartfelt and polite but generic – the modest leading man who seems surprised even though he’s been here countless times before. He might not have won the Oscar yet, but Alex knows Henry has given plenty of acceptance speeches for other awards in his time. He’s hate-watched enough of them on YouTube over the years. Eventually Henry returns to the table after a round of press interviews with his award and Philip gives him another nod. 

‘Speeches are next on the list now you’ve sorted out your suits,’ Alex tells him. 

Henry laughs and pours himself more champagne. ‘What was wrong with my speech?’ 

‘It was boring, that’s what.’

‘This is an awards ceremony, not a political rally,’ Philip says with an eye roll.

‘And if you have a platform, like you do, then you should be drawing attention to issues that are important,’ Alex fires back. 

Philip rolls his eyes again and mutters, ‘Jesus Christ,’ under his breath. 

Henry stared between them with an expression Alex can’t quite place. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom a while later, and Alex watches as Philip takes off after him in wide, purposeful strides. Pez sighs but says nothing, just pulls Henry’s trophy closer to him and starts up another conversation with Martha about her latest role. Alex is… not drunk per se, but he’s on his way there, having given himself the green light to start drinking after Henry’s name was announced. He ordered a whiskey, and then another, and then started on the champagne again. His head is light and a little fuzzy and getting up for some air seems like a good idea.

He’s dodged the advances of the TV actress that Pez told him to give a wide berth unless he wants photos of himself half naked to end up in the press, and is roaming a long corridor when he hears it – the low, fevered hiss of voices mid-argument.

‘I don’t understand why you can’t just be pleased for me for five seconds before you start giving me grief,’ Henry’s voice says from an open doorway, short and sharp and bubbling with frustration.

‘For God’s sake Henry, it’s a Critics Choice Award, not an Oscar,’ Philip retorts snidely. There’s a bitterness there in the cold snap of his voice. ‘Nobody fucking cares.’ 

There’s more murmuring that Alex doesn’t quite catch, and then Philip is storming back through the open doorway and Henry is outside in the barren wasteland of the outside of the air hangar. The sound of the event floats outside: a ripple of soft applause and the hum of chatter and music; clinking glasses and the scrape of cutlery from the kitchen, but there’s not a single person out here besides Henry – one fist clenched under the light of the moon, the other clutching the neck of a wine bottle he seems to have acquired from somewhere. He takes a drink from it and Alex watches his arm and the shadow move in a disjointed mirror, just slightly out of sync. 

‘Hey,’ Alex says. Henry startles slightly and turns to face him, the moonlight falling softly onto his face. 

‘Sorry,’ Alex says. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you, I just… I overheard your conversation. I didn’t mean to but–’ 

Henry nods and exhales. ‘Would you believe me if I said he wasn’t always that much of a complete and utter arsehole? He’s sort of taken it upon himself to steward the family legacy since Dad. You know, that and Gran has… I  don’t know, brainwashed him or something.’ He waves a hand in the air as though to gesture at the nothingness around them. He looks over at Alex and pulls a face up at the sky and then takes another long drink. ‘You know – when are you going to get an Oscar, Henry? When are you going to get a girlfriend, Henry?’ His body sways gently under the moon, heavy under the weight of alcohol and a thousand expectations.

‘Well I mean, one of those might be easier than the others. I don’t think we can rig the judges decision but I’m pretty sure we can find a hot girl who wants to date Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor. I always see you in the press with girls. You must have loads of options.’ 

Henry hums and his face crinkles as he looks up to the sky. ‘They’re not... they’re not options that I’m interested in,’ he says after a pause. 

Alex laughs. ‘I mean if you’re not into them, you could try dating someone who looks different. You do always seem to date identical girls.’ He pauses. ‘They all look like Martha by the way, which is just a bit weird really.’

Henry is looking back at him and there’s a hint of something in his expression on his face that Alex just can’t place. An exasperation that he’s seen on the face of almost everyone he’s ever met at some point, but he can’t put his finger on why.

‘I’m sure we can find someone who will put up with you,’ Alex says into the long, stretching silence.

Henry blinks back at him. ‘There are... people,’ he says and there’s a careful intonation to his voice that Alex knows he should understand but it’s covered up by a haze of whiskey and wine. ‘That I’d like to date but... I can’t. Not in my position.’ He pauses and considers Alex for a second. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ 

And Alex wishes he did, knows he really should, and if he sat down with a list and all the puzzle pieces he might be able to work out how they all slot together. But for some reason all his brain can focus on is the soft glow of the moonlight on Henry’s face. ‘No,’ he says. 

Henry exhales and blinks at him in frustration. ‘Really? You have absolutely no idea what I’m saying?’ 

‘Uhhh, no?’ Alex repeats. He feels like they’re both trying to drive to the same endpoint, and Henry keeps leaving pins in the map, trying to guide him to a destination but he doesn’t have the key. Either that or they’re just using two completely different maps. 

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Henry mutters. ‘Never mind.’ 

Alex twists his fingers. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Wanna get out of here?’ 

Henry glances back at him. ‘We can’t just leave.’ 

Alex shrugs. ‘Why not? Awards are over.’ 

Henry splutters, slightly red faced. ‘Because! We’ve RSVP’d to parties! It’s really quite rude to do that and then not go.’

Alex laughs and rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, and then your brother decided to be a dick and ruin your night. Let’s go. Nobody’s going to miss us. I bet you have a fucking fancy ass hotel or something. We can get food and get drunk and watch Star Wars or something.’ 

Henry glances over at him, a small quirk to his lips and then finally he sighs and nods. ‘I suppose that does sound slightly more appealing than spending the night trying to avoid being dry humped by the girl who played my sister in the biopic of The Windsors last year.’ Henry gives him a small smile. 

Alex pulls a face. ‘I mean I wouldn’t mind spending the night that way, Fox, but I’ll make the sacrifice for you.’ 

Henry rolls his eyes at him and a wide smile breaks out onto his face. ‘Come on, you unmitigated demon.’ 

*** 

Henry does indeed have a hotel room, but it’s nowhere near as fancy as Alex expected. A simple standard room with a minibar and a desk in the corner. Henry keeps doing this: surprising him. Just when he thinks he’s got him worked out, he’ll pull something else out of the bag and upend all of Alex’s carefully formed ideas about him. It’s extremely frustrating.

Henry shrugs. ‘I’m only going to sleep in it,’ he says. ‘Seems rather wasteful to get anything more extravagant.’ 

Alex is about to make a comment and ask what if he’d found a girl to bring home, but then he remembers Henry’s comments earlier, and there’s something that stops him. 

‘I believe you said something about room service?’

Alex lets out a low groan. ‘Fuck, yes I’m starving. God they really give you tiny portions at those things don’t they?’ 

Henry smiles. ‘Bea stores snack bars in her purse,’ he tells him.

They order thick greasy burgers and open some tiny bottles of whiskey from the minibar, and Henry regales him with stories from going to those shows as a child. First, as a nine year old, when his grandmother absolutely refused to accept an alternative meal for him, saying he’d eat the same thing as the other nominees so he spent half the night absolutely starving, refusing to eat the caviar or the foie gras, and later as a teenager, when Bea would fill his glass with wine when nobody was looking until Philip took it away with a disapproving glare.

Alex grins at the image, listening intently to him. He laughs as Henry tells stories of his parents and growing up on set, how he used to fall asleep in directors chairs as a toddler. He looks so relaxed, stripped down to just his shirt and pants, entirely at ease in a hotel room sitting cross-legged on the bed with Alex as Star Wars plays in the background. This Henry is a world away from the one he thought he knew. When Alex slips into an Uber later and leaves Henry there, he finds himself wondering why he suddenly feels so empty.

Chapter Text

The Screen Actor’s Guild Awards, according to everyone who seems to have ever Googled them, are the best predictor of the Oscar winner. Alex has spent the past few weeks hanging out with Henry for what feels like every available minute – watching Star Wars and taunting him about his incredibly incorrect opinions, playing Mario Kart, sitting on his sofa flicking through scripts together. It’s strange seeing Henry in his apartment, all long-limbs folded into the tiny space. They’ve not been to Henry’s apartment yet, but Alex doesn’t want to push. So he’s just freely invited him over to his place and apologised for the state and size of it, for the cracks in the walls, the dripping tap in the bathroom and the less than desirable location. Henry seems entirely unconcerned about all of that and just pleased to be there. Alex introduced him to Nora and June – properly this time – and then sat through the ensuing three hour long conversation about their favourite authors. Henry has offered to read June’s script and put her in touch with agents. He laughs with Nora about her favourite shows, offering insider tidbits on the actors he’s worked with; they discuss their various plants and trade plant care tips. Henry has slotted into his life so simply that Alex had largely forgotten that they’re actually still in competition with each other. 

Or, he had forgotten, until they found themselves back at another awards dinner, sitting at the opposite ends of a long table.

Alex at least knows more people now, and he can converse easily with directors and fellow actors. He grins and jokes with people like he’s known them for years. Like he’s one of them. Raf pulls him in for a hug and thwacks him over the head for being generally terrible at keeping in touch. He can’t really argue with that. He’s been so swept up in the whirlwind of press and auditions and, well, hanging out with Henry, that he really has been terrible at keeping in touch with just about everyone. He’s not even spoken to his own parents in weeks.

Alex’s palms are clammy as their category approaches. He’s been trying not to look too much at the speculation about their race online, but he knows that Henry has pulled ahead as the favourite. The reviews for The Waterloo Vase have been rolling in – all glowing with praise for Henry’s heartfelt and emotional performance: wise beyond his years, an actor with a raw, once-in-a-generation talent. Or something. Every time one comes in, Henry looks at Shaan’s emails with a bashful smile and a faint blush creeps up his neck. It always makes Alex feel a bit weird inside. It’s probably jealousy. 

So, Alex has for the most part accepted that he’s not going to win but, it’s still a big night so his hands are sweaty. People keep patting him on the back and wishing him luck. Directors have been approaching him and talking to him like a revolving door. He can only hope and pray that means that even when he loses, they might still want to work with him. 

Henry is back in another black tux, but this time his jacket is a thick, luxurious velvet. He looks sharp – clean lines, sharp jawline and piercing blue eyes. He looks like the James Bond offspring he is. It’s not completely boring, Alex supposes. Alex has opted for a white tuxedo jacket and black pants. Henry catches his eyes and gives him a small nod when their category is finally announced, Alex returns it with a quirk of the lips. ‘And the ACTA goes to….’ 

His eyes meet Henry’s for a second, and even from the other end of the long table he thinks he can see the calm blue waters of his eyes looking back, steady and unnerved.

‘... Alex Claremont-Diaz for Longshot!’ 

Well.

Shit.

There’s a slight flicker in Henry’s eyes but then his camera face is back, cool and collected, smiling and clapping politely. Alex is being hugged and patted on the back again, and his feet carry him to the stage without him even registering the physical movements of how to put on in front of the other. The words tumble out of his mouth again – thank yous to everyone who worked on the film and his family, and this time he remembers to recognise the other people in the category too, to tell them how wonderful it is to be in a category with such talent. But all the while, he can’t stop himself searching for Henry in the sea of tables. His mind is racing to find the one he was sitting at, but they all look the same and the lights are blinding, and all he can think about is the expression on Henry’s face. The thought that he – Alex – has just become the frontrunner for the Oscar, when it should be Henry, is pressing at the front of his skull. He’s watching his friendship fall away in a haze of antagonism, the awards an underlying tension line winding tighter and tighter until it snaps. Henry resenting him for winning, him resenting Henry for winning until some stupid argument destroys it all. 

Despite all the things he might have thought or said, Alex doesn’t want to lose him. He likes having Henry around. He’s surprisingly quick-witted and unfailingly generous, and smarter than almost anyone Alex has ever met. He talks to Alex at length about the advantages and pitfalls of different roles, studios, directors and makes him consider things he’s never even dreamt of. They’re friends. But now in the awards season tally, Alex is 2:1 up with the SAG award on his side, and he doesn’t know how that changes things. 

When he finds Henry again after his whirlwind press tour, he’s smiling easily and conversing with the director for Phantom Touch, one of the biggest films in development right now. He congratulates Alex and greets him as though he just came back from the store rather than just overtook him as the frontrunner to win the Oscar. It’s weird. Pez slips away quietly to take more selfies with the kid who keeps beating him for Best Supporting Actor. They stand and there’s a current of… something in the air – an awkwardness that Alex can’t and doesn’t want to name. Because then he’ll have to think about it, and he really, really doesn’t want to think about Henry resenting him again. 

He opens his mouth to make a joke, something to fill the silence. But Henry does the same thing and they catch eyes, and both laugh uncomfortably.

‘Do you want to get out of here?’ Henry asks. The evening has wound down and everyone has started to slip out to parties, the room emptying out almost completely.

‘What about the parties?’ Alex asks, a glint of humour returning to his voice. Before this season, Alex would have killed to be at any one of those parties and meeting directors, producers, the parade of eligible hot young actresses who want to be seen with an award winner, but now? The image of he and Henry sitting on the bed in Henry’s hotel room after the Critics Choice Awards eating greasy burgers and drinking whiskey pops back into his mind and there’s suddenly not a single thing he wants more. It’s been years since he had a proper best friend. Growing up it was June and Nora, then Liam, but now, June and Nora are an impenetrable unit and he can’t work out where he fits. And Liam… well, he’s only spoken to Liam a handful of times since he left Texas. By the end there was a weirdness to their friendship he couldn’t understand. It’s so easy with Henry. After all everything, it’s just nice to have a friend. 

Henry shrugs. ‘Nobody seemed to notice last time.’ 

‘I’m a bad influence on you, Fox.’ 

Henry’s eyes seem to linger on Alex for just a second longer than usual. ‘You’re something alright,’ he says quietly, pink lips shifting upwards just slightly. 

They slip out to a car and Henry glances over at Alex. His eyes sweep over Alex and bites his lip for a second as though he’s considering something. Then he turns to the driver and gives him an address that Alex vaguely recognises as somewhere in West Hollywood. 

‘I... I have an apartment here as well as London,’ Henry says. ‘It’s not quite the same but it helps me to feel a bit more at home here. My flat here often feels more like home than there, really.’ 

Henry’s apartment building is a nondescript white concrete with a large palm tree outside and window boxes filled with little pink flowers. Almost every apartment on the street has some sort of flag or banner hanging from its window – Black Lives Matter posters and pride flags. A Puerto Rican flag is taped to the window of the building opposite, a California state flag hangs from another. 

‘Bea stays here too when she’s in town but she’s ah, she’s on tour right now. Tokyo now, I think,’ Henry tells him as he leads him upstairs to a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor. 

It’s surprisingly full of life. Photos and posters adorn the walls and there are trailing plants spilling from the shelves. There’s a record player on the table next to an extensive collection of vinyl, an overflowing bookcase crammed into one corner with a worn wingback chair next to it, and a battered old upright piano on the other wall. The couch is covered in colourful cushions and blankets, and the room opens up onto a small kitchen with some dishes still next to the sink. There’s a dog bed in the corner and toys scattered across the floor on the rug. Henry’s beagle David yaps at his feet, tail wagging furiously and Henry grins, and leans down to pet him. 

‘Gotta say,’ Alex says. ‘This is not what I was expecting.’

Henry breathes out a small indignant huff. ‘What were you expecting?’ 

Alex shrugs. ‘I don’t know, some like fucking stupid mansion out in Beverly Hills or something. I don’t know. You kept coming to mine so I just assumed you were like, embarrassed of showing me your mansion or something.’ 

He looks back at Henry, still standing in his suit in the middle of the room and it’s not in the slightest what he expected but somehow it fits perfectly. There’s a worn cardigan hanging on the back of the wingback chair, an ink-splotted notebook open on the table, postcards on the fridge and Bea’s leather jacket hanging on the door handle. A guitar propped up against the wall. Henry fits here. It’s full of colour and life and it’s a bit like how Alex imagines a cocoon must be – warm and cosy. There’s no intrusion from the outside world, it’s just as though somebody has wrapped their arms around him. He could happily burrow down here for weeks, free from prying eyes and camera lights. It feels safe. 

Alex gravitates towards Henry’s bookcase and lets his eyes travel along the spines. They’re all alphabetised by surname: James Baldwin, E. M. Forster, Radclyffe Hall, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman. There’s the niggle again, pushing itself towards the front of Alex’s brain because he’s seen some of these books before. June has some of these books. Nora has some of these books. He pauses, laying out the different pieces in his mind, the trail of clues Henry has been leaving for him: his choice of role, the parade of anonymously pretty blonde girlfriends that never seem to last, their conversation at the Critics Choice Awards, Henry’s choice of neighbourhood, Henry’s selection of literature and ease with with he conversed with June about her own favourite authors. And then, Alex’s eye catches a couple of photos in frames on the shelf above and suddenly, everything slots into place like a cascade of tetris blocks lining up. It all adds up to one conclusion that seems at once both really fucking obvious and impossible. 

He turns to Henry, and finds him crouched down on the floor, still in his suit, scratching behind David’s ear looking back at him with a rueful smile. ‘You’ve finally got there then?’ 

Alex blinks at him. He looks at Henry and his soft, easy unbothered smile. ‘You’re gay?’ 

Alex looks back at the photo: Henry, and Pez mid-laugh. Pez’s hair is a shock of pink and he’s wrapped in a pink, yellow and blue flag. Henry is next to him in a white t-shirt cut, biceps peeking out from the sleeve, with lines of rainbow colours painted on each cheek and a pride flag tied around his neck like a cape.

Henry scratches David behind the ears and then lets him plod back over to his bed. ‘Very,’ he says. Henry moves comfortably back over to the kitchen as though Alex isn’t re-evaluating everything he’s ever known or thought about him in his living room. ‘Wine?’ he asks, pulling a bottle of red from the wine rack.

‘Yeah, sure’ he replies, distracted. ‘Why didn’t you just say?’ 

Henry shrugs. ‘I suppose it’s been rather ingrained in me not to.’ 

Alex exhales. ‘By your family,’ he says, and it’s a realisation rather than a question. ‘That’s what you meant, when you said it’s personal… The Waterloo Vase.’ He can’t take his eyes off the photo. Henry’s face is crinkled up into a wide grin and Alex can see the same slight tipsiness in his eyes that is present now, the dilation and unfocused blur; the same ease and comfort. 

Henry's face falls into a grimace and he hands him a glass of wine. ‘Yes.’ 

‘Wait, so who else knows?’ 

‘Pez, Bea, Philip, my grandmother… Anyone I’ve ever slept with. A lot of other people too, probably. These sorts of things aren’t exactly very well kept secrets in this town,’ he says with a shrug.

‘But what? They won’t let you come out? Your family?’ 

Henry raises an eyebrow at Alex and brings his fingers to unwind his bowtie and then they slip between the top buttons of his shirt, undoing them gently. He shrugs off his jacket and places it on a chair so that he’s standing across from Alex in just a white shirt and the tightly fitted suit pants. He looks back at Alex wearily, as though his question has aged him twenty years. ‘Do you know many gay men in our industry? Many in their twenties?’ 

There’s an emptiness in his eyes that wasn’t there before, and it all suddenly comes rushing to Alex just how many times Henry must have thought about this. The sleepless nights lying awake wondering if he’ll be frozen out of the industry, never getting the lead roles again and relegated to being just the sidekick, if he’s lucky. Alex thinks back to what Henry said about his grandmother, the way she and Philip are determined for them to be the best, synonymous with quality and star power. Being the only out A-list gay actor in Hollywood doesn’t exactly line up with that goal.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alex says. It’s all he can think to say really. He doesn’t know what he’s apologising for, or who, but it’s the only thing that feels right. He takes a sip from the wine glass. He knows nothing about wine but it tastes expensive and silky on his tongue. 

Henry takes a seat on the couch and nods for Alex to join him. He puts his glass down on the table and follows Henry in removing his own bow tie and jacket. Henry sits with his legs tucked under him.

‘I was going to quit acting,’ he says into the stillness of the room. ‘Right around the time that Dad died. I’d completely fallen out of love with it. I knew that I was gay and that I could never live that life and this one, and I wanted to be honest and true to myself so I was going to quit. I never got around to telling him but I think my Dad knew, and… then he died and… everything with Bea and Mum happened and I couldn’t face the idea of leaving them and spending my life on shoots halfway around the world. So I enrolled at Oxford.’ There’s a small smile on his face, pulling at the corners of his lip where that disapproving pinch usually is.

‘I loved it,’ he says. ‘For the first time I– I got to be just another student and study what I wanted. The first few months were mad and people would take pictures of me all around town but, after a while it all just… faded away. People got used to it, to me, I suppose. I was all ready to quit and just I don’t know, do a masters or a PhD or something. I did Rio because I had to, the contract was watertight and Gran refused to let me drop out – she said a load of stuff about responsibilities and promises, and well, that was that.’ He shrugs. ‘They basically moved the entire production schedule around so I could shoot my scenes back to back and get it over in a week. I hated it. I told you before I– I was grieving. With everything with Bea and Mum, I’d barely processed Dad dying so I was just generally awful to be around. I uhh, I was reckless. Drinking, partying, sleeping around. I suppose there was a part of me that was trying to get caught, make it so I couldn’t go back to acting. It wasn’t until Bea, Shaan and Pez all sat me down and recommended that I see a therapist that I actually started to get better… process things. I stayed on with Shaan as my agent and he kept sending me things but nothing interested me. I was so certain that I was going to graduate and turn around to my grandmother and quit. But then–’ He pauses and takes another sip from his wine glass. ‘Pez told me he’d heard about this script in development. The Waterloo Vase. A gay love story with a happy ending… and I read it and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I just– I’ve never felt that way about anything before, that raw connection to something, such a visceral need to be a part of it. So I got Shaan to find out everything he could about it and practically begged for an audition and then I got it. And I fell in love with it all again. It made me realise just how many other stories there are out there I want to tell.’

Alex’s tongue runs over his lips. ‘But what about your grandmother? I uhh, get the sense she’s not thrilled about you playing a gay character.’ 

Henry exhales. ‘No. Err, well. She almost fired Shaan for letting me audition in the first place. Kensington – it’s an agency that operates almost entirely under her iron thumb. The entire family is signed with agents under them. You probably know this. We’re basically their only clients. Gran is on the board. What she says goes... Essentially, I threatened to quit acting forever if she wouldn’t let me do it. It had a prestigious director attached to it, I told her I’d have a good shot at winning the Oscar, all that sort of stuff. So really it came down to: I quit, or she lets me do it and it could do well and I might win an Oscar.’ 

‘And if you don’t win?’ 

Henry’s eyes meet his and his teeth find his lip and they tuck it tightly between them. ‘Then,’ he says carefully, ‘she gets to vet everything I ever do. She will…’ He exhales slowly. ‘Pick every role I ever do for the rest of my life, essentially. Or, well, at least the rest of hers anyway.’ 

Alex blinks repeatedly trying to process Henry’s words. ‘What the fuck?’ 

‘Hmm. Quite.’ 

‘No seriously, that’s fucked up.’ 

‘I’ll admit I didn’t entirely think it through, I just– I wanted to do this so badly. I’ll deal with the consequences later I suppose, if I have to. The whole thing really was remarkably rash of me. Very out of character,’ he says with a wry smile.

Alex nods. ‘I get that though. The first time I read the script for Longshot I just couldn’t stop thinking about it for days and like– it was nothing I’ve ever felt before. I don’t know that probably sounds dumb, I’d never even done a movie before, it’s stupid.’ 

‘Don’t sell yourself short. You’re incredible.’ Henry’s looking over at him, steady deep blue eyes, earnest and true. ‘It’s a remarkable film.’

‘You’ve seen Longshot?’ he asks. It shouldn’t surprise him, he’s seen The Waterloo Vase, as well as everything else Henry’s ever been in, but they’ve never talked about it. For all that their friendship has been built around them both being up for the same award, they’ve spent very little time talking about it. 

Henry looks up to the ceiling. ‘Christ this is embarrassing. The Globes nominee tea party thing that I missed… I missed it because I’d spent the morning watching it – Longshot. Bea walked into my room and asked if I was ready to go and I was just… crying. I was in absolutely no state to go anywhere – red puffy eyes, all sorts. The headlines that would have come out if I’d turned up looking like that. That ending shot, I just–’ He looks back up at Alex, with a deep sincerity written in the lines of his face. ‘It was haunting. You were… phenomenal. It was honestly one of the most raw and emotional performances I’ve ever seen. You deserved that win at the Globes. You deserved the win tonight.’ He lowers his voice. ‘You deserve all the wins, you deserve the Oscar.’ 

Alex shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe you watched it. I thought you had no idea who I was.’ He takes a sip from his wine glass. ‘Anyway, I’m not gonna win. You’re going to win. You should win. I know I said all that stuff and clearly I was a fucking idiot for it but… I never thought that your performance wasn’t good. It was, it is . Really. I cried, like genuinely fucking cried at the end. Happy tears – June will tell you.’ 

Henry huffs a laugh and he gives Alex a small smile. ‘Thank you,’ he says and Alex is pretty sure he’s not thanking him for the compliment. ‘I’ve seen a lot of discussion about how it’s not really a happy ending if the Prince has to abdicate but… I don’t know if I agree. He still has the support of his family, just not his grandmother, and he becomes free of the restraints of an oppressive institution. He can just… live his life the way he wants to.’ There’s a small smile dancing on his lips. ‘You can see why I was drawn to the role. I know that everyone would like these institutions to become… tolerant and accepting but, I suppose sometimes there’s a happy ending in being free from all of that too.’ 

Seeing Henry in his own apartment, on a worn squishy sofa made of deep blue velvet hugging a bright pink cushion, his dog snoring softly in the corner, is like nothing Alex has ever known before. There’s something about this whole place that feels so grounding. Alex can’t explain the feeling that comes over him listening to Henry, the deep reverence he has for the story, the thought that has gone into his performance and his emotional connection to it. His veins hum with an energy that is somehow at once both serenely calm and a nervous itch. His heart beats just a little bit faster as Henry’s thoughts tumble from his lips. It’s like he has tunnel vision, unable to keep his eyes off the way Henry’s pink lips curve around each word, how his tongue slips out to wet his lips, the focused, serious expression on his face. The crinkle in his brow is back and Alex still wants to reach out and press his thumb to it and push out the crease. 

Henry is looking at him with red wine lips and an arm slung over the back of the sofa, his fingers playing with the edge of the cushion near Alex’s shoulder and maybe it’s the wine, but Alex can’t help but reach out and touch them. He moves his own hand in infinitesimal movements towards Henry’s and he finds it there, soft and steady. He traces his own fingers along Henry’s and then pushes his between Henry’s and slots them together between them like all those puzzle pieces he’s been trying to sort in his brain. Henry inhales sharply. His hand is bigger than Alex’s. He’s not used to that. He’s always held the smaller, more delicate hands of a girl in his, but he likes the way that Henry’s long fingers push his apart and curl around them. 

‘Alex,’ Henry says, a low breath that’s half warning. 

Alex’s eyes find his. Henry’s face is rosy, flushed from the wine, his plump lips are stained red, and his crisp white shirt is rumbled. His hand is still in Alex’s, their fingers twisting slowly, lazily together. Henry stares back at him, nervous and as blue as the LA sky on a sunny day. The words have left Alex’s lips before his brain has even registered them. ‘Kiss me,’ Alex whispers, and then, ‘please.’

For a moment he thinks Henry is going to refuse, tell him to go have whatever sexual crisis he’s having right now somewhere else, with someone else, but he doesn’t. He just leans over to Alex and brings his hand up to the side of his face and Alex exhales slightly because Henry’s hands are on his skin, and his fingers reaching up into Alex’s curls feel like an anchor, tethering him to this moment. Henry brings his lips to Alex’s, soft and gentle and good, but brief. Too brief, as though he’s merely testing the waters. 

Henry pulls away, and there’s caution in his eyes, as though the actual act of kissing him rather than the theory will have made Alex realise what he asked for and laugh it off, put a stop to it. Alex can feel Henry’s warm breath on his lips, their noses brushing against each other and then Henry looks up at him from under his lashes, big wide eyes and there’s not a single cell in Alex’s body that wants to put a stop to this. He leans over, and presses his lips back to Henry’s. There’s more pressure behind it this time but the movement of their lips is still slow and cautious, and then Henry’s tongue reaches out tentatively to brush Alex’s lip. Alex opens freely for him, Henry’s tongue slides into Alex’s mouth and suddenly all the caution flies out the fucking window, Alex’s hands gripping at the front of Henry’s shirt and Henry’s fingers tightening in his curls as he kisses him like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted. 

‘Wait,’ Henry says, pulling himself away with an expression that looks as though he’s just accomplished some sort of Herculean feat by dragging himself away. ‘Should we– I don’t know, go to dinner… or something first?’ 

Alex blinks. ‘We just had dinner, Fox. Big thing, lots of tables and clapping. I won an award, we had salmon. Tiny portions, a bit overdone but y’know, decent.’ 

Henry rolls his eyes with a smile on his lips. ‘Or a drink, I don’t know.’ 

Alex smiles softly, looks around them. Henry’s apartment, the two of them, the open bottle of wine on the counter. ‘Is that not what this was – a drink?’ 

Henry bites his lip. ‘I didn’t… I didn’t bring you here intending for this, I just… I wanted you to see, to understand.’ 

‘Hey, I know,’ Alex says softly. ‘Look, if you want to take me out for dinner then I’ll happily let you take me out for dinner, but it’s late and unless you want to go to another shitty diner then I don’t think you’re going to find anywhere open right now. So will you please kiss me again?’

Henry's teeth play with his lip and he looks torn. His voice is low and gentle when he says, ’I don’t want to be some experiment for you, Alex, I–’

‘Will it help if I tell you I used to make out with my best friend from high school and we used to jerk each other off? This isn’t my first rodeo.’ 

And apparently, yes that helps, because Henry groans and comes surging back across the couch so that he’s practically on top of him, his lips desperate and wild on Alex’s. Alex has been kissed plenty of times before: surrounded by a camera crew; with girlfriends in sweaty clubs when he just needed a body next to his for the night; with Liam when they’d get drunk and lie on his twin bed and make out for an hour and tell themselves it was just for practice, but never like this. He’s never been kissed in such an all-encompassing way – one that makes his skin tingle and his fingers twitch, years of built up aggression and passion and sheer need being poured into a kiss. Their shaky breaths bleed out into the silence of the room and all Alex can think is how long and lean and perfect Henry’s body feels next to his. How he wants to explore all of it, every inch. 

‘God I’ve wanted this for so long,’ Henry murmurs against Alex’s skin, and Alex shivers at the acknowledgement that this isn’t just a slightly drunken whim. That Henry – Hollywood’s golden boy, the world's most eligible bachelor, with the high cheekbones and legs for days – wants him. Henry kisses Alex’s neck, soft and featherlight at first, but then he zeroes in on a point that makes Alex’s insides turn to something soft and molten and he sucks, nips at the skin there in a way that has Alex squirming and panting beneath him . Henry’s hips rock against his and he’s hard against him. Alex’s own dick twitches in response. Henry grinds down on him and fuck. The moan that leaves Alex’s lips is guttural. 

He can feel the solid muscle of Henry’s toned thighs through his dress pants and his hips are moving with a mind of their own, his lips still kissing the juncture of Alex’s neck, hot breath against his skin. Alex distantly thinks that frantically dry humping on the couch like teenagers is a distinctly unsexy way to be doing this. But the pressure of Henry’s hips against his is perfect and Henry is whimpering as he grinds down searching for release and Alex isn’t sure he’s ever been this turned on in his entire fucking life. Alex wants to record the sound of Henry whimpering in his ear and store it so he can replay it every minute of every fucking day.

Alex’s hands are on the bare skin beneath his shirt and Henry is still rutting his hips against Alex and he feels so fucking good, letting out hitched breaths, so far beyond words, and then he gasps Alex’s name as he shudders and comes, his face still buried into Alex’s neck. In his fucking pants. Alex hasn’t even touched him, and Henry is coming in his pants, desperate and needy, and for some reason that’s just well, really fucking hot. 

And God. Alex is so fucking close and without a word, Henry climbs off him, drops to the floor and kneels before Alex, dragging him forward to the edge of the couch. He pops open the button to his pants, pulls them down along with Alex’s boxers in one go, then before Alex can even register it, his mouth is on Alex’s cock, hot and wet around him. 

‘Henry, fuck,’ he whispers, and his hand curls in Henry’s hair. It’s soft and Henry is good at this, licking up the length of Alex’s dick with an enthusiastic zeal and moaning as though it’s his favourite thing to do. He licks and sucks his way along, tongues at the head, sucks on the tip and then swallows Alex down with the practiced air of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing. He gasps, his hips stuttering, and pushing himself even further into Henry’s mouth. That does absolutely nothing to deter Henry. He moans around Alex’s cock, and Alex thinks maybe that might just be the best sound he’s ever heard. He’s discovering a lot of new favourite sounds tonight. Maybe he needs another list. 

‘Baby, fuck, I’m close.’ Henry doubles down with long, tight sucks and his hand moving in tandem with his mouth and Alex feels the coil in his groin getting tighter and tighter. ‘Fuck, H. I’m– I’m fuck– I’m gonna come.’ He tries to tug Henry away by his hair, but he shakes his head in a tiny aborted movement and looks up at Alex. The way he blinks up at Alex with pupils blown so wide he can barely see the blue in his eyes is so fucking sinful that he spills down Henry’s throat almost instantly. The image of Henry on his knees, looking up at him through his eyelashes, his pretty pink lips wrapped around Alex’s cock might be etched on his brain for the rest of time. 

Alex feels boneless. He comes back to himself, his eyes tracing the lines of Henry’s ceiling. He pulls his pants back up and sits up to look back at Henry.

He’s staring back at Alex nervously, hand in his hair, biting at his lip. ‘Alex, I–’ 

‘Hey. Don’t. I had fun. You had fun, right?’ 

Henry looks at him with wide eyes. ‘I just came in my trousers like a fucking fifteen year old. What do you think?’ He pauses. ‘But I can’t do just… fun. Not with you. I like you. For some God unknown reason, I actually like you.’

Alex nods slowly and then bites his own lip. He stares back at Henry. ‘So ask me on a date then, Fox.’ 

Henry pauses for a moment. ‘You’re straight.’ 

‘I mean I don’t know what I am, but I’m pretty fucking sure I’m not that. Did you miss the whole part where you just sucked me off and I came harder than I ever have in my life?’ 

Henry stands before him, hand in his hair looking torn and then he shakes his head ruefully and laughs, wide-eyed and like he can’t believe his luck. 'Will you then?’ 

‘Will I what?’ Alex asks teasingly.

Henry rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. ‘Will you go on a date with me? It might have to be here or… I don’t know how it’ll work logistically but–’ He’s rambling. He stops and looks up, finds Alex grinning back at him. 

‘Thought you’d never ask,’ he says with a smirk.

Chapter Text

Alex sleeps at Henry’s that night. Henry curled up behind him in his bed, his body covering Alex’s like a shadow. Alex sleeps deeply next to him – still and warm until the light begins to fade into the room and he wakes with the sun, as he always seems to do. He slips quietly out of the bed, past David who is still asleep in his own bed and scrawls out a note: had to leave for a meeting with Z. didn’t want to wake you. call me — A x  

He leaves it pinned to Henry’s fridge between two magnets – a gaudy one of Buckingham Palace and an asexual pride flag. It makes Alex smile, finding more hints of Bea in the apartment, in this sanctuary they’ve made for themselves away from prying eyes and flashing lights. Once it’s where he knows Henry will see it when he goes to get milk for his tea, Alex slips out of the door quietly, last night’s bow tie shoved hastily in his pocket and jacket over his arm. The uber back to his apartment is quiet, his driver on the tail-end of a night shift. Alex’s thoughts are consumed by a flickering film reel of images: Henry, Liam, Nora, every other girlfriend he’s ever had. But also Raf’s loose collars and the poster of Han Solo he had on his wall as a child.

June and Nora are both at the breakfast table when he gets home. Nora is in a faded old t-shirt that Alex is pretty sure was once his and June is in her pink fluffy dressing gown, hair tied up in a haphazard bun. They look up at him with raised eyebrows, and exchange another one of their looks. ‘Good night? I was looking online for photos of you at the afterparty. I couldn’t see you,’ June says.

What comes out of Alex’s mouth is a stammered garble of vowel sounds, rather than actual words. He bites his lip and sits down in the empty seat at the breakfast table with a slump. ‘So,’ he says slowly, ‘I think I’m bi.’

June’s eyes widen, just slightly. ‘Oh,’ she says and somehow it comes out both surprised and… entirely not. 

‘Well good morning to you too,’ Nora says, a smirk dancing on her lips. ‘Sounds like you had a good night. What happened?’ 

‘Fuck, I, uh… I don’t know if I can tell you.’ 

‘Alex, anything you say stays in these walls. You know that,’ June says gently. She’s right, he does know that. He would trust the two of them with his life. She pauses and glances at Nora. ‘Can I ask if it has something to do with Henry?’

‘I... fuck.’ He sighs and scrubs his hand over his face. ‘Yeah. We bailed on the party and went back to his place, and we got there and we were talking and he’s just… nothing like I thought he was. Like, all those ideas I had about him in my head, none of them are true. So we were talking and then we uhm... we kissed. I– I didn’t even realise he was gay until I got there.’

Nora licks the back of her cereal spoon. ‘How did he kiss you? Set the scene. I want the details.’ 

June’s face wrinkles. ‘Please spare the details.’ 

Alex feels the heat flush to his face. ‘We were on the sofa, drinking wine and talking and... he didn’t... I asked him. To kiss me? I guess?’ 

They exchange another look. Nora nods and grins so wide he can see her snaggletooth. ‘Nice.’ 

‘And then we uhh, sortofhadsex?’

June’s eyes somehow manage to stretch even wider, but Nora just grins and looks entirely unsurprised. 

‘I’m sorry I didn’t catch that,’ Nora says, and her smirk is even bigger now and Alex knows for a fact that she absolutely did catch it and just enjoys torturing him.

He sighs. ‘We had sex. I think? Sort of. I don’t know. I don’t know… what counts.’ 

June blinks repeatedly. ‘Well. It sounds like you had an eventful night.’ 

‘And now it’s the morning and you’re having a big bi freak out?’ Nora asks. 

Alex considers her words and then bites his lip again. ‘No, I– I think... I think I’m almost freaking out because I’m... not, freaking out? Like, it all just felt right and I couldn’t put a name to it until last night. But then we were talking and I just knew that I wanted to kiss him, and… I don’t know, everything else just felt right. I never really thought about it when Liam and I used to… y’know, because we were friends, it just felt different but this–'

‘You like him,’ June says. 

‘Yeah.’ Alex looks up at his sister and finds her warm eyes and gentle smile looking back at him. ‘I think I do.’ 

She stands and drops a kiss on the top of his head. ‘So what now?’ 

‘We are, um... we’re going on a date.’ 

June grins. ‘Proud of you little brother. He seems nice.’ She pauses and glances at the clock. ‘I need to get dressed,’ she says and she walks back out of the room. 

Nora glances behind her to make sure June is out of earshot and then turns to him. ‘Okay. So when you say you kind of had sex, what are we talking about exactly? Gimme the details.’ 

***

Zahra’s office is a little how Alex imagines the lair of a supervillain to look – stark white walls, a sharp glass desk, and a tall-backed swivel chair that Alex would almost definitely spend half the time sitting in imagining himself sitting in stroking a white cat, which, to be honest, is probably why Zahra is the agent and not him. She sits across the desk from him, in a black pencil dress and razor thin heels and shoves a towering pile of scripts at him.

‘This doesn’t even scratch the surface of what has come in for you in the last week alone,’ she tells him. ‘But they’re the ones that I think look most promising. I can email you the rest.’ 

‘Shit,’ Alex says. It’s… a lot. Directors and producers have been coming up to him at every event telling him they’ve sent his agent something but this is more than he could have imagined. And it’s not even all of it. 

‘Yup.’ 

She picks out a few and tells him about them – a historical epic set in Spain, the male lead in a big budget romance, superheroes, detectives, small arthouse films. They’ve talked about the way they see his career going but seeing it in front of him is something else entirely. He picks out a few to take home to read. 

‘Also I had a call,’ she says and then she inhales and a satisfied expression settles onto her face. ‘They want to see you for Phantom Touch.’ 

Alex’s head snaps up. ‘Wait, what?’ 

Alex knows about Phantom Touch. 

Everyone knows about Phantom Touch. It’s one of those almost guaranteed success projects. A massive director, bags of money, an impossibly beautiful lead actress, but they’ve been struggling to cast their leading man after the actor they had attached to the project dropped out after a drunk driving scandal. It’s a love story, one of those genre-bending against all the odds stories that overcomes time and space centred around two guys – childhood friends who become tragic enemies. It’s an epic romance, it’s political, it’s been an Oscar frontrunner from the second it was announced. It’s a Titanic-level movie – one of those once in a generation moments that’s going to become a cultural touchstone for the decade and beyond. And they want to see Alex.

But then, he thinks back to him and Henry reading scripts on his sofa and—

Henry has the script too. 

Zahra tells him where to go and when they want to meet him, tells him to buy some fucking proper clothes and get a haircut. He’s not entirely sure what’s wrong with his clothes.

‘Oscar nominations come out tomorrow,’ Zahra reminds him with a steady gaze as though he’s not had the date mentally circled with arrows pointing to it for weeks. ‘The odds say you’re a shoe-in but don't count your chickens. All kinds of weird stuff can happen.’ 

Alex nods, feeling that lump in his throat again. That odd feeling that he’s somehow betraying Henry.

‘So, what the fuck is going on with you and Fox?’ she asks once they’ve finished talking about work.

Alex feels his cheeks flush red instantly. ‘Nothing. What? What are you talking about? Nothing.’ 

Zahra narrows her eyes at him. ‘You hated him and now you’re best friends. I can’t go on Twitter without seeing your dumb face looking back at me.’ 

Alex exhales slightly. ‘Yeah we’re... friends, I guess?’ 

She rolls her eyes. ‘Okay whatever. Keep it up I guess.’ She looks at him again and her eyes seem to narrow in on a point. ‘Is that a fucking hickey?’ she asks, her red nails splayed across the desk as she leans over it to peer at him, her giant engagement ring glinting under the lights. Alex had tried to congratulate her once, and she had given him a stare so cold that he had never asked her about her personal life again.

Alex’s hand flies up to the spot Henry had been so focused on last night. ‘Uhh,’ he says. 

‘Who the fuck is giving you hickeys? Actually you know what, I don’t want to know. Just– don’t fuck this up by getting involved in some fucking Disney love triangle or something. And for fuck’s sake be careful, I don’t want some girl going to the press with whatever freaky shit you get up to in your free time. If you need an NDA—’

Alex nods. His throat feels like sandpaper and there’s a bubbling in his gut but he croaks out, ‘It’s fine. No Disney love triangles, I promise.’ 

He wonders briefly if this is the point at which he should say something to Zahra, if he should just say right now that it was Henry, or at least that it wasn’t a girl. She’s his agent after all, and his publicist. She should know these things. It’s her job to know these things. But it feels weird, to tell her something when he doesn’t even know if it is something yet. And things are going well for him, so well. So he keeps his mouth shut. 

She flicks through some papers and then looks over at him, seemingly surprised he’s still sitting there. ‘What are you still doing here? Do you need something else?’ 

‘Right, no, yeah, sure. Okay, bye!’ Alex says in a hurry. He scrambles up from his seat, gathers up all the papers and shoves them in his bag and flees the room.

***

After his meeting with Zahra, he goes to the gym. It’s been too long since he did a workout longer than a run or some yoga on his bedroom floor, but it feels good. The stretch and the burn in his muscles feels needed and he’s grateful for the way that all his other thoughts fly out of his head, solely focused on the numbers on the machine. He doesn’t think about Henry, or the awards or Phantom Touch, it’s just him, his feet pounding against the treadmill and the music in his ears.

On his way back to his car, he dips into a nearby cafe to get a coffee and he’s halfway down the street when he hears the now-familiar shutterclick of cameras and someone calling his name. It’s happened a couple of times, but always when he’s been with Henry. It’s baffling to Alex that anyone would be interested in him walking down the street on his own. He’s grateful he doesn’t have far to walk, and that the guy seems to quickly get bored of the fact he’s just walking down a street with a coffee alone rather than doing something exciting or meeting someone.  

His phone buzzes with an incoming call on the drive home. award-winning dickhead 💩, his screen tells him. 

‘I wondered for a minute if you were the one having a freak out,’ he says in greeting. 

Henry’s laugh comes through the speakers. ‘Well, I did stare at my phone for twenty minutes trying to summon up the courage and wondering what to say.’

‘Well you managed it in the end,’ Alex says, flicking his turn signal. 

‘Where are you?’ Henry asks.

‘On my way back from the gym, I went after my meeting with Zahra. She’s given me a fuck load of scripts to read.’

Alex can hear Henry’s earnest smile as he says, ‘That’s incredible.’ He pauses. ‘I… well, I wanted to know when you might be free? For that date? If you still wanted to, of course.’ 

‘You’re at the roundtable tomorrow right? I’m free in the evening if you are? I have to read some of these scripts tonight but—’

‘Tomorrow is great,’ Henry says hastily. ‘I’ll ah, I’ll have a think.’ 

Alex grins to himself. ‘Okay.’ 

‘Okay,’ Henry replies, a smile in his voice.  

‘Okay.’

‘Right, so. I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow then?’ 

‘Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.’ 

Not even the shitty LA traffic can wipe the smile off Alex’s face.

*** 

The next day finds Alex in a deep burgundy shirt and dark jeans, sitting opposite Henry at a wide round table in a room with the other men in their category. They’re all Hollywood long-timers, stalwarts of the genre, all of them have been nominated before, apart from Alex. One of them acted opposite Henry playing his father in a movie once. They’re doing one of those press junket interviews – a roundtable on Hollywood and acting and the whole thing makes Alex’s imposter syndrome rocket sky high somewhere into the solar system. 

Henry looks infuriatingly attractive in a navy sweater and jeans. His hair is, as always, lightly tousled and now that Alex knows exactly how soft it is, he’s spent half the afternoon trying to keep his hands occupied with a pen, or his water glass, or the paper on the table – anything to stop him from reaching out and running his hands through it. Maybe it’s nerves, or the promise of a date later, of what might come with that date, but his veins feel electric, a buzzing current running through in place of his blood. 

The moderator smiles encouragingly across the table as she asks them questions about their methods and asks them about what roles they’d like more of. Henry answers charmingly about wanting to play more of anything that he has an emotional connection to, how he wants to explore more untold stories, that the most important thing for him is fully-formed characters. He tells them he wants to explore more morally-grey characters. ‘I’ve spent half my life playing the romantic hero or the boy next door. It would be fun to play something a little darker and more complex,’ he says. 

‘Alex, what about you?’ 

Alex smiles. ‘I mean, I still feel a bit like it’s not my choice in a lot of ways. Partly because I’m still so early in my career, and I’m just like grateful to be here, but also because guys who look like me don’t always get the biggest choice of roles. You know, if we’re not the drug addict in something then we’re the dealer, or our stories are only ever stories of pain and y’know, those stories and people exist, sure. I loved doing Longshot, but the problem is when that’s all we get. It’s rare that you see those of us who are less represented in this industry in roles outside of those boxes we’re placed in. Like, when was the last time you saw a guy who looks like me as the lead in a period piece, or like, I don’t know, a Black spy, or a gay actor playing a straight romantic lead. You know? So, I want to do more of everything, but I want more people who look like me in everything too. Like, if I need to be the one to do it then I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. But I also don’t want to be the only one – we have to make an active effort to find actors from underrepresented groups and bring them in, for there to be more of us.’ 

He looks up and finds Henry staring intently at him across the table, the others all nod placidly along. Alex bites his lip, wondering if he’s gone too far, can’t quite work out the expression on Henry’s face. They sit and talk about methods and their experience. Alex thinks it’s impossible that he should be sitting in this room discussing this with the people he’s spent his life watching and studying, but here he is. And there Henry is, twiddling a pen between his long fingers. Alex’s eyes keep catching it. 

Afterwards, when they’re done and they’ve all shaken hands and discussed how excellent it all was, Alex goes to the bathroom. He’s washing his hands when he hears the quiet click of the door. He looks up and Henry is standing there, staring back at him and there’s something in his eyes that’s a little bit wild.

‘Hi,’ Alex says. 

‘Do you have,’ Henry says in a low voice, striding across the room to him, ‘any idea. How attractive you are when you talk like that?’ 

‘Like what?’ 

‘Like you know things. God, I… you’re so fucking fit. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the second you walked into the room.’ 

Alex grins. ‘So do it then, sweetheart.’ Henry takes Alex’s face in his hands and kisses him hard and desperate, like it’s been a year rather than a day. Alex pulls back, a smirk lingering on his lips. 

Henry backs him against the counter and pulls him into another searing kiss. Alex’s hands are at the lapels of Henry’s blazer, tugging him impossibly closer, his leg hitched around the back of Henry’s solid thigh and he can actually feel Henry getting hard in his pants against him. He can feel himself doing the same. Fleetingly, he thinks this is risky, too risky, anyone could walk in – one of the other actors still lingering, a runner, a camera person, anyone, but god it’s so good that he can’t bring himself to pull away. Henry does though, panting breaths and eyes screwed tight. 

‘We should go,’ he says, his voice strained and full of breath. ‘We should go before I back you into that stall and suck you off in this grotty bathroom.’ 

Alex shrugs and tries to pull him back in. ‘Not sure I see the problem there, sweetheart.’

Henry sighs and rolls his eyes. ‘Our date,’ he says, his voice turning to something far softer. ‘I want to do it properly.’ 

Alex would roll his eyes back, but Henry’s earnest expression melts his face into a smile. How desperately Henry wants to do this right is painted clear across his face. He’s standing in a bathroom hard in his pants and he’s put a stop to it because he wants to wine and dine Alex and to treat him properly. He apparently wants to give him more than a blowjob in a bathroom, and there’s something about that that makes Alex’s insides flutter. Even though he would have been absolutely fine with Henry giving him a blowjob in the bathroom stall. He still kind of does want Henry to do that, but maybe another day. Alex releases him with an over-exaggerated sigh.

‘Okay fine,’ he says, and then he points to the front of his pants. ‘But you’re going to have to wait a while for this to go away before we can leave.’ 

*** 

It’s afternoon when they finish and Henry drives them back to his place again. He ducks his head, blushing slightly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know where else to go. I tried to find a restaurant but there was nowhere that I thought would work on such short notice,’ he says nervously. ‘And then I thought about just calling somewhere and hiring it out just for us, but then I started thinking about all the people who would have their plans cancelled for me to do that and–’

‘Henry,’ he says. He smiles. ‘It’s perfect.’ 

And it is. Henry puts an old Bowie record on and turns it down low so that the sound is just a soft undercurrent to their conversation. David weaves between their feet and Alex bends down to pet him. Henry kisses him in the kitchen, arms wrapped around his waist and Alex wonders if he should be alarmed by how natural and domestic it all feels, but it all feels so right. So he doesn’t.

Another thing that Alex didn’t know about Henry is that he can cook. Watching him quickly dice an onion is swiftly added to the ever-expanding list of things that Alex finds inexplicably attractive, along with Henry’s fingers curled around a wine bottle, Henry’s bare forearms when he rolls his sleeves up to his elbows, and the soft look that falls onto his face when he plays with David. He wonders if he should just make the list: ‘1. Henry’, underline it three times and be done with it. 

They talk and lounge on the couch for hours, exchanging stories and soft kisses as the sun fades with the day and the ragu simmers gently on the stove. Henry has laid out a table, complete with a red and white checked tablecloth, a rose in a bud vase and a long, thin candle that protrudes from the neck of an old wine bottle, splattered with wax down the neck. Alex might need to sit down because this is only a first date and it’s somehow the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for him. Henry lights the candle and dims the lights and serves Alex a bowl of pasta with a thick, rich ragu and another glass of red wine. 

‘It’s fairly basic,’ Henry tells him, ‘but it’s one of my favourites.’ 

‘It’s amazing,’ he says. 

Henry’s answering smile glows bright in the candlelight. ‘I did a film in Naples a few years ago and we had an apartment next to this Italian family. I was absolutely hopeless at cooking. I think I must have been sixteen or seventeen, because it was before Dad got sick, and the grandmother used to teach me to cook. She spoke barely any English and we spoke even less Italian but Dad and I used to stand in the kitchen and she’d show us how to make pasta and it was just…’ His eyes soften and there’s a gentle smile flickering on his lips. ‘It was a very happy time.’

They fall into easy conversation. Alex hears his stories about growing up in the limelight and how Henry understood the world knew his name before he had even learnt to write it. Henry tells him about growing up on sets – the tutors he had, how when he was young he used to miss his call times and they’d send out a search party looking for him and almost always find him curled up in a corner with a book. He tells him how he met Pez while filming a movie when they were eleven and they’ve been best friends ever since, but The Waterloo Vase is the first time they’ve acted opposite each other since. 

He tells Alex how much he struggled as a child with the intrusion of the press, and how it all came to a head after his father’s death, after Bea came out of rehab, and he couldn’t cope. That he didn’t do any press or appearances for Rio because of that. He skipped the awards season because his own mental health had been torn to shreds by years of the press and the grind of the industry machine, by caring for his family and never himself. Henry tells him that back then, almost every day was a bad day. Until Bea, Pez and Shaan sat him down and convinced him he couldn’t solve his problems by running away or in the nearest warm body he could find, and he got help. He takes medication now, for anxiety and depression and his therapist has helped. He still has bad days, dark stormy moods and periods where he wants nothing more than to hide from the world, but they’re more rare and farther apart now and when they do happen, they don’t feel quite so all-consuming. 

Alex tells him about his own schooling and hot Texas summers and how he knows his dad misses it, even though he loves California. 

‘He always talked about how he’d buy a house out on the lake and we could all go for the summer, and then the divorce happened but he still talks about it. He’d never be able to afford it, it’s always just been a pipe dream but I think… one day I’d like to be able to do it for him. If I could... Is that stupid?’ 

‘I think it sounds amazing,’ Henry says, and then he tells Alex about how he’s been working with Pez on his acting schools, trying to work out a way they could do something together. He tells him about how he’s a patron for a drama charity that offers classes for kids who have been diagnosed with cancer and Alex listens intently, wondering how on earth he was so wrong about him. The candle melts down to a stub and the sky outside dims into a deep wide open black. 

Eventually, Henry clears away the dishes and Alex finds himself back on the sofa with him, but everything feels softer this time, like one of those old vintage filters that makes everything a little bit soft and hazy. Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe he’s just happy. 

Henry kisses him softly and they stay like that for a while, lazily tasting each other, wine and rich tomato on their lips, until slowly it winds itself into something harder and more tangible, fingers tracing the soft skin and hard muscle of their stomachs under shirts. 

Henry drags them to his bedroom where Alex drops to the floor in front of him. It’s just as soft and cosy in there – rich blues and deep red cushions and blankets, a desk in the corner with postcards and photos around it, crisp white sheets on a wrought iron bed frame. His hands are undoing Henry’s fly when he says, ‘I uhh, I haven’t done this before so let me know if it’s awful?’ 

‘Alex, you don’t have to–’ 

‘I want to,’ he says, because God, he wants to. ‘I just… need you to tell me if it’s awful. Tell me what to do.’ 

Henry chokes out a laugh like he can barely believe his luck and it turns into a stuttered gasp when Alex takes the head of Henry’s dick into his mouth. Henry’s hands curl in his hair and his breath hitches with every lick of Alex’s tongue. His hips stutter forward when Alex bobs his head up and down slightly, getting used to the feeling of Henry in his mouth. 

Henry guides him gently, murmuring things like ‘faster’ or ‘yes, like that’, and ‘that’s good, so good, you’re so good, Alex’, which sends a shiver of… something down Alex’s spine. It barely takes any time at all for Henry to become a whimpering mess again, tugging at Alex’s hair and trying to restrain his hips from bucking forward as he groans. ‘Alex, I– I’m going to come.’ And the sight of Henry looking up at him from his knees flashes into Alex’s mind and well, his competitive edge doesn’t go away and that easily, so he looks back up at Henry and blinks, resolutely not moving until Henry comes in his mouth with what sounds like a small, disbelieving laugh and the words ‘fucking eyelashes’. He swallows. It’s warm and bitter and it lingers in his mouth, and then Henry hauls him back his feet and kisses him as though he wants to lick the taste right out of him.

Henry pushes him down onto the bed and slowly, methodically starts to remove his clothes. He tugs at the buttons of his shirt. 

‘Been looking at you in this shirt all fucking day,’ he murmurs into the crook of Alex’s neck. ‘God you looked so good.’ 

His fingers trail down to the waistband of Alex’s pants and his hips jerk upwards chasing the pressure of Henry’s hand, until slowly, torturously slowly he undoes the button and pushes them down. His hands roam across the planes of Alex’s chest and squeeze gently at his hips. Henry’s lips brush against his skin, soft and light and teasing and all the while Alex moans beneath him, babbling and begging to be touched. It’s never been like this before, he thinks. He’s always enjoyed sex, he’s always been good at it. Or at least, he got good at it – a relationship with someone like Nora, who pulls absolutely no punches and is vocal about what she likes, doesn’t like, and is completely unwilling to spare any delicate feelings if she hasn’t come, will do that to a guy. But Alex’s skin has never felt this electric, like sparks flying every time he’s touched. Henry noses at his boxers and places his mouth over Alex’s clothed cock. His hips jut upwards and Henry lets out a dark, teasing laugh. 

‘Henry, please.’ 

‘Hmm?’ 

‘Please I–’

Henry looks up at him, his eyes boring into Alex’s. ‘Tell me what you want.’ 

‘I– fuck, baby. I– touch me please. I don’t– Anything.’ 

Henry’s eyes darken and he slips his fingers into the waistband of Alex’s boxers and pulls them down, his hard dick curving upwards towards his stomach. Henry swallows him down with a pinpoint precision that makes literally every thought Alex has ever had fly right out of his head. It’s just Henry and his sinful mouth and there’s nothing else in the world. 

*** 

‘Fuck. That– how did you get so good at that?’ Alex asks through laboured breaths a little while later. Henry is curled up on the bed next to him, his head on Alex’s heaving chest. 

‘University was a truly wonderful time.’

‘I mean I can’t say blowjobs featured heavily in my college experience.’ He pauses. ‘Or at least, not giving them anyway.’  

‘Tell me about it,’ Henry says, reaching down to intertwine his hand with Alex’s. ‘University,’ he clarifies. His fingers trail gently up Alex’s bare stomach, gently ghosting up towards his nipple.

Alex nods up at the ceiling. ‘Well, my parents are in politics and law now, but like, they weren’t always. Mom worked in a bar when I was born and Dad worked in the grocery store. They both worked their asses off to go through law school when we were really young and I thought about following them into that for a while. They were keen for me to get a degree... like a fallback you know? In case this whole thing didn’t work out. So I went to NYU to do government because I knew I could still keep in touch with acting stuff there but I kinda dropped out when I got the part in Longshot and moved out here. June graduated from UT around the same time and Nora got a job at a startup and they joined me. I don’t know... I think I want to go back at some point to finish it. It was crazy and I was working like every hour of the day between class and auditions, but I did really love it.’

Henry hums. ‘I know what you mean. You should go back, if you want to.’ 

Alex laughs. ‘You’re just saying that so you won’t have to face off against me for awards again.’ 

Henry’s chest shakes slightly in a silent laugh, but he says nothing. His fingers just continue their soft explorations of the dips and imperfections of Alex’s chest, and then his arm drops to Alex’s waist and squeezes gently. 

Alex sleeps fitfully, his dreams a montage of he and Henry on stages: Alex winning the Oscar and Henry being forced by his grandmother to take roles he hates, to hide himself. Henry winning and eclipsing Alex’s star, no more work, fading into obscurity. A one-hit wonder. 

The sounds of the cars rush past outside the window, a siren cries in the distance. Alex stares through the darkness, up at the ceiling.  

*** 

Alex is woken up the next morning by the sound of a phone vibrating on bedside tables, both his and Henry’s. Henry groans next to him and then, it seems to dawn on him what the day is because his eyes snap open and meet Alex’s. Henry squeezes his hand, and they both exhale shakily and pick up their phones. 

Zahra is screaming at him down the phone. ‘FUCKING OSCAR,’ is about all he can work out and a hysterical laugh bubbles up from inside him and his hand reaches up to cover his mouth. 

But Henry is sitting next to him, covers around his waist on the phone too, and he’s still and serious. 

‘Right,’ he says. ‘I see. Yes. Okay, no I understand. Thanks Shaan. I'll er, I’ll talk to you later.’ 

Alex’s heart fucking drops . Sinks to the ground, through Henry’s floor and down to the basement three floors below because never in his wildest dreams did he envisage a situation where Henry wasn’t even nominated. Have they not seen the film? Henry’s pure adoration and tenderness, the fight in his eyes and the visceral anger of his defiant speech. 

‘Baby,’ he says gently, hanging up on Zahra who is still talking. He’ll probably pay for that later, he thinks. Henry’s head is dropped low in defeat and his shoulders are shaking slightly. His fingers reach out for Henry’s arm, the soft downy hairs there, and he tries to peer under Henry’s ducked head and his shoulders are shaking and God, Alex is not prepared for this. ‘Baby, I–’ 

Alex doesn’t know what to say. 

Henry looks up, shining eyes and thin lips and shoulders shaking with— 

‘You absolute fucker!’ Alex exclaims as he realises that Henry is shaking with laughter, and the tight press of his lips is a poorly concealed grin. 

Alex lifts a pillow from behind him and bats Henry on the arm. ‘You absolute dick! I thought you hadn’t been nominated, you complete and utter cock.’ 

Henry grins wide and easy, his smile stretching across his face until the corners of his eyes crinkle and he laughs. He tugs Alex close, arms wrapped around his shoulders and rolls them so he’s hovering on top and then he kisses him deeply. And for a moment, in the morning light of Henry’s bedroom with the sun streaming in through the gap in the curtains, they’re not competitors, or celebrities – they’re just two guys, rolling around shirtless in bed, laughing and kissing, whispering to each other how proud they are. 

Incandescently happy, untouchable.  

Chapter Text

They have a few quiet weeks before the BAFTAs. Alex auditions for Phantom Touch, then he gets called back to meet the director, and the producer, and they tell him all about their plans – the beautiful actress he’d be starring opposite, the promise of other big industry names attached. But the entire time, as he sits in glass rooms eating lunch that costs more than his rent, there’s a swell of guilt in his stomach because all he can think is that Henry has the script too. Henry’s going for it as well and it feels like a betrayal of epic proportions, but Alex doesn’t want to tell him. He can’t tell him because well, what if it’s not anything? What if he doesn’t get it and he’s made a fuss out of nothing, and he ruins something that’s going well? So he keeps his mouth shut. And well, Henry hasn’t told him either. Although it maybe shouldn’t be surprising that he would be in the running for it. He’s the archetypal leading man: classically beautiful, charismatic, has chemistry with a literal brick wall, and makes Alex want to drop to his knees on sight. 

Alex falls into a pattern of going over to Henry’s for dinner, after a meeting, or the gym, and then staying there after Henry slowly and methodically takes him to pieces in bed at night. There’s a surprising chill in the air one Thursday. It’s late-morning and David is pawing at the door, whining and desperate for a walk. The rain has paused so Henry smiles as he throws Alex an old sweatshirt with holes in the sleeves and he pulls it on. It’s too big, but he likes it, the feel of Henry’s sweater on his skin and his soft clean, grassy scent. They slip out of the apartment to take David out for a walk before the rain starts again, still in a haze of soft smiles and easy jokes.

They get caught at the corner of the street by paparazzi. It’s hardly the first time, but Alex didn’t notice before the way Henry’s back straightens slightly, how his lips turn and pinch in the corner. He does now, he understands now how much Henry hates this side of his life. 

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘why don’t we go back to mine tonight?’ 

It’s rarer they get photographed there – it’s nowhere near as desirable or full of photographers. They can fly relatively undercover, or at least as undercover as two Oscar nominees can in LA during awards season. 

So they make their way back to Henry’s, pick up some things for David and drive back to Alex’s, David snoring curled up on the back seat. Alex feels the tension seep out of Henry as he fiddles with the music.

Nora barely looks up from her five screens when they arrive, until she hears the scuttling of David’s paws on the wooden floors, and then she drops to the floor, filled with glee and scratches behind his ear. ‘Oh my god, puppy! Hi!’ Henry smiles and Alex feels his chest twist at the sight of him so at home here, leaning against the wall telling Nora his favourite stories about David.

They settle in the living room, cross-legged on the floor. Alex shoves a switch controller into Henry’s hands, and they play Mario Kart, laughing and shoving each other until David crawls over and puts his head straight into Henry’s lap and demands his attention again. Alex grins as Henry sighs indulgently and scratches behind David’s ears.

It’s good, Alex thinks, so good. 

***

When there’s a knock on the door the next morning, they’re on the sofa. The plan had been this: Alex was going to read through some of the scripts Zahra had given him, Henry was going to reply to emails. 

What had actually happened was that they’d sat down and Alex had immediately been  distracted by the sight of Henry, his hair still damp from the shower in one of Alex’s old NYU sweaters. So, Alex had shifted over to kiss him and they’d been swept up into a desperate, full-bodied, all-consuming kind of kiss that Alex is pretty sure if June ever finds out about, she’ll burn the couch and probably exorcise the entire apartment. Alex’s hand is on Henry’s crotch, palming him through his jeans, cooing in his ear about how hot he is and Henry is letting out the most beautiful selection of moans and whimpers in response when the knocking starts, forcing them apart. Alex notes the wide dilation of Henry’s pupils, how his dick is twitching through the fabric of his pants underneath Alex’s hand, and he wonders for a second if maybe the knocking will stop if they wait long enough. It doesn’t, it just gets louder. 

And then, he hears the voice. ‘Let me in you little shit, I know you’re in there!’

Zahra. He doesn’t know how she knows he’s home but well, she works in mysterious ways. 

‘Fuck, fuck it’s Zahra,’ he murmurs, jumping up from the couch and desperately trying to flatten his hair. Henry looks at him with wild, wide eyes. He stumbles over their shoes on the way to the door and opens it just slightly, pokes his head out and, with a flushed face and uneasy grin, he says, ‘Zahra, hi. What can I do for you?’ 

‘Let me in,’ she says bluntly.

He glances back at Henry, wide-eyed and hair askew in Alex’s sweatshirt, a cushion covering his lap and a bruise blooming on his collarbone. It’s… it’s fairly incriminating as these things go, and he can’t shove Henry into the bathroom to wait it out without him walking past the door. 

‘You— you should have called,’ Alex stutters, not moving from his spot blocking the doorway.

‘I did. Four times. Let me in.’ 

Right. Okay. So, he’s not really looked at his phone all day. 

‘It’s not the best time.’ 

‘Now,’ Zahra says sharply, and pushes her way past him into the apartment. She takes one look at Henry on the couch. ‘Oh my fucking Christ,’ she says and pulls her phone out. ‘Do you want to tell me why this is all over my fucking Twitter?’ She asks, thrusting her phone in Alex’s face. 

@foxfan291

acd making heart eyes at henry. i c u boy, i feel u. 

[image: Alex Claremont-Diaz looking across the table at the Hollywood Reporter’s Actor’s Roundtable, head on his hand listening intently. Henry Fox is across the table in Alex’s eyeline, talking.] 

@justanotherLAgirl

was nobody going to tell me Alex Claremont-Diaz and Henry Fox have been living in the same apartment in WeHo and now they’re apparently sharing clothes or did i have to find this out for myself?

[ohmygodtheywereroommates.gif]

@foxmontfan 

spotted: Foxmont in WeHo this morning! Looks like Alex is wearing the sweater Henry wore in these candids last fall. I love them sfm. 

[Alex and Henry walking David, talking and laughing casually. Alex is in a navy blue sweater with a ribbed pattern and small holes at the tips of the sleeves. Alongside an image of Henry in the same sweater, a year before.]

@jessie213

alex and henry being gay together was not on my 2021 awards season bingo card but like, here for it

[goodforher.gif]

@acdupdates

someone is enjoying awards season. 😏

[an image of Alex walking in gym clothes, a slight purple bruise visible on the side of his neck.]

‘Shit. Fuck,’ Alex says, passing the phone to Henry. Henry’s eyes bug wide as he takes it in. 

‘Do you want to tell me what the fuck is going on?’ Zahra asks, looking between them. 

Alex glances over at Henry and bites his lip, and then turns back to Zahra and exhales. ‘Yeah we’re uh, we’re kind of… together. Like… we’re dating, I guess. I’m bi.’ 

Zahra pinches the bridge of her nose. ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ she murmurs. ‘You have to tell me stuff like this you fucking idiot. How long?’ 

Alex sighs, biting the inside of his lip. ‘A few weeks. Since the SAGs.’ He pauses. ‘How bad is it?’ Alex asks, glancing again at Henry, head still in his hand, fingers clenched tight in his hair. The colour has drained from his face. He looks like he’s going to be sick.

‘It’s manageable at the moment. No major publications have caught on. It’ll probably blow over. We could just ignore it, or we leak that you’re just friends. Henry’s teaching you about the industry, helping you get settled, that kind of shit, or—’

‘Or what?’ 

Henry sighs and looks up. His voice is thin when he says, ‘Or we come out and acknowledge it. Those are the options, right? Ignore it and hope it goes away, say we’re just friends, or tell the truth.’ 

Zahra nods. ‘Pretty much.’ She turns to Alex. ‘We could manage you pretty easily if you wanted to come out – you’ve spoken out about roles being taken from queer people before, you’re young, you’re hot, if you’re bi you’re theoretically still available to your growing legions of fangirls, yadda yadda yadda. It wouldn’t be too bad. It’s—’ She turns to Henry. ‘Does Shaan know about you? I mean, I assume the last one isn’t an option.’ 

Henry sighs and closes his eyes, and then nods. ‘Shaan’s known I’m gay for years.’ His phone buzzes and he looks at it, then he lets out a low, dissatisfied laugh with no humour in it. ‘Looks like the choice has been made for us.’ 

Henry hands Alex the phone, on the screen is a text from Philip:

I don’t know what you think you’re playing at but you need to remember your responsibilities to this family. Kensington has put out a statement that you and Alexander are friends and you’re teaching him the ropes of Hollywood, and a reminder that people need to be careful not to confuse art and real life. You’d do well to remember the same. 

Alex sighs and passes it to Zahra. He watches as her eyes scan over it and her mouth presses into a thin line. He remembers what Henry told him. Kensington is Henry’s agency, the Fox family are their only clients and Mary Mountchristen rules them all with an iron fist. 

‘Who else knows?’ she asks when she returns it to Alex. He passes it back to Henry.

‘June, Nora, Pez, Bea…’

He looks to Henry.

‘I told Shaan,’ he says weakly and Zahra shifts, her lips thinning in a way Alex doesn’t understand.

‘I think that’s it,’ Alex tells her.

‘You think?’ 

‘No, I know. That’s it.’ 

‘Your parents? Luna?’ 

Alex shakes his head. ‘Not yet,’ he says. There’s a stirring of guilt in his gut. He’s not really sure why he hasn’t told his parents yet. They’ll be fine with it, he knows that. They love Nora, they’ve never been weird about her and June – there was no big fuss when the two of them got together. He’s pretty sure his dad is already planning their wedding. It’s Raf that makes him feel guilty. He’s spent months with the guy, telling him how much he looks up to him and admires him, praising him for how authentic and unashamed he is, and how hard he’s worked to be an out gay Latino man finally making it in Hollywood after years of work, being frozen out of the industry. And yet, there’s Alex. Hiding. He feels like a hypocrite. 

She nods once. ‘Fine. Okay. Look, this isn’t my decision to make. I’m not going to tell you that you have to hide it because that’s shitty. As your agent,’ she says, and she turns to Alex, ‘I think we can work with it if you want to go public. You’re new, shaking up Hollywood, you’re hot property, you’re vocal, we can make it work with your image.’ She turns to Henry, ‘I can’t tell you what to do. That’s your own choice to make with your team, but I will say you both need to be really fucking sure about this if you want to go public. And if you’re not then you need to lie low and cut it the fuck out with the clothes sharing and dog walks.’ 

Alex nods and swallows thickly. ‘Understood.’ He can see Henry from the corner of his eye staring at a fixed spot on the wall. He looks a million miles away, like he’s not even here anymore. 

Alex sees Zahra out, with a reminder from her about their flight to London for the BAFTAs next week, then she clenches her eyes. ‘Shit I forgot,’ she sighs. ‘They want you to come in and do a screen test for chemistry for Phantom Touch. Final round. It’s down to you and one other guy. I don’t know who yet, I’m working on finding out.’ It's back again, the swell of crashing waves in his stomach. Henry is staring down at his phone when he comes back, and now Alex is the one who feels sick. 

‘I should go,’ Henry says, eventually, looking down at the floor. He’s avoiding looking at Alex.

‘Henry—’

‘Alex please, I– I just need to think.’ 

Alex looks over at him and wonders how the hell they went from making out on the sofa to this – Henry barely able to look at him. ‘Talk to me,’ he says gently, and he knows even as he says the words that it’s a fruitless plea. 

‘I’m going to go. I er, I need to talk to Shaan. I just need some time to think about things. I’ll call you tomorrow.’ 

He stands up and brushes past Alex, strips off Alex’s sweater and puts on his own from the day before. He gathers up his things and David, and Alex can’t help but feel like everything has turned to sand slipping through his fingers.

‘Hey wait, are—’ He pauses. ‘Are we okay?’ 

Henry gives him a tight smile. ‘Of course. I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he says, and he kisses Alex on the cheek, brief and fleeting. Then he leaves, David trailing obliviously behind him. 

Alex stares at the closed door, his thoughts racing with question after question, and no answers. He crawls into bed that night and the space next to him – Henry’s space – is cold and empty. He doesn’t understand how Henry can have been in his life for such a short time, and have made such a huge home for himself. He’s nestled his way into Alex’s every thought and each beat of his heart. Alex barely sleeps. He stares at the clock, waiting for the hours to tick past until the morning, when Henry will call and tell him he’s talked to Shaan and that it’s fine, it’s all fine. They’re fine. 

Morning comes, then afternoon, then evening. 

Henry doesn’t call.

Chapter Text

Henry doesn’t call that day, or the next. Alex texts and calls but he doesn’t pick up. He leaves a voicemail and gets no response. He sees his messages marked as read. Henry doesn’t reply. Alex stares at the screen waiting to see that Henry is typing, but there’s nothing. He tries going to Henry’s apartment but there’s no answer. He sees a photo on Twitter of Henry walking David, head ducked under a baseball cap, so Alex knows that he’s alive. He just apparently doesn’t want to talk to him. He’s not sure what happened, how they went from weeks of frenzied kisses and blowjobs that made his head spin, and spending almost every waking minute together, to… this. He doesn’t know why Henry won’t even talk to him, why they can’t work whatever this is together. 

Valentine’s Day comes a few days later and he finds solace in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey and tries to stop himself thinking about what stupidly romantic thing Henry might have done for the two of them. June keeps giving him concerned looks as he stares listlessly at the wall from the couch. Eventually, he gets up and goes for a run just so she’ll stop looking at him. Someone photographs him, sweaty with limp curls and scowling, on his way home and he sees it on Twitter with the caption: lol someone had a ROUGH night. 

He did, he thinks, but not in that way. He’s spent most of his nights lately sleeping even less than usual, thoughts racing and staring at the phone waiting, hoping Henry might call. It’s been almost two weeks though and he’s heard nothing. 

Alex drags himself out of bed and to the screen test. He thought it might be difficult, trying to slip into being someone else again with so much else plaguing his brain, but it’s not. It’s a relief to fall into another mind, another life again, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Petra, the lead actress he’s testing opposite is, as promised, impossibly beautiful: dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones. She’s funny and makes Alex feel alarmingly at ease about the whole thing, and all Alex can think is what a stunning and marketable pair she and Henry would make on the poster.

After two weeks, Alex has more or less accepted that Henry isn’t going to call. Zahra, on the other hand, has already called three times to chew him out for skipping parties when she’s spending every waking moment trying to establish him as a new name in the industry. 

Which is how he ends up at a party for a fashion designer he can’t even remember the name of, in a hotel dining room with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, propping up the bar and drinking whiskey like it’s going out of fashion. There’s a band playing in the corner, and Alex can’t quite see who it is from here but it’s buzzy and loud and the crowd is going wild over them. 

‘You’re a hard man to track down,’ a voice says from behind him, low and sultry. 

He turns to face her. He’s seen her before – it would be hard not to have seen her before. Amber Forrester, last season’s Alex: the outsider who came in and swept the floor with the industry veterans in the Best Supporting Actress race. 

She’s grinning at him, perfectly straight white teeth shining against red lipstick. ‘Normally the new guy shows up and is all over these parties like a rash. I should know, it was me last year,’ she says. ‘Amber Forrester,’ she says, holding out a hand. She’s gorgeous, Alex thinks, and then he feels a pang of guilt because… Henry. It’s a feeling which is quickly replaced by anger because Henry isn’t fucking here. Henry won’t return his fucking calls and if he’s going to ghost Alex without so much as a conversation then why shouldn’t Alex flirt with the hot girl batting her eyelashes at him?

He smiles. ‘Alex,’ he says, taking her hand and turning on his red-carpet ready smile. The full Alex Claremont-Diaz charm offensive. 

There’s a glint of amusement in her eyes. ‘I know. You’re having quite the awards season,’ she says. ‘I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, but you never seem to be at the parties. Very elusive, Mr Claremont-Diaz,’ she says teasingly. 

‘Well,’ he says, with a smile. ‘Here I am. What can I do for you?’ he asks, 

She grins at him. ‘I’d say you can buy me a drink but I don’t think anyone in this room has carried a wallet since before either of us were born so… you can order me a drink, I guess?’ she says with a grin. Her hand reaches out to touch his forearm. 

He could. He can see it now, the headlines – New Hollywood’s power couple: Amber, the daughter of Somali refugees and Alex, the embodiment of the American dream. She’s exactly the kind of girl Zahra would be begging him to date. The kind of girl he would have been chasing after just a few months ago. She’s beautiful, in a deep red silk dress that skims her body like cascading water, deep brown eyes, and from everything Alex has seen, a vocal position on social issues. She’s Henry’s polar opposite. And well, isn’t that just the problem? He looks at her and there’s nothing, no swell of emotion in his chest or butterflies in his stomach. She’s beautiful, but she’s… not Henry. He looks back at her, and then down at his glass again. He sighs. 

‘I’m...fuck. I’m sorry but I can’t,’ he says, and he puts his glass back down on the bar. He scrubs a hand over his face. ‘I can’t, I’m sorry, it’s… it’s not you, I swear I’m just…’ He trails off. 

He doesn’t even know what to say. It’s not like he can say, ‘It’s not you, I just got ghosted by the guy I was secretly in a relationship with who is also my competitor in this race and I don’t fucking understand why.’ So he just trails off and gives her an apologetic look and stares back into the bottom of his glass.

She gives him a soft smile, her face turning into something else. ‘Tough break up?’ she asks. 

He looks up at her, and clears his throat. ‘Ah, yeah. Something like that, I guess.’ 

‘I know the feeling,’ she says. ‘I’m still getting over someone too. I keep thinking if I just put myself out there then maybe it’ll stop hurting, and I’ll meet someone new and better but…’ She shrugs.

‘It doesn’t,’ Alex finishes. 

‘Yeah.’ She laughs humourlessly and then turns back to him and gives him a small smile. ‘You can still order me that drink though.’ 

Alex smiles and nods. ‘Sure,’ he says. 

Amber introduces him to a whole parade of directors, producers and actors. He takes photos with what feels like just about everyone in LA. Zahra will have absolutely nothing to complain about in the morning. He’s in the middle of a conversation with a couple of TV actors when he looks up, and there in the corner is a short brunette in a champagne coloured silk dress and leather jacket staring back at him. 

Bea. 

The band. Of course. The Windsors. 

His eyes meet hers across the room. They’re brown like Philip’s, not blue like Henry’s. She doesn’t really look like Henry at all – she’s almost a foot smaller and her face is rounder, her cheeks are full and rosy and her chin is pointed like all the photos Henry showed him of their mother. But there’s something so comforting and familiar in the softness of her expression as she stares back at him. She tilts her head and nods towards the door, a sign for him to follow. So he excuses himself from the conversation and takes off after her. 

He finds her in an empty courtyard, standing among the trees under the starless sky. The sound of chatter is thick around them through the open windows.

‘What the hell is going on, Bea?’ Alex asks. He’s never really been one for greetings. ‘Why the fuck is he ignoring me all of a sudden?’ 

She sighs and looks up at him. ‘He’s gone to London,’ she says, and well, Alex wasn’t expecting that. He blinks. He’d sort of just assumed Henry was holed up in his flat pacing and wearing holes into the carpet.

‘What?’ 

‘He went to London early. He said he had some things to sort out. He didn’t… I don’t know, he didn’t want to be here.’ 

‘Didn’t want to be somewhere he might run into me, you mean,’ Alex says, and even he’s surprised by the cool clip of his voice, the bitterness that has crept into his tone. ‘He’s going to have to see me eventually.’

Bea exhales and looks up to the sky as though she’s searching for answers. The same way that Henry did that night at the Critics Choice Awards, Alex thinks. He sees him there, swaying gently under the light of the moon. ‘Alex,’ Bea says gently, ‘you don’t understand what it’s like for him, for us. The pressure he’s under. It’s… suffocating.’ 

‘You don’t think I get that? That I haven’t seen that in him? I know what hiding does to him, all I wanted was to have a conversation about things. I wasn’t–’ He pauses and looks around, but it’s still deserted. He whispers anyway. ‘I wasn’t asking him for anything. I wasn’t asking him to come out, but as soon as things got even the tiniest bit complicated he just… ran.’ 

She turns her lip over between her teeth. ‘I’m not saying he did the right thing but… he’s so scared, Alex. We’ve already lost our dad, and we’ve basically lost Mum too and he’s so scared of losing everyone else, and his career, and–’ She pauses and her face softens again, and her big brown eyes are soft and gentle. Alex wants to burrow in their warmth. It’s the same way he feels when he looks at June. ‘And you,’ Bea says quietly. ‘He’s terrified of losing you.’

‘So why is he fucking running from me? If he’s so scared of losing me, why won’t he fucking answer my calls or texts or anything. He’s the one pushing me away.’

‘He’s…’ She sighs. ‘In his head, I swear to you, he thinks he’s doing the right thing. He just… he gets so caught up in there sometimes. He has so much hurt inside him and it runs so deep into his bones. He just doesn’t always deal with it in the best way. He’s just trying to protect the people he loves. Don’t give up on him,’ she says softly. ‘Please. He’s… he’s so worth it. You know he’s worth it. Just… try and talk to him at the BAFTAs. Please.’

‘Bea!’ someone calls from the doorway and Alex vaguely recognises the girl as one of her bandmates. ‘God, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Come on.’ 

Bea looks torn as she looks back at the doorway.

‘Please,’ she says again. ‘Don’t give up on him.’ She gives Alex a last soft smile and even though it’s on the wrong face, it’s his – it’s Henry’s smile – and then she turns, and leaves. Then, Alex is alone again, and he has no idea what to think. 

*** 

Alex flies into London under a cloud of rain and it’s fucking freezing when he gets off the plane. A car takes him to his hotel, a slow drive through the grey landscape of south London – just rain and fields, until it becomes rain and tiny houses packed so tightly together they’re crumbling at the seams and tower blocks protruding into the sky beside them. Raf sleeps next to him, snoring with his mouth half open. 

So here he is, driving up to some stupidly fancy hotel in London, nominated for a BAFTA, and probably about to see Henry for the first time in weeks. Surely he can’t avoid him when they’re nominated in the same category. Right?

The hotel is, for lack of a better word, obscene. There’s a doorman who calls him ‘Sir’ and looks like his name is probably Reginald or Cuthbert. There’s a chandelier in his room and honest to God, monogrammed towels. ‘Why do I need a fucking monogrammed towel?’ he asks June, when he FaceTimes her. ‘I know what my name is.’ 

He and Raf go out for dinner for steak and beers. Nobody recognises the two of them huddled in the corner laughing about old times and memories on set. They eat and drink and, for an evening, being there with Raf feels almost normal, and not like his heart and his head are all in jumbled up pieces. They finish their beers and move on to tequila, and Raf looks up at him and raises his eyebrows like he’s been waiting to ask for hours. 

‘So are you gonna tell me what the fuck is up with you then?’ 

Alex meets his eyes. ‘What?’ 

‘You’ve been in a fucking weird mood. Westbrook told me you were at that Gucci party the other night and bailed on Amber fucking Forrester at the bar.’ 

Alex turns his lip between his teeth. ‘It’s… I don't know, just been a weird time, that’s all.’ 

‘Bullshit, kid.’

‘I...’ Alex sighs and then shrugs his shoulders. ‘I was seeing someone I guess, and it got weird, and now I’m not.’

Raf’s dark eyes narrow over the table at him and then he looks up to the ceiling. ‘Alex. Fucking Christ, tell me it wasn’t who I think it was.’ 

Alex says nothing. Raf has always been unfailingly good at pinning down this sort of thing cutting right through all the bullshit to the root of the problem. Alex has always had the strange sense that Raf knows him better than he knows himself. Of course he knows. Of course he’s worked it out.

‘Fox? Seriously?’ he hisses, low and his eyes are sharp and wild. ‘Tell me you’re not that fucking stupid. Please, tell me you’re not that fucking stupid.’ 

‘What? I thought you’d be happy I’d finally figured it out,’ Alex replies, his own voice dropping in volume but it’s thick with a sharp anger. ‘You knew, didn’t you? That I’m bi? You’ve always known.’ His fingers tear at the napkin in his hands. ‘Besides, it doesn’t fucking matter now. It’s over.’ 

Raf sighs and glares back at him. ‘Do yourself a favour and keep it that way,’ he says, his voice tinged with a bitterness sharper than the lime rinds on the table. ‘Took me nearly twenty fucking years to get anywhere in this industry. You want my advice kid? Go find yourself a nice girl. You’ll find your life a lot fucking easier if you actually want to work in this town.’

Alex curls into bed that night, wondering how this –  a life without Henry, a life where his heart feels like it’s be shattered into pieces and his brain is all fog – is the easier option.

Chapter Text

Yet again, Alex’s palms are sweating. This time though, he knows it’s not because of the awards themselves – the BAFTAs are home turf for Henry, and Alex has absolutely no illusions about who is going to win here. Henry is their golden boy. If Henry is adored in Hollywood, that’s nothing compared to the reception he gets in London. He’s won every single time he’s been nominated for a BAFTA. It’s not the awards race that’s got Alex on edge, it’s the fact that he’s going to see Henry again. 

Alex is wearing navy this time – a fitted silk tux in deep midnight blue with black lapels. Standing on the red carpet, he wonders if he’ll ever get used to this. The roar of the crowd outside the Royal Albert Hall is electric, the carpet stretching along to the round concert hall at the end like a runway, photographers and reporters all along the sidelines. He stands, and smiles for the cameras, but his eyes are everywhere else. He’s searching every single body on the line for tawny hair, broad shoulders and impossibly long limbs and finding nothing but Philip, arm wrapped around Martha’s waist, smiling placidly at the camera.

He grins for the cameras, does a few interviews, talking about all the stuff he’s done in London in the few days he’s been here – Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London, an afternoon at the V&A. In reality, he’s spent most of his time standing in front of awe-inspiring monuments, feeling empty and nauseous and wondering if, in another life, it would be Henry standing next to him and telling him stories about everything with his encyclopaedic knowledge. 

The inside of the Royal Albert Hall is a theatre style auditorium and Alex is grateful at least not to have to sit through another dinner. He’s not sure he could face the prospect of having to sit through yet another meal with Henry in a tightly-fitting tux, having to watch him pour wine and the way his lips curl around his spoon, when he won’t even so much as look at Alex. He finds his seat in the auditorium, and they’ve apparently placed him as far away as physically possible from Henry. He’s absolutely one hundred percent sure that’s not a coincidence. 

From his seat, he can see the curve of Henry’s ear and his swoopy sandy hair through a gap in the audience and it’s not enough, it’s nowhere near enough to quell the waves in his stomach. The lights dim around them as the awards begin. Alex sits, turning the programme over and over in his hands as he stares daggers into the back of Henry’s skull across the room, until Raf finally takes it away from him with a muttered swear.

Unsurprisingly, Henry wins their category. When he gets up on stage, it’s the first time Alex has seen his face in weeks beyond a few pictures on social media. He looks good in his tux, even though he’s back to boring black. He smiles and blushes gratefully, stumbles his way through the speech endearingly, but there’s something in his shoulders that betrays the fact that he’s not at ease. His skin looks thin and papery under the harsh lights, like he’s not been sleeping and there’s no joy in his eyes. There’s a slump to his shoulders that nobody would notice, unless they knew them intimately, the way Alex does. Because Alex knows the curve of his back and the divots of his skin; the ridges of his spine and the way his shoulder blades stick out slightly, and how they feel covering his own. How they eclipse everything else in the universe. He can see the weariness in them now, the way Henry exhales heavily just as he gets off stage. 

Raf’s words have been ringing through his mind on repeat all night: ‘you’ll find your life a lot fucking easier if you actually want to work in this town.’ Alex has learned almost everything he knows from Raf, in late nights on set and over burgers in a Five Guys. Raf is a renegade, and Longshot embodies that. It’s dark, and a cry for action, a last-ditch attempt at forcing change through art. It’s incredible but it’s dark, almost hopeless. Raf has been embittered by the industry, by being frozen out for so long because he’s openly gay. Alex loves Raf. He knows that Raf is looking out for him in his own weird way, desperately trying to stop history from repeating itself and Alex getting cast out of the industry too. Raf has lost all hope for a happy ending but, despite the fact that Henry is being a fucking idiot, Alex still has that hope somewhere inside him. Somewhere deep down beneath all the layers of fury.

He’s always been a dreamer. Always gunned for the underdog.

The second Henry is offstage, Alex is out of his seat like a rocket, and he can feel Raf's eyes follow after him as he flees the auditorium for backstage. 

He waits in the shadows at the end of the press line for Henry, watching him converse easily with the reporters. He can’t hear what he’s saying but there’s a small upwards turn to his lips as he speaks, and the heavy sink of his shoulders is less-pronounced now he’s not on the stage but still, it’s there. Henry doesn’t notice Alex as he approaches the end of the line, cradling his statue. He lets out an undignified squeak as Alex reaches out and pulls him away by the elbow. Alex is grateful for the fact that none of the press notice, that nobody manages to get a picture of him bodily yanking the guy who just beat him into the shadows. Zahra would probably kill him for the headlines that would produce. 

‘What on earth do you think you're doing?’ Henry demands in a cool, clipped, overly British voice as Alex leads him down a deserted corridor. It sounds fake and strained, too many clipped vowels and not enough ease. He sounds like Philip. Like he's playing another role. 

Alex spins on his heel and stares back. His lips are pressed tightly together and he can feel the slight wobble of his chin. He inhales steadily. ‘What am I doing? What are you doing? What the fuck Henry?’ he spits. Henry at least has the decency to look ashamed, eyes trained on the threadbare carpet at their feet, but he says nothing. ‘You said we were fine. You said you would call and then you just fucking ghosted me for weeks and fled across the fucking ocean!’ 

‘You don’t–’ 

‘Don't. Do not tell me I don’t understand. Do not tell me that I don’t understand whatever shit this is when you won’t even do me the fucking courtesy of telling me what is going through your fucking idiotic brain.’ 

There’s a vein pulsing at the side of Henry’s neck. He places the statue on the window sill next to him and cracks his knuckles. Henry looks at him, a pained expression on his face: eyes screwed shut and brow wrinkled, all lines leading to that crease in his brow. ‘Can we not do this here, please? Alex, I–’ 

‘No. You’re going to fucking tell me what is going on in your head, because if I let you out of my sight, you’re going to leave again.’ To his horror, his voice cracks on the last word. He swallows down the lump in his throat and forces himself to continue. ‘You just fucking left, Henry, and I was so confused and angry, and I’m still angry and–’ 

Alex stares at him. His eyes are weary, almost hopeless. He can see the thin smear of concealer under them, the way it bobbles slightly on his skin and if he looks this exhausted like this then Alex dreads to think what he looks like without it. He looks as though he hasn’t slept in days, and Alex wants to be sympathetic, really. He does. But Henry fucking ghosted him and fled the country and had their seating arrangements rearranged to get as far away as possible from him tonight. 

So, he’s angry. He’s so fucking angry. 

Henry stares back at Alex, and then he exhales. ‘Alex, my life is a circus. I don’t want to drag you into it,’ Henry says quietly.

‘And what if I want to be?’ Alex says, his voice barely a whisper. ‘What? I don’t get a say?’ 

‘You don’t understand what you’re signing up for – the roles you’d lose, the way the fans would turn against you. You would be throwing away your entire career before it’s even started.’ 

‘I don’t care! Stop telling me I don’t understand,’ Alex says, moving towards him. He hears Raf’s voice in his mind again telling him to just find a nice girl but he can’t . He doesn’t want to. What he wants is to grab Henry by the shoulders, shake him and tell him that he doesn’t fucking care what people say. He just wants to wake up next to Henry again, hear his laugh and feel Henry’s body next to his, and not this emptiness that’s sinking deeper and deeper into his bones. Unforgivably, he feels tears pricking in his eyes. ‘Tell me you don’t want this,’ Alex says, moving into Henry’s space. He watches as Henry swallows and he follows it down with his eyes. His eyes meet Henry’s. ‘Tell me that you don’t want me.’

For a second, he thinks that Henry is going to push him away and tell him just that, but then something flickers on his face and in the clench of his jaw. Henry surges forward and pulls Alex in by the tie and crashes his lips to his, frenzied and wanting. It’s all tongue and teeth – messy and full of sheer desire. He bites at Alex’s bottom lip and Alex’s fingers tug desperately at his hair. Henry backs him against the wall and Alex’s head falls against it with a soft thunk and he doesn’t even fucking care, can’t even think about whether it hurts. He’s so consumed in the feeling of Henry’s lips on his and the fevered rush running through his blood. 

Henry pulls back panting and buries his face into Alex’s shoulder. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Of course I fucking want you.’ He lifts his head up and his eyes meet Alex’s again. ‘I want you more than anything. I want an honest life, staying away from you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done but–’ 

‘So don’t,’ Alex says quietly. ‘Don’t stay away from me. Have me. Be with me, be happy with me. I… I like you. These past few weeks have been the worst fucking weeks of my life.’

Henry lets out a low, humourless laugh. ‘Same.’ 

Alex blinks as Henry pulls away. ‘Please don’t run away again.’

‘Alex, I– I don’t know what I can promise you. I don't know if I can promise you anything, but–’ Henry closes his eyes and looks up to the ceiling, and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key and presses it into Alex. ‘This is a key for my place here. Come later and... we can talk, properly. I have to stay for at least some of the party, but come? Please?’ 

Alex sighs. ‘Okay.’ He still doesn’t know what that means, not really, but it’s something. It’s Henry at least agreeing to have a conversation . He takes the key and tucks it into the inside pocket of his coat and looks back at Henry and finds wild hair and wilder eyes. ‘You… you should probably find a mirror before you go back out there.’ 

Henry’s eyes sweep over Alex’s body. ‘Yes. You, err, you probably should as well.’ 

Alex bites his bottom lip in between his teeth and there’s a slight metallic tang there. ‘Wait, just–’  he says, and he can hear the nervousness in that one word.

‘I’ll wait for you,’ Henry tells him. 

Alex wants to believe him. He does but he just doesn’t know if he can yet.

Henry smiles softly and pulls out his phone, types out a message and then Alex’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out to look at it. For the first time in weeks, a message from award-winning dickhead 💩, with his address. Followed by a simple ‘x’. 

*** 

Alex’s head is a mess for the entirety of the ensuing afterparty. He spends half the night engaging in conversations he’s not really fully present for, and the other half actively not engaging in any conversations, instead staring at Henry from the bar trying to make sure he’s not going to run off again. Henry moves easily between groups of people – the elite echelons of British cinema, and apparently, actual royalty all hanging on his every word. From what Alex can tell, Henry is actively avoiding Philip by removing himself from a conversation any time he comes near. He catches Alex’s eye and gives him a small, slightly bashful smile.

So, okay. Maybe he won’t run away again. 

Alex is in the corner of the room talking to one of the Best Supporting Actress nominees – a middle-aged woman with red hair and a gap between her teeth who reminds him of his mother – when he sees Henry hovering by the wall, waiting for him to wind up the conversation. So he does, before Henry can change his mind and run. 

He falls into step nervously alongside him. He’s still not sure where this night is going. They’ve just stepped out into the cool February night when he hears their names being called. 

'Henry! Alex!'

Alex turns to look over his shoulder, to find the director of Phantom Touch jogging towards them. He smiles at them both. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ he says, and of a sudden, a rock has found a home in Alex’s stomach and started dragging itself down. 

He slaps Henry jovially on the back and Alex is surprised that Henry doesn’t shirk under it. They’re familiar with each other. ‘Congratulations Mr Fox,’ he says, nodding to the award in Henry’s hands. ‘Going to win me another one of those in two years?’ 

Henry smiles back bashfully and lowers his head. ‘We’ll see.’ And suddenly Alex realises what’s happening.

Henry’s got the role. He already knows he’s got it and Alex just hasn’t been told yet that they've cast someone else. It’s not surprising really – Henry has worked with the director before, he’s familiar, he’s a big name, he’s talented and Alex is… the new guy on the block, a wildcard, not white, doesn’t have the Fox name. 

But then, he turns to Alex.

‘I’ve just had a very interesting phone call with your agent,’ he says. ‘Quite the woman.’ 

‘Uhh,’ Alex says eloquently. ‘Yeah.’ 

‘I’d like to offer you the role of Tom,’ he says bluntly, with a smile. 

Alex blinks. And then blinks again. And again. 

The lead. The lead in Phantom Touch. But– 

Henry.

‘What?’ he says at last. 

The director grins back at him, and even more confusingly, Henry is smiling too and there’s something like surprise and pride there in his face. ‘I loved your audition. Your chemistry with Petra is fantastic, it’s a winning combination. You’re going to be a star. See you back here in two years, boys!’ He says with a laugh and Alex still does not understand what the fuck is happening. The director starts to walk off and then turns back around to Alex and says, ‘Speak to your agent.’ He pauses. ‘Oh and Henry – thanks for suggesting him.’ 

Alex’s eyes snap up to meet Henry’s because he is so fucking confused and… Henry recommended him? 

‘What the fuck just happened?’ 

Henry grins. ‘I think you just got the most sought after role in Hollywood.’ 

‘I– But… I thought you– I saw the script in your apartment.’ 

Henry smiles gently at him. ‘How long have you been worrying about that?’ he asks. Alex shrugs. ‘You’re right. I did have the script in my apartment. But it was never for Tom. I was asked to audition for him a year ago when it first went out but I just couldn’t find any connection to the character, but Louis? I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I’ve been signed on to play him for months.’ 

The sort-of-maybe villain of the story. He thinks back to that roundtable and Henry saying he wanted to play more morally grey characters. The boy from an oppressive family, unable to lift himself from the restraints placed upon him. Of course Henry would find a sort of kinship with him, a morbid fascination. 

Alex wants to be celebrating. He should be celebrating, but his brain won’t let him because it’s still hung up on that comment: Thanks for suggesting him.

‘What did he mean?’ he asks. ‘When he said “thanks for suggesting him”?’ There’s a bitterness that’s crept into his words, a sour tang in voice. ‘What? You think that I can’t do this on my own? That I need you there to recommend me for roles?’

Henry sighs. ‘Alex, no of course not, I–’

But Alex isn’t listening. There’s fire in his blood, flames of anger and righteous indignation liking at the undersides of his skin. ‘I can’t believe you–’ 

And Henry pulls him up short. ‘Can we talk about this somewhere else please?’ His voice is a low hiss, spoken through his teeth, with eyes darting to look all around them. ‘I can explain everything, I promise. I just… will you come back to mine, please?’ 

Alex stares back at him, clenching his own jaw tightly. His fists are curled into tight balls at his side, and he can’t believe that Henry would do that – that he thinks he needs to go around recommending him for roles? Does he think he can’t get them by himself? That he’s so desperate that he needs Henry’s help?

Henry’s eyes soften. ‘Please. I promise I’ll explain everything, just… not here.’ 

Alex exhales. He’s angry. He’s been angry for weeks, but under it all there’s something that doesn’t add up, something he wants Henry to explain. ‘Fine.’

The walk to Henry’s is quiet, neither of them willing to start the conversation. It’s only a short walk, because of-fucking-course Henry has a place in Kensington, and of-fucking-course it’s one of those ridiculous white townhouses. The door closes behind them with a heavy thunk.

It’s nothing like his place in LA. Everything is ornate curved furniture with gold edging and mahogany wood. There’s a bouquet of white roses on the table, along with a set of magazines that look as though they’ve never been touched. In fact, nothing looks as though it’s ever been touched. There’s no dust, or fingerprints on the table, not even a TV remote on the couch, just shelf upon shelf of glittering trophies. Alex can hardly believe that the same person lives in this house as lives in Henry’s apartment in LA. He can hardly believe that anyone lives here. 

‘It’s the family home,’ Henry says by way of an explanation. Henry places his award on the table, shrugs off his jacket and tie. Alex does the same, and then comes back from the disorientation of this show home and remembers that he’s still mad. 

‘Go on then,’ he says. ‘Talk.’ 

Henry crosses over to a drinks cabinet. He pulls out a bottle of whiskey that’s older than either of them and pours them each a glass. Alex swallows it in one go. 

‘I did recommend that they look at you for Tom. I won’t deny that.’ He exhales and his perfect white teeth bed into his bottom lip. ‘And I did do it because I thought they wouldn’t look at you without a nudge.’

Alex clenches his jaw again. 

‘Please,’ Henry says, watching Alex’s leg twitch in a movement to rise. ‘Hear me out. That’s all I ask. I did recommend you, but I did it almost a year ago.’ 

Alex’s brain spins. ‘Wait, what?’ 

A year ago, Alex hated Henry and Henry didn’t seem to know he even existed. Longshot wasn’t even out. Alex’s name and Golden Globe hadn’t been mentioned in the same sentence, except in the private moments in Alex’s own bathroom where he’d practice his speech in the mirror. He… doesn’t understand.

Henry looks down at the floor. ‘That day on set for Rio that you mentioned. I knew who you were,’ he says. ‘I’d been watching a tv show a few nights before and–’ He pauses. ‘You were a barista, or something, I can’t even remember but… you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I stayed up for hours, scouring the internet searching for everything you’d ever been in. Really, I watched some truly awful stuff but you were there, in every single one. Amazing. No matter how small the role was, you made every single one your own. I’d never seen anything like it. And then you turned up in my trailer a few days later like a vision from one of my dreams and you were so… full of energy and enthusiastic for a life I had completely fallen out of love with.’

He takes another drink, and then carries on talking. ‘I was a broken shell of a person back then, and I didn’t know how to be around something so… joyful, so full of hope. I knew I would just destroy all your dreams if I opened my damned mouth and… I couldn’t do that when I knew how talented you were.’ He looks up at Alex, cool blue eyes staring into his. ‘And then I did The Waterloo Vase, and I heard all the talk about Phantom Touch. I knew that you were doing more films and I’d seen about Longshot, so when I declined the audition for Tom, I said I thought they should look at you. But then they cast someone else and I met you properly and I swear to you, I never said a thing about it once we were together. I mentioned your name a year ago but… everything since then was all you. I swear. I didn’t even know you were talking to them until earlier tonight. The last I’d heard it was between Hunter and someone else. I didn’t know. It was you, all you.’ 

Alex stares back at him with his mouth hanging open. ‘You knew who I was on Rio?’

Henry stutters out a breathy laugh. ‘Christ that’s what you’re focusing on from all of that.’ He sighs. ‘Yes. I have seen… everything you’ve ever done. Even the toothpaste commercial.’ 

‘Fuck,’ Alex mutters, and he picks up the whiskey glass again and holds it out for a refill. ‘So, you knew who I was the whole time?’

‘The whole time,’ Henry confirms with a nervous swallow.

Alex looks over at him and he has so many more questions but he doesn’t know where to begin. Henry is wringing his hands in his lap. ‘Why did you run away?’ he asks quietly. ‘I just… I thought we were going to talk about things and then you just… went.’

Henry sighs and takes a drink from his own whiskey glass. ‘I got that text from Philip, but he sent another one while you were out in the hall with Zahra. He said that Gran was preparing to brief the publicists to tell the press that you and Bea were in a relationship, and that’s why you were at the flat so much. He made it quite clear they knew the truth and essentially said Gran had made an ultimatum: I cut things off with you and it could all fade away, or they tell the press you and Bea were together.’

Alex blinks repeatedly. ‘What the fuck? What, and they weren’t even going to consult either of us? We just didn’t get a say?’ 

‘Pretty much. And I… I couldn’t do that to either of you. So I ran. I’m sorry. It was foolish and cowardly and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I couldn’t put you or Bea through that. I thought that perhaps you would just... get over me and move on.’ 

‘That’s why you were avoiding him tonight,’ Alex realises. ‘Did Bea know?’ he asks, suddenly remembering their conversation in the courtyard. 

He’s just trying to protect the people he loves. 

‘Philip mentioned it to her a week or so ago. She tore him to pieces over it and then confronted me about it. She told me I was being an idiot but… I just, I couldn’t ask the two of you to do that. So I removed myself from the equation, and I thought you would meet someone else eventually. I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t want anyone else,’ Alex says quietly, barely above a whisper. ‘I want you.’ 

Henry closes his eyes. ‘Alex, I don’t know what I can give you. I want you, I want this, us, but I don’t know how I can have it. Not with my family, not with the lives we lead.’ Alex stares at him, turning over his words in his mind. ‘But,’ Henry croaks, his voice hoarse like worn sandpaper. ‘These were, quite frankly, the worst few weeks of my life and I don’t want to stay away from you. So, I don’t have any idea how it would work, but I’m willing to try, if you are. If you’re willing to be patient with me.’

Alex’s eyes are wet with tears and he wonders for a moment if he’ll ever be able to say no to anything Henry asks of him. He nods through wet eyes, barely trusting himself to open his mouth lest a sob bubble up from the depths of his stomach and burst from him. Henry gives him a shaky grin. He doesn’t know which of them moves first, but then Henry’s lips are on his, hungry to re-familiarise himself with the slide of Alex’s lips on his, swallowing any hint of a cry that might slip from Alex’s mouth. He knows it’s not the end, that they still have so much to discuss and to sort out but he can’t help it, can’t hold himself back any longer. He needs Henry close to him, needs to feel him again.

Henry kisses him like it’s the first time, and like it’s the last time, but it’s not. Alex knows it’s neither now, because they’re going to try. Henry kisses him, swallowing Alex’s every gasp as his hands pull restlessly at his clothes.

‘I missed you so fucking much,’ Henry murmurs. ‘I’m so sorry, I–’

‘Sweetheart, shhh. It’s okay. You’re here now, we’re here now.’ 

Henry kisses him again, and then pulls back, and stands from the couch. ‘Come with me?’ he asks, holding out a hand. So Alex does. He takes his hand, and it curves around his, warm and strong, his thumb rubbing across Alex’s as he leads him down a hallway and into a bedroom. 

It still doesn’t look like Henry’s space, but there’s more of him here. He’s in the worn paperback with a cracked spine on his bed, in the mug of tea on the side table, the postcard of Jane Austen propped up on his desk, in the cardigan draped over a chair. 

Henry tugs him in by the hips, fingers threaded through his belt loops and kisses him hungrily. He kisses his lips, his cheeks, the underside of his jaw, his neck. Anywhere he can reach. He pulls at Alex’s shirt, undoing each button in a fervour, desperate to get at more of him. Alex would laugh, tease him for being desperate and needy, but he feels exactly the same way. He undoes Henry’s own shirt, pushes it off his body and kisses the bare skin of the tips of his shoulders and the smattering of freckles there. 

Henry lets out a whisper of a whimper. ‘Alex.’ His name falling from Henry’s lips is sweeter than sugar and honey and everything else he’s ever known. 

Henry pushes him down onto the bed and kisses him again. Alex greedily takes the gasps from Henry’s own mouth and Henry trails his fingers along the waistband of Alex’s pants. He licks into Alex’s mouth, grins against his lips at the desperate little hitches of Alex’s breath as he grinds their hips together. They’re both hard. It’s been so fucking long, and every time Alex sees Henry it’s like a switch in his dick goes on, but the time and the distance apart seems to have amped that up to a thousand. 

Henry pushes down Alex’s pants, and his boxers, and then sits up to do the same. His eyes meet Alex’s, dark and wild and he pauses, teeth teasing his bottom lip. 

‘What?’ Alex asks. 

‘Fuck me?’ Henry says, and his eyes don’t leave Alex’s. They’re clear and resolute, and bottomless, bottomless blue. ‘Please. I want you to fuck me. If you–’ 

‘Fuck,' Alex says, and if this is all a dream then he hopes he never wakes up. He wants to live in this moment for the rest of his life. ‘Yeah, fuck. Of course.’ 

He reaches over to the side table, and pulls out a condom and some lube. He guides Alex, murmuring soft praise and sighing gently. 

Henry sighs with the first finger, almost like relief. He’s instantly trying to demand more, but Alex doesn’t give it to him. He’s going to take his time. He needs all the time in the world to remember the way Henry looks on top of him with his cheeks flushed, biting down on his lip and letting out tiny little whimpers. It’s the second finger that makes Alex think he really might implode. The choked moan that falls from Henry’s lips when he curls his fingers, reaching upwards and finds the right spot is so guttural that Alex wonders if he could get the soundwave somewhere tattooed on his body. He won’t ever forget it. It’s a part of him now. Henry presses back onto Alex’s fingers. 

‘Another, please, Alex. Fuck.’ 

Henry’s eyes flutter shut with a needy whine when Alex gives him the third finger, stretching him open even more, as a stream of babbling praise falling from his lips. ‘So good, darling. So perfect for me. Alex. Christ. Fuck, please. I need you. Please.’ 

Alex can barely face the thought of pulling his fingers from Henry, of this ending. He’s entranced by the openness of his mouth, the perfect ‘o’ of his lips and the breaths that fall from them. The way his eyes are screwed tightly shut, as though he can’t bear to open them again, afraid that none of this might be real. 

‘Alex, please.’ His voice is so raw, stripped bare to beyond even the bones of him – just atoms, maybe stardust. 

He pulls his fingers from Henry carefully, tenderly and Henry rolls so he’s beneath Alex. Alex leans down to kiss him again briefly, rolls the condom onto himself, and then lines himself up. He finds Henry’s eyes and Henry gives him a small smile and a nod, and he pushes in slowly. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. It’s tight heat and overwhelming, and Alex’s chest swells with a million things he can’t begin to name, but the one constant in them all is Henry . How perfect he is, grasping at Alex’s own back and whining beneath him, gasping Alex’s name in his ear as Alex moves his hips. Henry is trying to push his own body back against Alex’s, driving him onwards harder, faster, but Alex fucks him slow and deep and like it’s the last thing he might ever do. When Henry reaches up to kiss him, it’s desperate, as though he’s trying to sink into Alex’s mouth, trying to fuse them together so they can stay like this forever. 

Alex’s hand reaches down to Henry’s own cock, hard and leaking, and he’s so fucking close, but he wants Henry to get there too. He wants to see Henry fall apart beneath him again. He circles his hand around Henry’s cock and moves it up and down, and then Henry comes with Alex’s name a laugh on his lips, and Alex follows straight after, pushing himself deeper into Henry as the wave crests over him. 

Alex feels like he’s floating, no longer a man in a body just a selection of euphoric atoms floating in space. He slowly comes back to his body with a sigh. 

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he says as he rolls off Henry and throws the condom in the trash by his desk.

Henry lies next to him, blinking slowly. ‘That about covers it,’ he murmurs, and when his eyes find Alex’s, they’re smiling. The lazy turn of his lips reaches all the way up to his eyes. He still looks tired, but he doesn’t look as though he’s about to collapse from exhaustion. 

The early morning fade of the sky bleeds in through the curtains. Alex can’t quite wrap his head around everything that’s happened tonight, but with Henry’s body curling around his, he thinks he’ll deal with it later. 

Chapter Text

The few weeks after London are a strange, sort of fragile existence. There’s a lot of talking, a lot more driving circuitous routes to avoid being followed between their house. They’re careful now whenever they leave the house to make sure there’s nothing that could send fans too wild with speculation: nothing domestic – fewer dog walks, shopping alone, absolutely no clothes sharing outside. They spend pretty much all their time inside now. Henry plays the piano and Bea joins in on her guitar, Alex makes him dinner and watches as his face turns red from the spice, and laughs as he waves his hand in front of his mouth. They practice their lines for Phantom Touch together and Alex tries not to let his brain run away with the idea that they’re going to be on set together in just a few months. Nobody has photographed them together again, and as far as the rest of Henry’s family are concerned they’re still not talking. Alex doesn’t know what the future holds for them but for now, this is fine. It’s more than fine, it’s so good. 

Alex’s entire family arrive in town for the Oscars. His mom and Leo are staying at some insanely fancy hotel that Alex is sure must have cost half their savings. His dad plans to sleep on Alex and June’s couch. He’s not told them about Henry yet. He’s made vague references to the fact that he’s seeing someone, but for some reason every time they get onto the topic Alex’s brain puts up a wall and diverts them right off track again. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want them to know because he does, and it’s not that he’s not sure about Henry, because he is. He just… doesn’t want it to be a whole thing. He doesn’t want to see the concerned look in their eyes when he introduces Henry – global-movie-star-Henry, Alex’s former-sworn-enemy-Henry – as his boyfriend, or hear the worried tone of their voices when he tells them they can’t tell anyone. 

Henry is tucked into the chair flicking through a book like he belongs there, when Alex’s parents all arrive at the apartment together. His mom and Leo, and his dad with a backpack hanging off one shoulder. It’s weird and Alex can’t work out if they planned it that way or if it’s just some highly unfortunate event of bad timing. His dad pulls him into a bruising hug, arms wrapped tight around him. Alex inhales the familiar scent – smoky and leathery, with a hint of sandalwood. His mom pulls him into her arms and he sinks into it. ‘Hi sugar,’ she says softly, smiling into his ear. 

June slots into his dad’s arms and he grins, ‘CJ!’ and sways her from side to side. Nora gets swept up into it too. His dad has always loved Nora. 

Henry stands nervously in the corner of the room. ‘Uhh,’ Alex says, glancing at him. ‘This is.. this is Henry,’ he says, pulling Henry forward by the hand. ‘My boyfriend. I’m bisexual and Henry and I, we’re together,’ he says in one long breath. 

There’s a beat. He waits, watches all the emotions flick over his mom’s face and waits nervously. His dad recovers first, pulling Henry into a hug so tight that Henry looks like a startled lemur. Alex’s lips twitch nervously. 

‘Sugar,’ his mom says while his dad has Henry in a death grip. ‘Look at me.’ So he does. He finds her warm brown eyes looking back at him. It’s not often he thinks of his mother as gentle – she’s the daughter of a single mother, raised in bars and on the shop floors, born on the wrong side of town with keys between her knuckles. She's a short strawberry blonde spitfire: articulate, shrewd and ambitious. Alex often wonders how far she could have gone in another life, if things had been different. If they’d had more money and more time, he thinks she could have gone all the way. Her sharp eyes are usually focused, narrowed in on a single point, but looking at him now, they’re wide open and bottomless. She’s smiling, low and crooked and it’s a smile that makes him think of the playground and skinned knees and a kiss on his forehead. She kisses his cheek, and then she turns to Henry and pulls him into a hug. 

She’s almost a foot smaller than him but he softens instantly, his body creasing in the arms of a mother. ‘Hi sugar,’ she says. ‘Nice to meet you. I hope he’s not being too much trouble?’ 

Henry smiles. ‘Only on days ending in “y”,’ he says. His dad laughs, his mom rolls her eyes and grins. Alex looks around the room, sees them all there – his parents, June, Nora, Henry. Alex can instantly see the way they’re going to gang up on him and he’s suddenly filled with deep regret at ever putting all of these people in the same room. At least Leo is nice to him. 

His mom pulls him into another hug. ‘You were nervous about telling us weren’t you?’ she asks quietly so that nobody else can overhear, while Leo and his dad quiz Henry on LA. Alex shrugs in response. ‘You’re a dumbass,’ she says, reaching up to kiss his forehead. ‘Love you.’ 

He lets her pull him in for a hug again. ‘Love you too.'

‘He seems nice. But I thought you hated him. Or you were friends with him?’ 

‘Yeah. Um.’ Alex brings his hands up to his hair. ‘Yeah, both true… at different points.’ He pauses. ‘I don’t know. The whole thing is complicated and you can’t tell anyone but… I really like him.’ 

Ellen grins. ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy baby.’ 

‘Pa,’ he says, turning to his dad. ‘You, uhh, you can have my bed rather than the couch. I’m going to stay at Henry’s.’ 

His father’s face wrinkles. Nora smirks from the corner. ‘It’s okay, I made him change the sheets.’

*** 

On the morning of the Oscars, Alex wakes up to Henry pressing wet kisses to his neck and his nose brushing softly against the underside of Alex’s neck. 

‘If you give me another hickey,’ Alex murmurs, still half between dreams and the waking world, ‘Zahra will actually kill you. I trust that she knows how to hide a body.’ 

Henry hums and reaches down to touch Alex’s cock through his pyjamas. ‘Guess I’ll just have to do it where nobody will see then,’ he says with a wicked smile, inching himself down Alex’s body to suck bruises into the inside of his thighs. 

If someone had told him a few months ago that he’d be lying in bed on the morning of the Oscars, a nominee for Best Actor, with Henry’s wet lips around his dick, he probably would have thought he’d entered some sort of parallel universe or that he had fallen victim to some sort of sick prank. But no, here he is. Henry’s mouth is hot and wet around him, and Alex is on top of the world. 

*** 

Alex doesn’t really understand why they have to book out a whole hotel suite to get ready when they both have apartments in the city, but apparently that’s a thing so he goes with it. Zahra is running around frantically making phone calls and hissing at people. He’s not about to make himself one of them.

He spends the afternoon getting primped and preened. His eyebrows waxed, and his hair rearranged into the perfect shape, makeup to cover any blemishes. His suit this time is black – it’s the Oscars, he does some things by tradition – but it's not boring: a snug-fitting black tuxedo jacket, with velvet brocade that he knows will stand out under the camera lights, with silk trousers and a black bow-tie. He wants to show them that black doesn’t have to be boring. He wants to show them that whether he wins or not, he’s arrived. 

There’s a quiet knock on the door as Alex shrugs on his jacket, and Zahra opens it to reveal Henry, standing there in a white tuxedo jacket and black trousers, with a big perfect velvet bow tie. Alex feels all the air leave his lungs. Henry’s legs look as though they go on for days, his impossibly high cheekbones gleam under the lights. Alex wants to tear the suit right off him.

Zahra looks back at Alex and sighs. ‘Five minutes,’ she says, nodding towards the bedroom. ‘I mean it. I’m counting.’ 

Alex jumps out of the chair and slips into the bedroom, closes the door softly behind him. ‘Fuck baby, you look–’ he croaks. ‘You look incredible.’ 

Henry smiles. ‘So do you. You look exquisite.’ He brings his fingers to Alex’s jacket and runs it over the velvet pattern. ‘I like this. It suits you.’

Alex reaches up to place his hand on Henry’s cheek and kisses him softly. ‘You okay?’ he asks. 

Henry nods. ‘Yes, I ah, I just wanted to talk. To you. About tonight. About… what happens if one of us wins, I suppose.’ 

‘Baby, look at me.’ 

Henry’s eyes meet Alex’s, deep crystal-clear endless blue. They flutter closed under the feeling of Alex’s palm on his cheek, as his thumb gently strokes Henry’s cheekbone. Henry pushes his face into Alex's palm.

‘I’m so proud of you. No matter what happens tonight. We’ll work it out, okay. And if you win… I am going to be so, so fucking proud of you. Okay?’ 

Henry gives a tiny nod of his head and a watery smile. ‘And I you.’ 

‘We’ll deal with it. We’ll work it out. Whatever happens tonight and with your grandmother, I promise you, I swear to you, we’ll work it out.’ 

Henry nods, and pauses. ‘No matter what happens tonight. If I don’t win, if you do. I… I’m going to find a way. I–’ His voice cracks, and he inhales shakily. ‘I love you.’ 

And, oh . Alex suddenly has a word for the twisting sensation in his chest and the butterflies when Henry smiles at him, the feeling of pure innate safety and certainty when Henry walks into the room, the way the world's axis seems to right itself when ever he's around: love .

‘You don’t have to say it back. I know it’s too soon and it’s completely foolish but–’ 

‘I love you,’ Alex says, an exhaled breath. ‘Fuck, I love you.’ And maybe Henry’s right, maybe it’s too soon. It’s only been a couple of months and if it were anyone else he’d think they were crazy. But, it’s Henry, and it’s true, and he’s never been more certain of anything. Alex loves him. ‘I swear to you baby, one day I’m gonna show the entire world just how fucking much I love you. Whenever you’re ready, name the day. I’ll be there.’ 

Alex pulls him in for another kiss, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him in even closer, and then when they pull apart, panting slightly. 

‘No matter what happens tonight, I want you. I’ll– I’ll find a way. I swear it.’ Henry smiles a shaky press of his lips, and there are tears in his eyes. Alex thinks distantly that Shaan will probably kill him if Henry turns up to the Oscars looking like he’s been crying. He’s only met the guy once, but he’s pretty sure he and Zahra went to the same class on how to get away with murder. ‘I’m not afraid anymore,’ Henry tells him, strong and clear and true, his voice unwavering. ‘I was terrified, but being with you is… you’re the best thing in my life. You’re what I want.’ 

Alex kisses him until Zahra knocks loudly on the door and swears at him, rolling her eyes when Henry emerges with messed up hair and a crinkled jacket and sends him back to his room to be fixed again. 

‘You two are going to take years off my life, I swear to God.’ 

*** 

There’s something different about the Oscars red carpet. Maybe it’s because Alex knows it’s the Oscars and it’s the biggest night of the year, or maybe it’s the fact that his family is here, or just that his entire future with Henry rests in an envelope somewhere backstage. He walks the carpet with June again, in a dress of rippling deep green silk, her hair tossed over one shoulder in big waves. Nora is around somewhere in a sharp white tuxedo, and his mother, wearing a long strapless dress of navy lace, with his dad and Leo. Alex can only hope that his parents are being civilised. Or that they’re miles apart from each other. 

Journalists and photographers scream his name and it feels, at last, like he belongs. He smiles and jokes with Amber, and with directors and other actors and he feels like he’s one of them. He can see Henry, hair fixed from where Alex messed it up earlier, at the other end of the carpet, chin held high and press smile fixed on his nervous face. Bea is at his side in flowing lilac chiffon.

June looks at him with soft eyes. ‘I am so proud of you,’ she murmurs. ‘Whatever happens tonight… with Henry. You’ll work it out, I know you will.’ 

She makes a move to leave him for an interview. ‘Bug,’ he says, catching her wrist. ‘Thank you.’ There’s a speech that she wrote for him tucked into his jacket pocket. Part of him wants to share her talent with the world, part of him hopes he never has to read it.

Alex answers a stream of questions about what it’s like to be at the Oscars, and who he’s here with. He tells them his whole family is here, and that he just wants a good night. He feels like he’s repeating the same thing over and over and over, but it’s true. Coming into this whole thing, of course he wanted the Oscar but now? He feels as though he’s already won.  

Henry is at the end of the carpet in a pinned off area. He sees Shaan give him a piece of paper at the end of the carpet and a wide, disbelieving grin stretches across Henry’s face. He watches as Henry pulls him into a hug with more force than he’s ever seen, and he’s about to go over when he’s cornered by Zahra. 

‘Here,’ she says, shoving a piece of paper into his own hands. His eyes scan over it and he blinks repeatedly, trying to process what he’s reading. 

It’s incorporation papers for a new company.

A new agency. 

Srivastava-Bankston Talent Management. 

‘What the fuck is this?’ he asks, and his heart is racing because he thinks he knows but holy fucking shit. 

‘My new agency with Srivastava. Assuming you’re coming with me, we have two clients. You,’ she says, and then she pauses. ‘And Henry Fox.’ 

‘What?’ Alex blinks repeatedly. ‘You... you and Shaan set up a whole fucking company to get Henry out from his family? Wait, how the fuck do you even know each other?’ 

She rolls her eyes at him. ‘We’re engaged, you complete moron. It’s a small town. I don’t tell you every detail of my life. It was his idea. He’s been wanting to leave Kensington for a while. We talked about it and I thought it sounded like a great idea. Shaan’s been talking to Henry’s lawyer for months to see if it was possible to get him out of the contract with Kensington if he took him with him. They found a way. Apparently Kensington’s contract relies a lot on family loyalty and the notion that nobody would ever want to leave them. Lots of loopholes in their exit clauses. Anyway, he told Henry the other day, but… now it’s official I guess. We didn’t want to get your hopes up in case it all fell through.’

Tears well in Alex’s eyes and he can’t help but pull Zahra into a hug. She freezes in his arms, pats him awkwardly on the back. ‘Please never do that again,’ she says as he releases her.

‘Fuck, Zahra, I–’ He looks around wildly and then his eyes meet Henry’s across the carpet, papers still shaking slightly in his hands. Henry’s eyes are glistening, his grin stretches the whole way up his face. 

He’s free. 

*** 

They sit in the auditorium of the theatre across the aisle from each other. Bea is next to Henry, holding his hand tightly in hers, Philip and Martha on the other side of her. Pez is directly behind him, occasionally massaging his shoulders or whispering a joke in his ear. Alex sits next to June. She has his hand in one of hers, Nora’s in the other. 

The night rolls on with few surprises. All the people expected to win do. Alex is painfully aware that he’s still the front runner, but Henry has experience and former nominations on his side. It’s a toss of the coin which of them gets it. 

Then finally, last year’s Best Actress winner, Mary Mountchristen, steps onto the stage in a black dress and a razor sharp silver bob. Her cool grey eyes survey her kingdom. She’s the grand dame of the industry, the only woman of her age still working and commanding the attention she does. She’s the head of the Fox family dynasty. She talks at length about the importance of their craft, of tradition and how film should uphold important values and the entire world looks to them to set an example. Alex wants to vomit. He’s not sure if it’s the nerves, or all the talk about tradition or both. 

The camera pans between the nominees as she reads out their names. Alex’s leg bounces, and then, at last, she gets to the important part. ‘And the Academy Award for Best Actor goes to…’ 

June’s hand tightens around Alex’s, his nails press crescents into the palm of his other. 

Bea’s hand grips Henry’s. Pez’s hands find his shoulders again. 

Alex’s eyes meet Henry’s across the aisle. Henry’s jaw trembles through the tight clench and he looks back at Alex with nervous eyes. He swallows, Alex watches it travel down his throat. Henry nods at him. 

Mary opens the envelope and purses her lips. Her face is neutral as she says it, there’s absolutely no emotion behind the words: 

‘Henry Fox.’

A wide disbelieving, joyful laugh spills from Alex’s lips, and he grins as thunderous applause rips through the hall. Bea is kissing Henry’s cheek, bent over next to him where Henry is bowled over in his chair, head in his hands in disbelief. There's no hint of disappointment in Alex's body, he just wants to go to Henry and hold him, tell him how proud he is, tell him that he did it, but he can’t. So he just watches and grins as Pez hauls him to his feet and into a hug, and the crowd roars louder than Alex has ever heard. He remembers just how universally beloved Henry is in the industry, how so many of these people have watched him grow up, and Alex realises that he’s on his feet too. He doesn’t know how he got there, he doesn’t remember standing up but there he is and Henry looks at him, trembling bottom lip as he moves towards Alex.

Alex goes in to hug him, as they have at almost every other show, but then Henry’s hands are reaching up to his face and there’s a flicker of something in his eyes Alex can’t even begin to consider before his lips are on his and Henry is kissing him. Alex kisses him back, kisses him like there’s nothing and nobody else but the two of them. There’s a tiny pause of shock that goes through the crowd, and then it starts again, the cheering, even louder than it was before. There are wolf-whistles that Alex is pretty sure are from Pez and maybe Nora. He winds his hands around Henry’s neck and into his hair and he kisses him, tastes the sweet salty tears on Henry’s face and grins. 

Henry has just won the Oscar, and he’s kissing Alex with tears streaming down his face and a disbelieving laugh on his lips, in front of the entire industry, and the world, and his grandmother on the stage. Henry hugs him, and buries his face in the crook of Alex’s neck and Alex knows that Henry needs to get up on the stage and give his speech but he can’t let him go. 

He presses his forehead to Henry’s. ‘I love you. Fuck, I’m so so proud of you,’ he says, his voice thick with tears. He pulls away, finds Henry’s watery eyes and nods with a shaky smile, pushing him gently to the stage. ‘Go.’

Henry gives him another smile and murmurs that he loves Alex too, and it slips inside him and finds a home in his heart. It nestles itself there and his heart pumps it through his entire body, into every single cell.

June wraps her arms around Alex, and Nora squeezes round and puts her arms around him too. Leo and his parents watch, grinning and he thinks all three of them might be crying and they're in their own weird mismatched hug and Alex's heart swells again at the sight. He thinks he might burst. Bea and Pez cross the aisle to join them. They stand, blocking the aisle, and watch in an awkward, too-many bodied hug as Henry walks up to the stage, hands cupped around his mouth in shock. The crowd is still cheering, louder and louder and Alex can feel the tears on his own cheeks, and he grins because Mary is staring wide-eyed looking in disbelief like she’s just sucked on a lemon. He catches Amber’s eyes across the room and she grins at him and touches her palm to her chest. Alex returns it with an open-mouthed disbelieving laugh and a look up to the ceiling because surely he must be dreaming. 

Henry takes the statue from her with a satisfied smirk and her mouth turns into a thin line. ‘Thanks Gran,’ Alex hears him say, and he knows that he’s going to love this stupid fucking smug idiot for the rest of his life. 

He steps up to the microphone, and all that leaves his lips is a bubbled up, delirious laugh. Alex does the same.

Henry clears his throat and the noise doesn’t stop. ‘I.’ He exhales shakily, and pulls at the collar of his shirt. The crowd is still cheering. Henry pauses for a second and closes his eyes, takes it in. ‘Thank you,’ he says, his voice reedy and croaky. He clears his throat. ‘Thank you very much.’ The noise begins to die away so he can start talking, but the entire room is still on their feet and Alex has never felt anything like it, the pure electricity.

‘I ah, I have been a part of this industry for what feels like my entire life. You all, in many ways, raised me. I learnt my craft from you in early morning set calls and in canteens. Some of you taught me fractions as a child. I uhh, I’m sorry, I was probably an awful student – I was terrible at them then and I’m still terrible at them now. I have always been awful at maths, but I have always loved stories. And, you told me stories of what made you fall in love with this industry and…’ He clears his throat, his voice wavering slightly. ‘I love this job, but I have struggled for years with what it means to be a part of this industry, and be who I am, to live an honest life. I have known for many years that I’m gay. Being honest, a large portion of you probably knew that as well, but like so many, I was terrified to show that to the world. Of what it would mean. So to everybody in this room who feels the same way, and to everybody at home, I see you. I am one of you.

‘In all honesty, I was ready to quit acting and reading the script for The Waterloo Vase stopped me. Reading something so tinged with pain and yet beautifully joyful, and full of hope was… a revelation. I felt drawn to it in a way I had never been drawn to anything. So I’d like to thank the Academy, the entire cast and crew. Percy, my best friend, the most wonderful costar I could ever have asked for, thank you for putting up with me. Bea, I honestly don’t know what I would be without you. You have saved me a million times over. It’s an honour and a privilege to call you my sister. As a family, we have not had the easiest few years. I wake up every day with a desperate longing to see to my father again. I know that I’m not alone in that and I can only hope that I’ve not let you down. I can only hope that tonight might be the first step on a road to healing the enormous cavern that he has left in our hearts. He was… my hero, and I loved him. I still love him. I will always love him. Mum, I love you too and… I am here. I am always here. Shaan, you go above and beyond, you have done more than any agent should ever have to do for me. I truly cannot thank you enough. And… Alex,’ He pauses, inhales another shaky breath. ‘Thank you for pushing me, for teaching me to be brave. You are the greatest thing in my life. I love you, I love you all. Thank you.’

He bows his head, just for a second as the crowd goes wild again, stamping feet and cheering and wolf whistles, and Alex knows he’s crying. Mary glares at the back of his head with pursed lips and a furious glare, Alex looks over at Philip, mouth open in shock. 

He grins up at Henry from his place between too many limbs, between all the many people that love him, and Henry. He knows in his bones that this is one of those moments – a ‘where were you when…’ that will go down in memories forever. 

History. 

Chapter Text

THE GOLDEN TOUCH: Phantom Touch sweeps the Oscars with record-breaking TWELVE wins. 

Henry Fox and Alex Claremont-Diaz made history at the Oscars two years ago when, after a frenzied awards season that saw them in competition, Fox won on the big night and stunned the world by kissing Claremont-Diaz before accepting his award. The pair then made their red carpet debut as a couple at the Vanity Fair party later that night looking extremely loved up.

[Photo of Henry Fox and Alex Claremont-Diaz on the 2021 Vanity Fair Oscar red carpet. Henry Fox has his arm around Alex Claremont-Diaz’s waist, Oscar in one hand. Alex Claremont-Diaz is grinning and talking to him. Both men are smiling and look happy and relaxed.]

‘It was really quite reckless of me,’ he said with a blush, in a post-awards interview at the time. ‘Completely unplanned, but I don’t regret it one bit.’ 

After competing for the Best Actor gong in 2021, they then both signed on to Phantom Touch, the movie that’s had everyone talking this year. It’s broken every box office record in history and smashed the record for the most Oscars won by a single film, beating Titanic (1997) and Ben-Hur (1959). It was a golden night for the couple. Fox, walked away with Best Supporting Actor for his performance as conflicted villain, Louis, while Claremont-Diaz walked away with the top prize, Best Actor for his turn as romantic hero, Tom. 

Rumours flew after the 2021 Oscars, that they would see themselves frozen out of Hollywood. After a packed couple of years for both of them, it seems that couldn’t be further from the truth, and they’ve been credited with opening the doors for a cascade of other stars coming out too, including 2020 Best Supporting Actress winner, Amber Forrester. 

So, what’s next for the history-making couple? 

[Photo of Alex Claremont-Diaz and Henry Fox on the 2023 Oscars Red Carpet, hand in hand. Alex Claremont-Diaz’s hair is slightly dishevelled. There's a slight purple bruise on Henry Fox's neck, just above his collar. Henry Fox's head is ducked low, murmuring something to Alex with a sly smile, he grins and laughs at the exact moment the photo is taken.]

The pair walked the red carpet again last night, awards in hand, laughing and joking and looking just as in love as ever. In an interview, Fox told us he’s lined up for a new project – a historical drama playing a revolutionary beat poet. Pre-production is already underway, and filming starts in New York in the spring. It’s set to be a family affair: Fox’s mother, Catherine will also star. Catherine Fox recently also signed to Srivastava-Bankston Talent Management and is set to make her return to acting after a break of almost a decade following the illness and death of her husband, Arthur Fox in 2015. 

And as for Claremont-Diaz? ‘I’m actually taking a break for a bit,’ he told us. ‘I’m coming back, I promise! But well, we’re going to be in New York for a bit so I’m going to finish my degree. But you know, I’ve got plans, I’ve got plans. Don’t worry.’ He grinned, and we caught his eyes lingering on a certain someone just down the carpet. ‘Trust me, I’m not going anywhere.’