Bet We Could Make Some MORE (History Huh?)

1: An Un-Royal Wedding (Henry)

"Alex?"

"Yes, dear?"

"What are you doing?"

"Looking up wedding venues."

Henry leans down from behind the couch over Alex's shoulder to see the window up on his laptop screen. "And why, exactly, would we need a venue that can hold over 100,000 people for our small intimate wedding ceremony with just our closest friends and family?"

"About that..." Alex shifts to face Henry over the backside of the couch, causing their beagle David to jump off. Henry watches as Alex's tongue snakes between his teeth uncomfortably and back into his mouth. Those perfect full lips just inches from his face. "I was thinking..."

"Nothing ever good comes from you thinking." Henry puts his weight back into his feet and steps around to sit down next to Alex on the couch.

"Oh yeah? What if I was thinking about sucking you off?"

"Well. That. Yes, but does that really involve much thinking?" Alex grabs the  couch pillow to smack Henry. "Oof!"

"Ha! Anyways, I was thinking about the election..." After a few years now in Big Law, Alex was given an opportunity to get back into politics. And not just local politics, but diving head-first into a federal election to be a member of the house for the state of New York. Henry always knew Alex was going to return to politics, but he hadn't been prepared for this and has been trying to get himself on board the past few weeks as Alex's campaign got up and running. 

" I know we were planning a small wedding," Alex continues, "but now that it falls just before the election..."

"You want to turn our wedding into a Democratic rally." Henry meant for it to come out as a joke, but he couldn't seem to completely hide his annoyance. 

"What? No."

Henry raises his eyebrows at his fiancé in disbelief.

"Well," Alex shifts his seating position to more directly face Henry. "People are going to politicize the wedding no matter what because it's a gay wedding, you know that. But instead of trying to hide it from the world, we could use it to make a statement. A statement that we are not ashamed, that we don't need to hide. We could be an example, a representation of hope for young queer people in America."

Henry secretly loved it when Alex went into what he privately deemed 'Speech Mode.' His passion leaking from his smooth voice that never faltered and the way he used his hands to animate the words. But enacting this speech would mean Henry would not just be involved, but at the forefront of American politics.

"Darling, we don't hide it at all anymore. We tried that, remember? All of our sexual fantasies were published for the whole world to see and now everyone knows what we do to each other behind closed doors."

Alex's eyelashes flutter down as the corners of his mouth turn up. His hand reaches to play with Henry's fingers, with light loving touches.

"I know we don't hide anymore. And I'm obviously not happy about how the world came to know, but I am so glad they do, so I can love you publicly, loudly. And I want to do that."

"But for our wedding? Can't we have something just for us? We share so much with the world. I always had to share so much of me, I'm just starting to get used to having things that are just for me. Just for us." The past nearly 6 years living in the brownstone in New York City have been the best of Henry's entire life. But still paparazzi and reporters followed him everywhere, even to the market. The wedding was supposed to be at Alex's father's house in Texas, away from prying eyes. "I want our wedding day to be the happiest day of our lives, I don't want to be stressed about having the whole world analyze my every movement."

"It will be the happiest day of our lives. No matter what, because I get to marry you. The love of my life. We're both used to the cameras by now, and you knew that marrying me you weren't getting out of the spotlight."

"Just trading one prison for another." Henry mutters under his breath. He starts to fiddle with the ring on his left hand. 

"Come on," Alex wraps both arms around Henry and pulls his back against his chest, so Henry's head can fall back on Alex's shoulder. He starts to play with Henry's light hair between his dark fingers. "Just think about it. About what it could mean for young queer people here and back in England. About what it would've meant to you as a kid to see two queer people in power having the kind of public wedding you would've had if you were straight and married a woman at the Chapel Royal anyways... Wait." Alex perks up, "Does marrying you make me a princess?"

"You know I gave up my title, love."

"Ok, but if you hadn't, would I have been Princess Alex Gabriel Claremont-Diaz-Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor?"

"If I hadn't, love, I wouldn't be able to marry you. And do you really want to take my last names? All three of them?"

"Well if you were still a Prince I think I'd have to."

"You could give up 'Claremont-Diaz' so it's a bit less of a mouthful."

"Uh, never! And you're one to talk, Mr. Henry Gorge Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor-Claremont-Diaz."

"Um! Excuse me, what makes you think I'm going to take your last names?"

"I know you want to, sweetheart."

"Can't I choose just one?"

"Uh! No!" Alex is jokingly appalled. "Both Claremont and Diaz are very important parts of my identity so you're going to have to take both."

"We'll see about that."

---

Henry stayed on the coach long after Alex got up to go work on something for the campaign. Henry wasn't due in today for the LGBTQ+ youth shelter, but he suddenly felt the need to be out of the brownstone.

Why had they put off wedding planning for so long? It had been over a year since they got engaged and yet still had no venue, no anything. Henry thought that wasn't going to be much of a problem since it was going to be small and June and Percy were intent on doing most of it as the maid of honor and best man. Bea and Nora were also in on the planning. The planning of a SMALL, INTIMATE wedding. What Alex was talking about was a whole different thing. Thousands of people? Most of whom they wouldn't even know personally. Press, cameras. Henry really didn't want this.

But on the other hand he could see what Alex was getting at. If there had been a member of the royal family before him, openly gay, getting married on television– well, his life might have been a lot different. And then there's everyone else, every citizen who came to support him in the streets when the letters were released. They would want to see the wedding. It would mean so much to them. They didn't deserve it more than Henry deserved to have his privacy. He didn't owe it to them, but it would likely change lives for the better, and how, for the sake of his own desires, could he keep that from them? Despite no longer officially being the Prince, he still loved the people of England, and they still loved him and continued to call him the "Prince of England's Hearts."

He and Alex would have a whole honeymoon of privacy, what was one more big public day? What was one more piece of his private life for all the world to see? They already had so much of him that sometimes it still felt like Henry belonged to them more than he did to himself.