I Can Stop Your Hurts (A Red White and Royal Blue Fan Fiction)

Chapter 2

Henry: Age 10 – Alex: Age 9

When Henry woke up that morning, he knew his grandmother was not going to be pleased. He was supposed to attend a very important gala that evening to welcome the Swedish Royal family to Britain. Apparently, they had a son around Henry's age, whom he was supposed to set a good example for. Unfortunately, that was going to be hard with the state that his face was currently in.

As soon as he got out of bed, he stepped into his adjoining bathroom and got a look at himself in the mirror. The whole left side of his face was covered in a dark blue and purple bruise, centered around his eye, which was swollen shut.

"Henry, are you getting dressed?" he heard his mother walk into his room. "Henry?"

"In here."

"Why are you..." her eyes focused on his face, "Oh not again."

Henry was used to this kind of reaction. Henry liked to pride himself on his overall lack of clumsiness. Besides an occasional bump or bruise from polo practice, Henry really didn't get hurt all that often. His soul mate, on the other hand, was a totally different story.

In the last two years alone, his soul mate had broken his arm on two separate occasions. It was bad enough when Henry had broken his own wrist during one of his first horseback riding lessons. It was so much worse when he made a fool of himself by screaming at the top of his lungs during a reception with the President of France. Ever since that day, Henry has become much more tolerant of pain and usually didn't even notice whenever his soul mate had granted him a new ailment.

His mother sighed, "Your grandmother is going to be very displeased."

He hung his head, "I'm sorry..." he had long ago given up the argument that none of this was his fault.

She checked her watch. "We don't have time now, but I think we're going to have to higher you a make-up artist if this is going to continue happening."

With that, she walked out, leaving Henry to continue getting dressed.

Once Henry was finished, Shaan escorted him to the dining room where his parents, Phillip, Bea, and his grandmother were all waiting for him. They were supposed to be having a nice breakfast together before their guests arrived, but Henry was pretty sure that had gone out the window as soon as his grandmother saw his face.

She set her fork down on her plate with a loud clink, as Henry took his seat between his dad and Bea. He quietly began eating while every eye in the room was on him. His dad glanced nervously between Henry and the Queen. "Well, are you kids looking forward to meeting the Princes of Sweden?"

"Yeah, I think it'll be... fun..." Bea hung her head when their grandmother glared at her.

"Henry will not be attending any of today's festivities."

He popped his head up to look at her. "Why not?" Henry had actually been rather looking forward to hanging out with someone his own age for once.

By the look she gave him, he knew that he had messed up. "You shall not speak to me that way." She took a sip of her tea. "As I said. You shall not be attending the gala tonight. We do not want the world to know that your soul mate is some kind of ruffian do we?" another sip of tear. "She must not have been raised in a very good family if she continues getting injuries like that."

With that, the conversation was over. No one said anything. No one came to his defense. All he could do there was sit in silence with the vague feeling that something was wrong. She?

That night, Henry was couped up in his room, listening to the party going on downstairs. He bet Bea and Philip were having a good time. Well, Bea probably was. He didn't know if Philip was capable of having fun.

Suddenly, there was a knock at his door. "Come in," he said quietly.

"Hey, champ." His dad stepped into the room, holding a box. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine." He sat up straight against his bed.

His dad set his box on the ground and took a seat on the bed next to him. "Does it hurt?"

"No."

His dad gave him a small smile, before gently running his finger across the bottom of the bruise. Henry let out a quiet hiss of pain and he smirked. "Here you go, tough guy." He reached into his box and pulled out an ice pack. Gently, he placed the pack onto the bruise, and Henry let out a sigh of relief. "I've had enough black eyes in my day to know when one hurts or not."

"Really?" Henry asked taking over holding the icepack.

"Oh yeah." He nodded. "For most of the big stunts, I always had a stunt double, but for close-up fight scenes, I would have to do them myself. Actors are trained to be able to fake taking a punch, but every once and a while something goes wrong, and the blow lands."

"I bet grandmother didn't like mother waking up with bruises." Henry teased.

His dad went quiet, "Henry... your mother and I... we're not actually soul mates..."

"Oh..." obviously Henry knew that many people never ended up with their soul mate. Or even met them for that matter. But he had just always assumed... he had hoped that his parents were different. Because if they weren't... then what did that mean for him and his soul mate?

His dad could tell that he was upset, "Here, I brought you something else." He reached into the box and pulled out a pair of Cornettos.

Henry's eyes went wide as he began to tear the wrapper off his ice cream.

"You don't have to ever keep anything from me. Ok?" his dad wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and Henry nuzzled into the affection. "I love you, Henry."

"I love you too." Henry smiled as they continued eating their ice cream in secrecy, without a care in the world. 

(A/N - Thanks for reading!)