Chapter Text
The press conference gets noted down as one of the busiest in their country’s history—forget the births, marriages and scandals of the past. Every major newspaper and broadcasting network in the city is in attendance, plus some from out of the capital, and the back of the room is filled with international correspondents: phones pressed against their ears, hastily translating down the line. Beneath the white flashes that herald their entrance, the reflective lenses of the television cameras glint blue in the sunlight.
Hank and Connor sit side by side, knees pressed together beneath the table. From time to time, Hank reaches over and hooks his little finger around Connor’s own. A reminder of why they are doing this, subtle enough to go mostly unnoticed.
Although Hank and Connor have never spoken together in such a public forum, they work out how to field the questions evenly, easily falling into step alongside one another. The tension in Connor’s chest never disperses completely, but with Hank’s steady, confident presence at his side, his breath grows calm over the clatter of his heartbeat.
Connor talks about his family, the unusual politicisation of his role, and skirts as best he can around the more intrusive questions about the nature of his relationship with Hank. He doesn’t feel particularly confident, or eloquent, but somehow the right words seem to come from him. As Hank answers his own questions: politics, how the complex nature of democracy has factored into his decisions, Connor can barely take his eyes off him. It still feels so unreal that they are permitted to be here, discussing their relationship with the whole world.
Towards the end of the conference, once the past and the present have been thoroughly gutted, someone asks what they see for their future. They glance at each other, the question landing flatly between the two of them. Some nervous laughter sounds from the watching crowd, and Hank gives Connor a smile that shows the gap in his front teeth.
In the end, it is Connor who answers.
“No one can know what the future will hold,” he says, his tone even and diplomatic. “All I know is that we are determined to face it together.”
There’s a flurry of movement in response: cameras flashing, pens skating over notepads to take down Connor’s words. He knows then that he has said something that will not be paraphrased, but that will be replayed across news networks and reported directly in the press. He hopes he sounds confident.
The evening papers run the first suggestions from the press conference, hastily thrown together articles that just tease as to what is to come the following morning. It is with the sunrise that their story explodes. Some of the papers run front page pictures of Hank and Connor entering the conference, hand in hand. Connor thinks he looks rather dazed in these photos, like he’s out of his depth; he prefers the pictures from later on in the conference. There he looks composed, dedicated and, in the photographs where Hank is the subject, glowing in soft focus and utterly in love.
A photograph of their hands—close up, fingers brushing over the white tablecloth—trends worldwide.
Hank and his team are staying in rooms in a Mayfair hotel, a tall, narrow building tucked down a side street, framed at the front by black gates. After the conference, Connor expects to get his summons from the palace, an afternoon of debriefings and comments over the highs and lows in his performance.
No such instruction comes, and instead, he and Hank are given the next twenty-four hours to spend together.
They are the most golden hours of Connor’s life so far. Hank’s hotel bedroom overlooks the park on one side, and when the sun sets, the lights of the city surround them and shimmer like jewels in the darkness.
They make love on white sheets. Hank cups Connor’s face in his hand and kisses him, and presses words against his mouth: I love you; I have spent my life waiting for you. As Connor falls apart in Hank’s arms, his whole body shivers with knowledge that they no longer have to stain their love with fear and secrecy. He calls out Hank’s name and sets it free into the air between them, a white dove, uncaged.
That night, Connor sleeps dreamlessly, safe in the cradle of Hank’s arms.
Despite the bliss of that night, it doesn’t take long for reality to swallow them again. Although their relationship is no longer a secret, they still have to navigate the reality of what they have done—accountability and legislature and the high shine polish of their new public image.
Hank has to return to the United States. There are plenty of decisions to be made on that side of the Atlanic, decisions about Hank’s future, about the future of his country. Connor is allowed to bid him farewell at the airport, but he suspects it will never get any easier, waving to him as he leaves, watching the white ghost of his jet disappear into the sky.
More than once in the next few weeks, Connor asks to be allowed to cross the ocean and spend some time with Hank.
“No, Connor. There is still plenty to be done here,” his mother tells him. “And President Anderson will certainly have his hands full.”
“I understand that,” Connor says, and he knows that his frown betrays the fact that he does not understand, actually. “But don’t you think it will look strange if we’re spending so much time apart? It’s been nearly two weeks now and—”
Amanda raises a hand to silence him.
“You are not sworn to each other,” she says. “At the moment, it is more important that we lay the path so that your relationship can continue smoothly in the future. We cannot rush and encounter pitfalls further down the line.”
Connor bows his head, cowed. She’s right, of course. Their relationship is like no other, and it will take plenty of finessing before they can enjoy anything remotely close to normality.
As Connor lays alone in bed that night, Amanda’s words replay themselves over and over in his head. Not her castigations about his impatience and insistence that he remain close to the palace, but her parting words, delivered flippantly, trying to assure Connor’s silence.
You are not sworn to each other.
No. They aren’t.
Connor turns onto his side and stares at the dark wall opposite.
They are not sworn to each other. Not yet.
It takes a few weeks of stateside tussling before Hank’s final fate is reached. The days stretch behind and before them without end, as wide as the ocean, each as fraught as the last, each as unknown as the next. When Connor tries to remember his engagements of the previous weeks, his mind is blank, unable to conjure anything other than the memory of worry tugging at more than half of his heart. He can’t imagine how Hank must feel.
They communicate little and often, five minute telephone calls and rushed messages throughout the day. Mostly they skirt around the issues of politics and duty, content in the knowledge that they have already poured enough of themselves into these topics, and they grasp towards each other for a semblance of normalcy. Connor misses Hank as acutely as he has ever done.
When the next hammerblow falls, it comes neither from the palace, nor from Hank. Aptly, perhaps, it strikes Connor from the front page of the morning newspaper.
President Anderson resigns.
It was expected, of course. It still hits harder than iron. A sweep of adrenaline flows right to the tips of Connor’s fingers, and he has to take a deep breath before he can smooth the newspaper flat with one trembling hand. The headline is accompanied by a picture of Hank, sombre behind a wide mahogany desk, looking over a stack of papers. Something glimmers beneath his serious expression, something bright and soft. Relief, Connor thinks at first, and then he hopes that it is happiness.
Turning the page, Connor is greeted by a collage of photographs: him and Hank lit by the Independence Day fireworks, Connor in Dulles airport, Hank leaving the Highlands against a grey sky. Those infamous balcony pictures, searing themselves into history. It’s a timeline of their relationship, all their secret moments brought out into the light.
Alongside the images, a byline states: Read the President’s letter of resignation.
Connor doesn’t want to do that just yet. First, he unlocks his phone—no longer a secret handset—and types out a message to Hank.
(09:31) You did it.
Hank has taken this incredible, brave step to allow them to be together. The boldness of it washes over Connor in a sudden wave, the kind that makes tears threaten at the corners of his eyes.
(09:32) I’m so proud of you.
Hank’s reply comes a few hours later, sent from a Washington morning.
(12:06) I did it for you, Connor
(12:06) For us.
Hank’s move sets the wheels of Connor’s future into more rapid motion. He is asked, in the palace’s politely suggestive, and yet utterly non-negotiable way, to step back from many of his family duties. He’s encouraged to keep up his links with charities and other organisations—as a bright young face of social progress, he’s happy to do so.
His mother informs him, as solemn as justice, that he is no longer in line to the throne. It’s not her decision, she explains. Parliament has deemed that Connor is no longer a suitable ruler for their country, and given the history of it all, should he be surprised, really?
The revelation stings. He hadn’t expected it to.
Never in his life has Connor wanted to be king. Never in his life has he wished to be crowned with the heavy weight of his brother’s death, or the unlikely darkness of his abdication. All the same, the removal of his own name from the line of succession makes a bitterness surge in the back of Connor’s throat. It tastes like betrayal, some sour injustice in all these sorry institutions.
With no more direct heirs, Connor wonders which far-off European uncle will be digging out the finest bottle of champagne from their wine cellar that evening.
The press office spins the news as if Connor had suggested the change himself. He does countless interviews, and he smiles and tells the world that he’s made the right decision. His family are happy; he is happy to take on a diminished role if it means that he gets to spend his life with the man he loves. It’s the truth, of course, and he’s endlessly grateful that he gets to live his freedom. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
He doesn’t tell anyone, not even Hank, about that initial stab of sadness that had pressed itself into his heart.
Often, Connor dreams about what his life might have been like if he and Hank had run away together at the first opportunity. What if, in Hank’s sunlit bedroom, they had decided to pack two bags and flee the country? What if they had ignored all the phone calls and all the press packs and driven off together into the proverbial sunset?
It would have been impossible, Connor knows that. But all the hands grasping into their relationship make Connor feel helpless, a marionette strung along by jerking movements that are not his own. They inch him closer and closer to the reality he yearns for, only for talk of duty and a smooth path to snap him two steps back at the very last moment.
Connor knows that he has to take control. After all, what is it they say about the course of true love? He and Hank will be able to ride out any roughness, as long as they are by each other’s side.
He knows what he has to do.
It's been a month since their press conference, and the midday air is heavy with the promise of a summer storm. Connor can feel the lightning singing in the blue clouds, humming in the air, crackling in his fingertips. His mother has agreed to meet him in her private rooms, flanked by her team of advisors, all of them ready to play with Connor’s words until they fit neatly the palace’s plans.
Amanda begins the conversation, as is her certain, commanding way.
“I apologise that proceedings have been slow over the past weeks.” She doesn’t sound sorry, and they both know it. “I assure you that we have been communicating with Mr Anderson’s team daily in order to—”
“Mother. May I speak?”
The unprecedented interruption causes Amanda’s brow to furrow. Once upon a time, that expression would have struck terror into Connor’s heart. No longer. The past months have made him brave and bold, and his desire to be with Hank has grown far stronger than his fear of the palace’s gilded fist.
“I have a suggestion.”
His mother’s expression warms a degree or two. “Oh?”
A beat, a breath. Connor seizes the opportunity with both hands and does what has been lingering in the back of his mind for a month.
“I would like to ask for permission to marry Hank.”
There’s a flurry of noise from his mother’s staff. Heads turn in hasty conversation, comments fly behind cupped hands, pens scurry across notepads. In comparison, Amanda seems unmoved by Connor’s words.
“To marry him?”
He takes a shuddering, grounding breath before continuing.
“I know there has been discussion about our compatibility. Whether what we have is worth the scandal,” Connor says, and his mother doesn’t move to correct him. “Even after Hank gave up the Presidency, even after I was removed from the line of succession. What finer way to show our commitment to one another? To show our love to the world.”
Amanda tilts her head to one side, observant, considering. Her face is very still, and Connor knows that there is more he wants to say.
“You said it yourself, Mother: we are not sworn to each other. I would like us to be.”
He can picture it now, Hank waiting for him beneath a great white arch, his blue gaze still and adoring. The starshine of two golden bands. The image makes a lump grow in Connor’s throat, squeezing some of the assertiveness out of his voice.
“I want to spend my life with him.”
Amanda watches him for a long moment. Connor knows that behind her calm exterior she is moving chess pieces, calculating outcomes, stringing all the possibilities along the line of Connor’s vulnerable words. He’s become so used to baring his soul over the past weeks that her scrutiny hardly bothers him.
Nevertheless, her follow up question is not exactly what he might have predicted.
“And have you discussed this with him?”
Connor tries his hardest not to look taken aback. Where is her insistence that the palace get involved as soon as possible? Where is the reminder of a smooth path and the best steps for the country? In the absence of what he had expected, something else glimmers through Amanda’s unreadable expression. He wonders if it’s happiness—or something more like pride, perhaps, glad for her son’s bravery and conviction.
“Not in those same words,” Connor replies.
“Well, I suggest you do that first, if you’re certain about this.” She glances down at the silver watch on her wrist. “It’s eight am in DC.”
His mother knows just the right way to blindside him. Or maybe it’s Connor’s fault, presuming that his suggestions will always fall upon deaf ears, assuming that his mother would never relinquish her control of the reins. She sees his boldness, how he has stepped forward with his arms wide open.
She excuses him to the guest rooms to make the most important phone call of his life.
Connor sits down on the edge of the bed, turning his phone over and over in one hand. He feels as if he’s stepped into a dream, a sudden and unexpected reality where he’s just a step away from cleaving another fork into the path of history. As he dials and raises the phone to his ear, his hands are clumsy, but not nervous, not uncertain. His whole body thrums with excitement and he’s light with disbelief.
Hank picks up after four rings.
“Hey. Good morning.”
The greeting is low and scratchy with the early hour, and Connor knows then that he wants nothing more than to hear that same voice for all his mornings to come.
“Good morning, Hank.”
“Is everything alright?”
So Hank can hear it in his voice, that feverish flutter. Of course he can.
“Yes,” Connor says firmly. “Everything’s alright.”
He imagines his proposal in another world. Glittering lights, some night sky backdrop. Getting down on one knee and a ring shining in a velvet box.
“I did something,” Connor continues. “Tell me if it’s stupid.”
There’s a brief pause before Hank speaks. A shift and stutter as Hank stops whatever he’s doing on the other side of the ocean, as he sits up in his bedsheets and listens more intently. It’s enough time for Connor to wonder if his decision will be difficult to explain, if Hank will ask for clarification and reassurance as to whether now is the right time for this.
“I’ll tell you.”
Hank sounds worried, and Connor feels bad that this moment should be tinged with anything other than joy and excitement. He takes a deep breath. He thinks about how to phrase what will come next.
In the end, the words fly free. It’s the easiest thing in the world.
“I asked the palace for the permission to marry you.”
Another pause, a dense kernel of silence. Connor feels it settle somewhere between his collarbones.
“Oh.” Hank’s reply is little more than a gasp, pulled along a trembling sweep of his breath.
“Is that okay?”
“Say it again,” Hank says. His voice is thick with emotion. “Ask me properly.”
Connor tries to fill his words with as much weight as possible, to close the distance between them and pull Hank towards him. Their faces would be only inches apart, light trapped amongst the blue of Hank’s eyes.
“Hank. Will you marry me?”
“God, yes.” The answer rushes from Hank as though he has been holding onto it for far longer than the past minute. “Yes, Connor Stern, I’ll marry you.”
The certainty of Hank’s answer curls around Connor’s heart. How does one respond to that? All his life he had viewed marriage as something unsuitable for him, an outdated and ill-fitting jacket that would undoubtedly scratch him to pieces, were he ever forced to wear it. He half-suspected, in those mornings when he watched the dawn creep over the edge of the skyline, that any spouse of his would be chosen by the palace—an international relations checkmate, sexuality and compatibility be damned.
Yet here he is, presented with the most unlikely of circumstances. Sitting on the bed in his mother’s guest rooms, his shoulders hunched, his phone clasped to his ear. The ex-President of the United States on the other end of the line and a feeling in his chest so piercing and bright that it’s almost too much to bear.
“I love you,” Connor says.
“I love you too,” Hank replies, and there’s a shudder in his voice that tells Connor he has been crying, or he wants to cry, or the emotion of it all has crested to something sudden and unexplainable. Connor’s throat tightens around his next words.
“I was a little nervous to ask.”
“Did you think I’d say no?” Hank asks. He doesn’t sound angry or disappointed, far from it.
A lifetime of delicacy and trepidation and rules have led Connor to expect pitfalls, difficulties and expectations placed before him. Hank understands this. They understand each other. Connor always knew what Hank’s answer would be.
“No.”
“Good,” Hank says, the sunbeam of a smile slanting into his voice. “This was an interesting way to start the morning, I won’t lie.”
“I’m sorry for waking you.”
Hank gives a low chuckle.
“Connor. You know you could’ve asked at any hour of the day, right?”
Connor leans into the soft sound of Hank’s voice, and he can practically feel the softness of his chest, the broadness of his embrace.
“I would have asked you myself, soon enough,” Hank says.
“Oh?” Connor had wondered as much, but the admission still makes his heart skip a few beats. “Why didn’t you?”
“Takes a lot of courage to ask a prince to be your husband.”
Connor laughs at that.
“I suppose you’re right.”
They stay on the line for a while longer, neither of them wanting to end the call. If they were together, Connor knows that he would have climbed into Hank’s lap before long, hands wandering, pressing them skin to skin. When he finally hangs up, the silence of the room simmers beneath the low humming rush of blood in his ears.
He is going to be Hank’s husband.
They are granted a winter wedding, to be held early in the first dark months of the coming year.
“It’s a wise move,” his mother tells him a few days later, nodding as sagely as if she might have suggested all this herself. “With the change in the line of succession, and Anderson’s resignation, it certainly seems like the next logical step.”
It’s the next logical step because I love him, Connor thinks, and he doesn’t say it.
Once upon a time, Connor would have been obligated to ask Niles for permission to marry Hank. He’s glad that he doesn’t have to approach his brother like that, head bowed beneath gilded ceilings, tradition tying his tongue into knots. In the end, he tells Niles in the palace’s smallest reception room with two cups of tea on the table between them.
There doesn’t seem any point in sugarcoating it. “I’ve asked Hank to marry me.”
Something plays across Niles’ face. Connor likes to imagine that it is nothing more than surprise, tinged with the same kind of pride that their mother had displayed—happy to see Connor’s boldness and insistence in guiding his own path. He knows his brother well enough to understand that it won’t be as simple as that. The lonely shadow of kingship seems to flicker in the air above them.
It takes Niles a moment to speak, and when he does, his voice is very steady.
“On Mother’s suggestion, I suppose.”
“No.” Connor is unable to stop the bristle of indignation that shivers along his spine, although he knows he shouldn’t blame Niles for drawing that conclusion. “It was my idea.”
“Well, that’s good. And Anderson—Hank—he said yes?”
“He said yes.” Connor nods. “He wants to marry me.”
Niles swallows and Connor watches the shift in the narrow line of his throat.
“I’m happy for you, Connor,” Niles says quietly. “I really am.”
Connor knows he means it. He knows he means it and he also knows that there’s more to be said, sentiments that might stay hidden for weeks or months or years to come. How strangely similar and intertwined their lives are. How lonely they could both have been.
Niles reaches across the table to place his hand, gentle and sincere, on Connor’s forearm.
“You deserve this,” he says.
“Thank you, Niles.”
Tears threaten, and Connor bites them back.
Hank arrives a few days after Christmas. It’s not the first time that they’ve seen each other since their press conference; after their engagement was officially announced they were permitted to spend several days together on either side of the ocean. Long autumn days, Hank’s hand between Connor’s shoulder blades and the world turning golden around them.
But this is different. As Connor watches the plane land on the tarmac, as Hank steps out and greets him with a kiss, he feels almost shy. Timid beneath the weight of the step that they are about to take, the commitment in front of a watching world. The sky is a cloudless, wintry blue.
Hank and Connor are not permitted to marry in Westminster Abbey, as many royals have done before them. Honestly, Connor is glad for this break in tradition. Instead, the palace selects a church in the very centre of the city, nestled down a small, dark side street that breaks off a bustling boulevard. The church is tiny on the inside, but marked by a great white spire that shoots boldly into the grey sky. It seems a fitting allegory for the entirety of their relationship: intimate and unassuming beneath the importance of their positions and the drama of their secrecy.
The polished oak pews will only permit a small number of people, which Connor knows is a deliberate decision—there are no celebrity attendees, no high-profile guests looking to get their faces into the papers. Family and close friends only, the narrow avenue leading up to the church doors closed to all but a few pre-selected news teams, controlling the flow of information in that expert way so typical of the palace’s hand.
They marry in the second week of January. Cole and his mother join them from the States, along with some of Hank’s close friends and ex-advisors, one or two faces that Connor recognises from the Texas gathering all those months ago. Connor’s wedding party will be equally small, just Niles, Amanda and a few members of palace staff. North is included on Connor’s insistence, invited to take notes and keep things running smoothly.
The morning dawns bright and cold. In a tenuous remnant of tradition, Hank and Connor have spent the night apart, and as Connor regards himself in the mirror, he declares this tradition to be a ridiculous one. He’s running on far less sleep than he would like, and in that moment there’s nothing he wants more than to feel the comforting pressure of Hank’s hand at his shoulder. That, and the early morning turn of their bodies between the sheets to make them late and perhaps alleviate some of the tension boiling in Connor’s stomach.
Niles arrives, along with most of Connor’s team, an hour before they are due to leave. Some magazines have concocted rumours, as is their poisonous way, of a division between the brothers that casts doubt on whether Niles will be present at the wedding at all. It’s celebrity gossip of the brand that his brother utterly despises, and when Connor sees Niles at his door that morning, he knows there is no weight to these stories at all. He smiles—really, properly smiles—and gives Connor’s elbow a quick squeeze.
Something has shifted within Niles over these past weeks. It’s an almost imperceptible change, a tiny flick of a switch, a cautious loosening of the gears inside him that have always turned so tight and exact. There’s some ease in his shoulders, and his face has filled out a little: a healthy bloom of colour along the tops of his cheekbones, no longer white skin and purple shadow. Connor can’t help but wonder if he’s taken some of his younger brother’s advice quite seriously. The idea makes his chest fill with joy.
On his own insistence, Connor has picked his outfit for the occasion. In the past, he knows that his mother and her team would have happily dressed him: a classic tuxedo, black and white, a goddamn red carnation in his buttonhole. He has settled on a smoke-grey suit, slim cut and made of a wool-silk blend that shifts and shines lustrously in the light. Attached to his lapel is no carnation, but one of his mother’s roses. Pale pink, like the dawn.
Connor studies his reflection, smoothing out non-existent creases in his jacket and adjusting the narrow coral tie around his neck. He wonders if he has played it too simple. Shouldn’t his clothes act as some kind of fanfare? Aren't they a procession sent ahead of him, warning others of just how serious and special this day is? Connor knows he’s thinking too much into it. All that needs to happen is for Hank’s hand to find Connor’s own.
They climb into the waiting cars, black and sleek against the grey streets, and Connor listens to the chauffeur parse every yard of the relatively short journey to the church. It feels like the day whipping itself up around him, turning and rustling like the beginning of a cyclone, soon to grow out of his control. He takes a deep breath.
The rest of the day passes in a fierce whirlwind. Mostly.
One moment stands still amongst the madness. One perfect, crystalline moment that Connor knows he will remember for the rest of his life, when the dignity of youth is long gone.
The altar, framed on either side by bouquets of flowers—dusty blue peonies, green eucalyptus, the shiny white heads of roses. Strains of a violin, a song that Connor didn’t choose. It makes his eyes fill with tears. The golden vault of the ceiling.
Hank, standing at the end of the aisle, waiting for him.
He looks more handsome than Connor has ever seen. His silver hair is swept neatly back and he’s dressed in a sharp black jacket that tapers in at his waist, gold details shining at his shoulders and cuffs. His Lieutenant’s dress uniform, a memory of a time long gone. Connor feels sad, sometimes, that he cannot know Hank his whole life, all his ups and downs and the days that have made him so bold and so honest.
When he reaches the end of the aisle, all Connor has space for is a single, bright bubble of elation that fills his chest like a white balloon.
“Hello.” Connor’s voice is quiet, low enough that only Hank can hear.
Hank smiles. “Fancy seeing you here.”
His gaze is so quiet and adoring that Connor cannot find a response. The minister begins to speak.
There are no handwritten promises, no grand declarations. Connor knows it doesn’t matter. He pours everything he has into the simple, familiar vows: the knowledge that he will love Hank as long as he lives, no matter the circumstance, as sure as the day. Hank’s low, serious voice rumbles through him and he wonders if this moment could last forever.
They swear their lives to each other like it was always meant to be.
The reception afterwards is a small, formal affair in one of the palace drawing rooms: a few flutes of sparkling champagne and lunch served on ornate plates, the second-finest china. It’s Amanda’s way of telling everyone that she approves of the union, but that it’s not exactly something to be lauded as the ideal path for their family.
Connor would very much like to abandon the whole thing, hail a cab and steal away into the dying day with Hank by his side. With his husband, he thinks, over and over, with a thrill that makes him shiver. Despite all that they have done, the man who he will spend the rest of his life with. They stay, of course, they talk about polite and superficial things, and the moment when they will finally be alone shivers palpably in the air.
Connor watches Hank as he scoops Cole up into a hug, pressing a kiss to his dark blond curls, and as he introduces his ex-wife to Amanda; it’s a touch terse at first, but a compliment about her flower arrangements proves a surefire way to loosen the conversation.
He watches as Hank approaches Niles, proffering a handshake. His brother is majestic in navy and black wool, and as he greets Hank, the stillness of his face betrays nothing. They exchange pleasantries, and Niles gives Hank an unexpected flicker of a smile.
It’s a conversation that Connor simply has to hear.
Carefully, he edges himself closer to where they’re standing, in the guise of taking another glass of champagne although he doesn’t really want one. Standing on the edge of another group, he is able to focus on the voices of Niles and Hank, a few feet behind him.
“Thank you for coming today.” Hank speaks first, addressing those poisonous press rumours.
“I wouldn’t have missed my brother’s wedding.”
“No, of course not.”
Niles’ tone is cold, and Hank sounds mollified.
“Look after my brother,” Niles says. There’s a warmth at the edges of his voice, a gentle and sincere insistence flowing beneath his words.
“I will.”
“I know you will.”
“I love him very much.” Hank speaks in a way that is so unguarded and genuine that Connor feels it in his bones. “Your Majesty.”
There’s a pause. For a moment, Connor wonders if Niles is going to ask Hank to forget the virtue of his title, and in the interests of openness and honesty, offer up the familiarity of his first name. Connor wishes he could see both their faces: evenly matched and hawk-eyed, weighing each other up.
In the end, Niles lets the moment pass them by. To be revisited another time, maybe.
“Yes. I know that too,” Niles says.
After a brief beat of silence, Connor hears another voice join the pair of them: Your Majesty? I have the Prime Minister on the line for you. A member of Niles’ staff, hopefully unaware of the depth of the moment that they have stumbled into. Connor can’t decide if their timing is fortunate or not.
“If you’ll excuse me.” Niles’ voice, turned clipped and cold once again.
“No problem,” Hank says. “Good to speak to you.”
Despite the brevity of their conversation, Hank sounds like he really means it. Connor dares to imagine a future where his brother and his husband—his husband—get along better than stilted formalities and veiled political jibes. Perhaps it’s not as unattainable as he might have once thought.
There’s a movement behind Connor, and he feels a hand at his back.
“Hey,” Hank says. Connor turns to face him, and he’s glad to see that he’s smiling, his eyes soft and crinkled at the corners.
“I guess you heard all of that,” Hank continues.
Connor nods, matter-of-fact. “Of course I did.”
Hank laughs, pulling Connor nearer to him. One big hand wraps almost entirely around Connor’s wrist.
“He loves you very much, your brother.”
“He does.”
Hank is very close, and Connor considers telling him then and there. Niles and him on that Shenandoah balcony, the heavy night air, how the king kept their secret for three long months, piled like a shadow on top of his own.
He decides to save it for another time though, when he can do the weight of it justice. For now, he tilts his head up and kisses Hank on the side of his mouth, relishing the sweet, incredible novelty of being able to do so in front of a room of people.
“When do you think we can leave?” Connor asks. It’s not really a serious question; he knows that there are a few hours of responsibilities and due diligence before they can retire to their rooms. He just wants Hank to know, as if he couldn’t tell already, that his mind is filled with thoughts of them alone together.
“We could just head out the door, couldn’t we?” Hank mutters, close to Connor’s ear, the warmth of his breath making all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Jump the wall, get a taxi. I’m sure no one would miss us.”
There’s a smile in his voice, and he closes his fingers around Connor’s own.
In reality, the afternoon stretches out long and darkens into evening before they are permitted to leave. Connor drapes himself across the back seat of their car, cupping Hank’s jaw in one hand and kissing him, long and slow and for the entire duration of their journey. Were it not utterly inappropriate, he would have happily clambered over the middle partition and straight into Hank’s lap. By the time they arrive at their hotel, Connor’s legs are trembling and Hank’s gaze has grown low and dark.
That night, they speak their wedding vows. They do not need words. Hank plants kisses along the starched white collar of Connor’s shirt, his mouth following his fingers between every undone button, through the fine dusting of hair at Connor’s navel and down to his belt. Connor’s hands make fists at his sides and he is filled with a desire so high and bright that it’s a wonder it doesn’t blind them both.
As though this could be their last night together, as though he is starving, Connor drinks in every inch of Hank—the strong boughs of his upper arms, the dark contours of his tattoo beneath silver chest hair, the star of scar tissue below his ribs. He kisses him, and he remembers all the places where Hank wants Connor’s mouth, his tongue, his teeth.
They lay together afterwards for a long time, not speaking. Connor traces his fingers across Hank’s skin, as if he is trying to memorise the points of a map, once hidden, now achingly familiar.
Perhaps he is. Hank is Connor’s whole world.
Over the next few months, they are forced to split their time rather exhaustingly between their two countries. Their marriage is not the flicking of a switch into their freedom, and there are still weeks when Connor is made to stay in London while Hank travels back to the States. They divide out their duties carefully: interviews and fundraisers and springtime galas, and they endeavour to stay by each other’s side wherever possible.
More weeks pass. The world begins to settle around them, sitting as cool and uncertain as the morning after a rainstorm. At first, they appear in the newspapers once a day, then once a week, and then only on select occasions: Hank’s hand at Connor’s waist as they regard a new art installation in the National Gallery, the pair of them entering a recently opened restaurant. They do not keep themselves totally private—such a thing would be unattainable—Connor maintains his position as the patron of several charities, Hank speaks about his unique experiences in the military and in the political sphere. Wherever they can, they support each other.
When Independence Day comes around again, a year on, they are staying at the Anderson ranch. Hank’s successor—a college friend of Hank’s and by his humble admission far more suited to the job than he himself ever was—is presiding over the national celebrations, and Connor is endlessly grateful for the more intimate gathering. Hank invites only a small group, friends and family only tangentially linked to the complicated world of politics; they stretch a long white table out in the sun, and set off a few fireworks once it finally grows dark. Connor rests his head on Hank’s shoulder as the impossible darkness lights up in blue and red.
The following morning, before the heat of the day becomes too oppressive, Hank and Connor sit out on the wraparound veranda with breakfast before them on a small table. The hazy horizon glows a delicate pink, bleeding through orange into the wide blue of the sky.
“It’s been a year since that night,” Hank says, breaking the misty silence. He speaks both to Connor and to no one in particular.
“Does it seem like a year?” Connor asks. He finds it impossible to quantify.
“Sometimes.” Hank’s reply comes slowly and with some early morning introspection, echoing Connor’s own thoughts. “Sometimes it seems like a week. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime.”
Connor nods in agreement. It’s times like this when he imagines all the years he has left with Hank, and all the incredible, wild lives that they might have led had it not been for the particular circumstances of their births. Longer lives, private lives, without details of their relationship known to the whole world.
Hank interrupts Connor’s reverie.
“I can’t believe I found you.”
The simplicity and sincerity of his words make Connor’s heart jump in his chest. That’s it, isn’t it? At the end of it all. At the end of it all, by some miraculous twisting of fate, they found each other.
He turns to find Hank watching him. In the early light, his eyes are washed the same blue as the heavens.
“How did I get so lucky, huh?”
Connor wishes that he had something more profound to say. Everything useful seems to have been pushed out of his mind, his chest tight with the intensity of Hank’s gaze. He settles on familiar words, the only thing that seems right.
“I love you.”
They kiss, and the sun begins to crest on the horizon.
Even years later, interviewers continue to ask Connor whether he regrets his decision to move away from the monarchy. He has a staid, appropriate answer for each and every one of these questions. The reality of it is far more complex. There are days when he is haunted by all that he has given up, by the ghost of his brother and mother in their ivory tower. The wrath that might be exacted upon him for shrugging off his divine right and the scars left behind by duty’s blazing sword.
But then Hank is there. In the morning, his features soft in sleep, the white streaks at his temples catching the light. On a stage, holding an entire audience rapt with his words, with the low rumble of his voice. In their stateside house, laughing as Sumo chases his own tail, cooking their dinner, pressing a kiss to Connor’s temple. At night, his big hands at Connor’s hips.
Connor is endlessly grateful for it all; he is stunned by his luck. He has to remind himself not to become complacent, not to take for granted the outcome of all their risks and secrets. It could have played out in a very different way, were it not for his fortuitous place in the world and the sympathy of the people around him.
He reminds himself every time Hank kisses him. Every time he tells him he loves him. Every time the sunlight catches the golden bands that glimmer on their clasped hands.