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2020-02-23
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that takes the cake

Summary:

Alex and Henry's wedding had one condition: no cake.

Yeah, it doesn't really make a difference.

Inspired by a post from @holleran-nora on tumblr

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

It was his wedding day, and Alex was sitting at the fancy hotel dining room table, his leg bouncing a mile a minute, anxiously crunching his cereal.

Henry was watching him, pushing his eggs around on his plate. Alex didn’t notice. Really, he should have only been focusing on his groom-to-be on this momentous day, but he couldn’t. No matter how much he loved Henry, his brain just didn’t work that way.

They thought they were being safe. They really did.

Of course, all the newspaper outlets were saying this was the biggest US & British relations event since the Boston Tea Party, so the symbols were crucial. Everything was, unfortunately. Alex and Henry both agreed that they would be perfectly okay with a small family and friends ceremony, better than it getting blown out of proportion, better than it being swarmed by media outlets and every thread and flower torn apart by over-groomed cable news anchors. But they had been vetoed by the pure significance of it.

So, they were having a big wedding. Not too big, not of royal status for sure, as a surprisingly small number of nobles found a trip to Texas in August appealing, but big enough that seeing their staff of planners made Alex feel like he was on the campaign trail again. (That was another reason they had it in August - Congress Recess, so there was less bitching on the political front about the whole spectacle. Remarkably, for once, politics were the very least of their problems.)

It was agreed from the beginning: no cake. 

They were subtle about it, though. Instead of anything tiered or overly-decadent, they settled on cupcakes. All set neatly on a table, no unstable arrangement. Perfectly. Safe.

“You going to be okay, love?” Henry asked, finally taking a bite of toast.

“Mhm,” Alex assured him, unassuringly.

“You’re not thinking about the – “

“Of course not.”

Henry looked at him. They both knew he was lying. But they also both knew there was no use fighting it. Henry stood and pressed a kiss to Alex’s forehead before returning to his own room (so much tradition - it made Alex gag).

“Don’t worry about it, love. It’ll be alright,” Henry attempted to soothe him, both knowing it wouldn’t do much.

“Mhm.”

Alex sat absently grinding his cereal to a wheaty pulp for an indeterminable amount of time before June’s banging on his door yanked him out of his daze of imagining rivers of frosting and tabloid covers.

They said their vows without a hitch. Signed, sealed, delivered. Alex shed one small tear both for appearances and to release some of his nerves. Henry kissed him sweetly.

Married. They were married. It didn’t feel much different, but something within all the ceremony made it feel official and loud and real. Alex supposed having the Former President of the United States and the Princess of England as your witnesses would do that.

They made it to the reception hall, waving to the crowds upon crowds that followed them along the way, and Alex’s anxiety grew every minute. Henry squeezed his hand. Alex refused to look over at the catering tables, much less walk over there.

“Hey, as long as you don’t go over there and pick a fight with anyone, it won’t be your fault this time,” Henry whispered to him as his eyes kept wandering while they danced.

“Please stop,” Alex said through gritted teeth.

Henry just laughed.

They toasted, dined, danced. The night went on without catastrophe.

At one point, after observing June, Nora, and Pez going to get a refill of champagne, the drinks frightfully close to the dessert table, Alex leaned over to Henry and whispered, “Are you worried about the -”

Now Henry’s posture was tense and his lips creased in a begrudgingly neutral expression. “Immensely.”

They watched like statues as the three laughed and made sweeping gestures, their drunkenness obvious. With all the guests and festivities, they hadn’t been able to be with their friends and family as much, and now that looked like a dangerous consequence of their weak-wills in the face of an army of world-class wedding planners.

“Should we - “ Alex started.

“No,” Henry said, 

“But - “

“I think we’re too late, dear,” Henry confided sadly, and turned away from the scene.

Alex, on the other hand, went to watch the destruction begin, just as Nora began waving around her glass to emphasize whatever point she was raising her voice about, her small frame leaning intimidatingly closer to June, who recoiled, drunkenly falling back into Pez, who was going to select a cupcake and didn’t know what was about to hit him. They dominoed, and in Alex’s slightly tipsy state, it was in incredible slow motion, just like the first time, and the table crashed, and the cupcakes flew, and the room went utterly silent.

Except for Bea, who stood three feet away from the disaster, recording it on her phone and cackling. 

Alex was dizzy, déjà vu and calculating the fallout twisting around in his brain as he tried to steady himself. He met June’s wide eyes, her open mouth, and smiled sadly.

Henry was still looking away. “Is it as bad as I think it is?”

Alex shrugged, deflated and defeated. “If you’re meaning is ‘is it on brand for any kind of formal event we try to attend’, I’d give a resounding yes.”

The newspaper, magazines, and tabloid all thought so, too.

“Claremont Cake-Crasher Legacy Lives On.”

“Cake Gate 2.0 Shocks Semi-Royal Wedding.”

“A Royal Mess… AGAIN! (Though This Time It's Buttercream).”

Alex sighed and put the stack down. Henry looked like he was napping, with his dark sunglasses, calm face, and hands resting behind his head, but he had heard Alex read off all of the headlines. Alex waited for a reaction.

“Well,” Henry started, not moving, his voice sleepy and relaxed from the long afternoon on the beach. “At least the history we’re making has cool alliterative titles to go along with it. No one will be bored reading our history book.”

Alex laughed, brightly and fully, something only Henry was sure to make him do. He leaned back in his own beach chair and reached out to take Henry’s hand.

“That’s for sure.”

Notes:

hey yall this was from a tumblr prompt, so if you liked this you could send me one over there @wendlaswound! I'll do any fandom/ship that I've reblogged, but it never hurts to ask. A shorter version of this was also posted on tumblr <3

also, this is not how i imagine Alex and Henry's wedding would actually go, but can i resist a cake gate 2.0? absolutely not