Chapter Text
ALEX CLAREMONT-DIAZ'S SECOND SKIN IS A SWEET AND SEXY TRIUMPH
Alex Claremont-Diaz has done it again. The Texas-born singer-songwriter released his fourth studio album second skin Thursday at midnight. Full of Claremont-Diaz’s signature lyricism, critics are praising the album for the cohesive image it paints. second skin is the result of a young writer at the top of his game, and every lyric depicts for the listener a picture of a sun-drenched secret romance. Fans are clamoring to be the first to uncover the mystery girl at the center of it all, although Claremont-Diaz remains tight-lipped on the subject…
***
“You know,” Alex says, phone balanced precariously between his shoulder and his ear as he juggles his mail and keys on his way in. “I thought I might be in trouble for some of these lyrics, but somehow the news outlets are listening to lyrics about your suit jackets and cologne and are still writing articles about the girl at the center of the album.”
“Heteronormativity is a prison,” Henry agrees blandly. “Although I suppose that works in our favour, in this case.”
“Yeah,” Alex says. It’s fine – he knows every last one of their contingency plans, knows that coming out via song-lyric was never going to fly. But, you know… gender-neutral language exists. It depresses him seeing half of his identity erased like this, especially when he feels like he’s being so obvious about it all.
“Hey,” Henry says, voice warm in his ear. “You know I’m working on it.”
“I know you are, baby,” Alex says. “It’s all good.”
Once he’s settled back in his office, he hunkers down to go through the PR stuff he needs to do after the album release. Zahra has sent him an email full of fan tweets and comments, just like she always does, letting Alex get a slice of his fandom without being too overwhelming. There are lots of really lovely, excited comments about the music, people talking about their favourite songs, fans changing their twitter names to his lyrics… It’s all very sweet. But he laughs when he gets to the section Zahra has titled “You Knew This Was Coming,” which is just filled with speculation and arguing about his sexuality.
leigh @alexswhiskey
okay i know we still joke about fruity acd but…. you guys….I don’t think it’s a joke anymore…
raj (he/they) @claremont_diass
no i’m so serious this is the gayest album i’ve ever heard in my life
zoey w @alexwillu
ACD gets pegged confirmed??? [IMG: screenshot of lyrics from LIPS/SKIN: Fuck me like a storm/And I sink my teeth into your shoulder/Til I draw blood]
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leigh @alexswhiskey
replying to @alexwillu:
gay people exist, steven
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zoey w @alexwillu:
replying to @alexswhiskey:
ACD isn’t gay tho
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austin @AUSTIN_DIRT:
replying to @alexwillu:
he literally said he’s falling out of the closet i don’t know how much clearer he can get
jan @goddamnitjanice:
people, “fuck me” doesn’t have to mean literal penetration… it’s actually so invasive to assume this one lyric means alex is gay
nat :) @acdsass:
#clarefox truthers are so used to giving, now we get to RECIEVE
brittany @alexhenry:
LOVE YOU LIKE A SECRET? SUIT JACKET? FUCK ME LIKE A STORM? YOUR FAVORITE COLOGNE? F A L L I N G O U T Y O U R C L O S E T ??????
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quinn (she/her) @clarefoxyy:
replying to @alexhenry:
there’s literally no heterosexual explanation for this
quinn (she/her) @clarefoxyy:
why are we all pretending like these songs aren’t about Henry Fox because they absolutely are
Stupidly, it’s that last one that makes him smile. It should probably stress him the fuck out, but it just... doesn’t. There’s something about even some stranger on the internet seeing Alex’s love for Henry – seeing the way it’s overflowing, how there’s so much of it that he can’t hold it all. Heteronormative media outlets piss him off, but stuff like this… it actually does kind of make him feel warm, when people think he has that kind of claim on Henry. Because he does have that kind of claim on Henry, even if nobody knows it yet.
They will. They’re working on it. One day soon, Alex will get to point at Henry Fox, movie star, all gorgeous long legs and broad shoulders, and he’ll get to say, “This one’s mine.” He just has to be a little patient, that’s all. And, look, generally speaking, Alex Claremont-Diaz isn’t great at patience, but he would do just about anything for Henry. Henry Fox is worth all the patience in the world.
***
But - hey. This is not quite the beginning of this story.
Let’s rewind, just a little bit.
***
“Do you like it?”
There is a brief pause on the other end of the phone line, then a familiar hum. Alex is buzzing, like there are bees underneath his skin — in all actuality, he has no idea how Henry is going to react. “Do I like the very sweet song you released for me on my birthday?” he finally says dryly. “No, I was horribly offended. Of course I liked it, you peacock.”
“Good,” Alex says. And then: “It’s not your birthday yet.”
“It is in the correct time zone,” Henry says. “And I know that you know that, considering you released the song precisely at midnight.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, baby,” Alex says, and wishes, not for the first time, that they were in the same fucking time zone. That they were in the same fucking place, for once, and he could see for himself if Henry is blushing as much as he hopes he is.
“Of course you don’t.” Henry is trying to act as if his breath didn’t literally just catch, but Alex is onto him. “Just as I’m sure you have no idea how your song came to be titled after the colour of my eyes.”
“Hm,” Alex hums. “Is it?”
“Yes, you demon.”
“I named it after my bedroom walls, actually.”
Alex can hear the eye roll that comment earns him. “Do I need to remind you of the lyrics you’ve written, love? Because they certainly aren’t referring to a bloody paint colour.”
“Please do,” Alex grins.
“I –” Henry stutters slightly. Alex only grins wider – he loves making Henry flustered. “Stop it. I’m not reading you the words to your own song.”
“No?”
“No, Alex.”
“Well,” Alex drawls, “in case you’d forgotten, the words are god knows I can’t look out the window, now, ‘cause your eyes are so sky blue. Everything makes me think of you.” Alex sings softly, because Henry likes his voice. And there’s nothing in the world that Alex wouldn’t do for Henry if he asked him to.
It’s dangerous, this game they’re playing. Trans-Atlantic flights, late-night phone calls. They’ve been playing fast and loose with their words, baby and love and fucking sweetheart, but it doesn’t change the fact that they both know it’s fucking impossible for them to be together. Alex knows this – intellectually, he knows this. Henry isn’t in a place to come out. Henry might never be in a place to come out. Just last month he’d waged a long, polite battle with his grandmother-slash-manager to be allowed to take on a minor role in a queer TV show, and even then he’d been denied – real life is simply not attainable, at the moment. And Alex is simply too high-profile to be safely dating someone so deeply closeted, especially if that person is as famous as Henry fucking Fox. Especially while remaining publicly closeted himself.
And yet.
And yet, Alex is writing songs. They’re fucking pouring out of him, songs referencing Henry’s eyes and his hands and his sweet, syrupy voice in the early hours of the morning, after Alex has talked him over the edge.
He shouldn’t have released sky blue on Henry’s birthday. The time zone skullduggery is as much an attempt at misdirection as it is a romantic gesture, and even then it’s too obvious, a shiny new clue for all of the fans on twitter who try to puzzle out his dating life like it's a game. Like it’s any of their fucking business.
But the thing is, he just can’t help himself. Henry is too addicting, and Alex finds himself doing all kinds of unwise things just for the pleasure of seeing him smile.
“You’re a plague,” Henry says, voice soft over the phone line. “It’s deeply cruel of you to write me a song like that when I can’t kiss you for it.”
And Alex says, “If you could, though?” and Alex says, “Tell me,” and Alex says, “Please.” He doesn’t say, “I love you,” because this thing between them is the kind of balancing act that is constantly in danger of toppling over like a house of cards. He thinks it, though, in the back of his mind where he doesn't have to acknowledge it. He writes it, in every song he’s putting to paper, in a thousand different words that all add up to Henry, to the warm, lovely, imperfect heart of him.
Maybe, he thinks, every time Henry gives an interview about how important representation is in cinema, every time Henry talks about getting out from beneath his grandmother’s iron control with tentative hope in his voice. Maybe, maybe. Someday.
Someday. But not today. Not yet.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he says, and he has to be okay with how uncertain the ground is beneath their feet. He has to, because the alternative is losing Henry, and that’s unthinkable.
And sky blue might be the first song he releases for Henry, the first song off of an album littered with love songs – it might be the beginning of a shift that has been a long time coming. But that’s still not quite the beginning of the story.
Let's rewind a little further.
***
“I just don’t understand what he’s even doing here,” Alex whispers to June. Or means to whisper. Judging by the elbow she throws at his ribs, his volume control has been a little impaired by the liberal application of whiskey and champagne.
“Alex,” June says firmly, tightening her grip on his tuxedo-clad elbow. “This is a famous-person party. Henry Fox is a famous person. He has just as much right to be here as you do.”
“Wrong,” Alex says. “This is a Grammys party. And I, being nominated for a Grammy, have every right to be here. Henry Fox is a nepo-baby child star from an entirely different continent, and there’s no reason for him to be over there charming the pants off of Taylor Swift.”
“Jealousy really doesn’t suit you,” June says.
"He's not even in the right industry." And then he catches up to June's actual words, and frowns at her. “I’m not jealous,” he says. “Taylor loves me. We’ve had a very witty repartee in the DMs.”
“That’s not what I meant,” June says cryptically. But before he can ask her to explain what the hell she’s talking about, she’s saying, “Oh my god, Rihanna!” and Alex loses her in the crowd.
That’s fine. Alex can mingle. He may have just lost the Grammy he was up for, but nobody really expected him to win it in the first place, so it’s fine. There’s champagne everywhere – Alex fucking loves champagne. It dulls the sting of losing, makes sure it all rolls into a background hum.
Honestly, even Alex hadn’t been expecting breathing underwater to win. Still – no matter how badly he’d tried to keep himself from hoping, a little hope had snuck its way in. Champagne is as good a solution as any.
All this to say, he’s well on his way to drunk by the time he catches sight of Henry Fox again, standing alone by a table, inspecting a towering pyramid of champagne glasses as if it's the most absurd thing he’s ever seen. It’s annoying, Alex decides, that he looks that good in the most boring suit ever, plain black and tailored in all the right places. It’s probably custom – that seems like something the Mountchristen media empire would insist upon.
His feet are taking him over there before he even really decides to do so.
“Fox,” he says. “Having fun over here judging all the plebeians?” He’s very deeply impressed with his drunk brain for retaining the word plebeians. He pronounces it right and everything.
Henry Fox does not seem impressed, if the way his mouth pinches is any indication. “Alex Claremont-Diaz,” he says. “Nice to meet you. My apologies about the loss, tonight.”
Alex has heard variations on those words all evening, and it’s sucked every time, but this one sucks more. And nice to meet you? As if they've never interacted before? Granted, they've never met in person, but the remark feels more pointed. And Alex really fucking hates being condescended to.
In retrospect, Alex isn’t sure exactly what happens. He’s seen the footage, of course, along with the rest of the world, but that night only exists through a champagne haze in his memory. He doesn’t remember the exact words he said that made Henry turn away from him, and he definitely doesn’t remember grabbing his shoulder so forcefully. He doesn’t remember what Henry had snapped at him in response when he’d whirled around to push him off.
He does remember crashing into the tower of champagne glasses, bringing it all to the ground with them. He remembers the dozens of tiny cuts from the glass piercing his skin, and the taste of champagne dripping off his lips. He remembers exactly what Henry fucking Fox looked like lying on his back on the floor, soaking wet, shirt sticking to his skin, a tiny cut under one eye.
“Oh my fucking Christ,” Henry had snapped, and Alex couldn’t do anything except lie there and stare at him and think: I am in so much trouble.
One could call that a beginning. Alex certainly counts that night as the beginning of something – one of the most important somethings in his entire stupid life. But it’s not the beginning. Not precisely.
For the real beginning, we have to go back just a little further.
***
“Alex,” Nora says, breathless, practically skidding into his shitty cinder block dorm room.
“No,” Alex says.
“You’re gonna want to hear this.”
Alex doesn’t even look up from his guitar. “No,” he insists. “I had something good, I can’t lose it, come back later.”
“A-lex,” Nora snaps, and he looks up, irritated, only to pause. There’s a look on her face he doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. “You have something good,” she says.
Alex doesn’t dare to hope. “What?”
“They want you,” she grins, teeth flashing in the fluorescent light. “I took talk to Rafael Luna and they want you.”
Alex’s guitar makes a racket when it hits the ground, but he doesn’t even care as he launches himself into Nora’s arms. His little EP: just him and his guitar and an amateur producer, Liam, who he’d met at a fucking frat party – Rafael Luna’s record label heard it. They heard talk, all four songs, Alex’s soul laid bare – they heard it, and they want him.
“Really?” he says quietly into Nora’s hair, so quiet he’s not sure he even wants her to hear.
She pulls back enough to see his face. “Really, you talented motherfucker,” she says, and kisses him sure and sweet.
And just like that, everything changes. Alex and Nora break up amicably before he’s even settled on a concept for the first studio album, and he starts drinking too much whiskey and hooking up with Liam the frat-house producer and telling himself it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not long before he’s dropping out of Georgetown to spend more time in the studio, and suddenly his social media numbers are going up, and Alex is trying not to stare at Rafael fucking Luna’s biceps when he leans back on his hands and says, “We’re sending you on tour, kid. Opening act.”
And then he releases his very first full studio album, austin dirt, and his life goes a little crazy.
But no matter how chaotic things get, Alex is always going to be that kid in a dorm room with his headphones and his trusty acoustic guitar, looking up at Nora, too scared to even hope.
That is the beginning of everything. That’s where his story truly begins.