Chapter Text
The first time Harrison ever heard the word “cancer”, he was eight years old.
It didn’t mean much at the time. He knew the word made the world go still, and he recalls the day that his family made that word public, posting it on a sign outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, the way tourists would weep over the gates, and hold one another tight. Every time he was caught out in public, especially with his siblings, the world would scream that they were praying for him and his heart. Harrison never really understood why.
Dad’s lack of presence due to treatments and surgeries was no different from their daily life. His cold demeanor spurred by steroids mirrored his attitude when he was healthy. He was not a kind man, no matter how many people say the opposite. The public pretends he was something noble and cherished. Harrison didn’t notice much of a difference when he was gone.
Harrison’s faith was tested, and eventually, destroyed. Not because of cancer, but because of the British people, the monarchy, and his own flesh and blood.
He was twenty four when Dad died.
Similar to when Dad got the cancer diagnosis, it didn’t mean much. Harrison had mourned his death for months before it happened, and had mourned the absence of parents since long before. He hasn’t had a father around for more than a day out of each year, and oftentimes, it was just for performative photo shoots. Those, usually, weren’t actually on any particular holiday. There was no bond between Dad and his only son, the only male offspring to the Kensington name remaining. Harrison would be surprised if his father even knew his name.
He wouldn’t say Dad didn’t love them. But Harrison would say, he never felt loved. Not by Dad, at least. And, to be fair, he knew his father’s history. He was in his early seventies, just trying to survive long enough to see himself become King as a "fuck you" to his brother, Harrison’s uncle Arthur. Dad had been a controversial face among politics, and when the backlash started, he receded all political stances and went silent on world topics. He was power hungry, and took advantage of his wealth in the worst ways possible, and never looked at the children he created. He married twice, not having a single child with the first wife before she died in tragedy, only to have three with the second wife, a woman twenty years his younger. Two daughters and a son later, he successfully produced a lineage for the crown, one big enough to ensure his brother, with whom he had a rivalry that spanned decades, would never see the throne. Jokes on him-- Dad wouldn’t, either.
Of course his death was sad. A parent is a parent, no matter how much they suck. But it wasn’t the death that Harrison was mourning. It was the loss of a childhood, and how desperate he was for the fatherly love that all other children get-- even his cousins, also born into royalty. It was the cold eyes and smile-less face that appeared in every photo that featured Dad and his children. It was the way Mum looked elated to have the family she did, whilst Dad looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. He only had kids for the monarchy, for the line of succession, not for the family.
Harrison sits in his father’s study, reviewing his shorthand notes on his desk. Some are about royal duties, like charity events and galas, but there's one that stuck out from an old notepad from what looked like the nineties. In the bottom corner, in the margins of the notebook, a doodle of a lighthouse. Does it even count as a doodle when it’s that detailed? Clearly, Dad was either bored out of his mind or a secret artist, judging by the beautiful shading and contrast in the drawing. At the top right corner of the page, the date.
November the second, 1994. The day after Harrison was born.
He puffs out a breath, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. If it were sunny out, the light would cast across his face in a warm stroke, but instead, London is rainy as ever.
He doesn’t want to think about his mother, alone in the hospital room with him as a newborn. Her second child. But the proof is there. He wonders what went on in Dad’s head that day. Was he thinking about his newborn son? Or was he thinking about lighthouses? Harrison wants to believe that the lighthouse was some kind of metaphor for what their lives were, a metaphor for Harrison specifically. But he recalls how Dad was when Kate was born. He wasn’t unhappy , but little changed.
He remembers Dad being good with Kate; always able to make her stop crying. He remembers one particular photo shoot, where he sat with all three children in the same chair. He smiled at Kate once, bouncing the baby on his knee, earning an infantile giggle, which proceeded to make Harrison and Josephine smile, too. It was a beautiful photo, and one of the only ones of Dad smiling. In those moments, during the candid photos, Dad had looked at Josephine to see if she was smiling. Harrison now recognizes this as him making a chore out of the photos, but the moment still glows warm in his heart. Dad looked to Harrison next. Harrison thinks it was the first time his father properly looked at him, and he remembers feeling seen. But he also remembers the way Dad thrusted all three children toward their nannies thirty minutes after. Dad was far from a good person, but those thirty minutes of Dad holding them, laughing with them, playing, he almost felt normal, if only there were no cameras. He felt seen for the first time, sure. But he also felt unloved.
This week has been Hell. Not just because he hates his father, and despises the traditions of the throne, but because not a single moment of it has been about him. Which sounds awful, yes. But it’s true.
The world mourns for the loss of a Prince, the death of the throne’s successor. Gran mourns the loss of her son, because even she loved her children more than Dad loved his. Mum mourns her husband, and his sisters mourn their father. But none of them matter . The media is sadistic, making angst porn out of their tragedies, ripping apart the secrecy and private details of their lives. Already, Harrison has seen articles dissecting his childhood, using photos from the late nineties of a miserable toddler who wanted nothing to do with his father at a charity event, or the single photo of Harrison smoking a cigarette in his late teens as an act of rebellion. A story about how Harrison must hate his father. These stories are often overshadowed with the photos of Harrison and his sisters in a church, praying at the pews mere hours before Dad died, or a photo of Harrison holding a sobbing Kate in the infirmary halls shortly after Dad had died.
Maybe it is about him, but not in the ways it should be. The media claws at details, and every country in the world is milking his father’s death for political vantage. Germany has done one hell of a tribute, and the Danish monarchy have, out of allegiance, done a white out event to raise money for cancer research, shutting down the majority of their businesses. Most monarchies and politicians would be in attendance to the week-long events for funerals and memorials, and Harrison dreaded seeing every single one of them.
“Thought I might find you here,” Josephine hums from the doorway, softly shutting it behind her. “The Chapmans are here.”
“And?” Harrison mutters in response, eyes shut and trying his hardest to catch his breath, trying his hardest to not picture the damned lighthouse, trying not to think of his father as a realist artist, and rather the villain that he was forced to endure and overcome.
“And we have to meet them for press,” she responds simply. She doesn’t budge, standing with her arms crossed and a straight face. She reminds him a lot of Mum when she stands like this. Both soft and stern. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he sighs, rubbing his eyes. No. “Just… haven’t slept a whole lot.” Our father is dead and I never got a chance to know him . Or, perhaps, he did know him, and that surface level, heartless bastard was Dad.
“Me neither,” she approaches the desk, scanning the things Harrison dug out. She also caught sight of the date on the top page of the notebook. She frowns, carefully pushing it away and sitting on the thick, expensive mahogany. Harrison wonders where Josephine was when Harrison was born, while Mum was in the hospital having a baby, and Dad was in the midst of a meeting with the Prime Minister. “What are you thinking about?”
“Stupid stuff,” Harrison shrugs. “You?”
“Stupid people,” she cracks a slight smile. Harrison does too. “Mum wanted me to remind you to not be an idiot.”
“Because of the Americans?” Harrison asks, rolling his eyes. She nods. “I’m not an idiot. Maybe if he wasn’t such a prick by just existing-”
“I know,” Josephine laughs, shaking her head. “Trust me, I get it. I’m stuck with both his older sister and older brother. Andy-Junior is worse than their Dad.”
“I know,” Harrison groans. “Why don’t I get stuck with Brittany? Kate can have the younger ones. Why do I get stuck with the devil incarnate?”
“I don’t know. Probably something about boys with boys, or not wanting him to hit on Kate? I heard he was one of those… American jocks.” Josephine sympathizes. “Maybe we’ll be so pissed about the Americans that we won’t have to think about any of the other stuff though.”
“You are disgustingly optimistic.” Harrison pushes himself up out of the chair, carefully putting away Dad’s binders and notebooks. “Let’s get this over with.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Unfortunately, that’s been his attitude for all of the past few months. They received Dad’s end-stage diagnosis on the first of the year, and Harrison has spent the past five months just pleading with the Universe for it to be over. Put Dad out of his misery, so Harrison can finally be out of his. Since January, they’ve sat around waiting for Dad to just die. They thought he would die in February, then mid mid-March, then April 1st, and somehow, he just kept living. He died two days ago, finally, and somehow it’s not over yet. Harrison is beginning to fear his father’s life (and death) will haunt him forever.
The hilarity behind Dad’s death is the fact that rainy ol’ London’s skies opened up the day he passed. It was a rather stunning spring day. May 18th, with the sun beaming, not a cloud in the sky. It was a mild 18 degrees Celsius. Harrison was sat at the window, the sun on his face, when Dad passed. He remembers feeling warmer when the machines were all switched off, when the room was emptied, as Mum and Gran followed him to the morgue. There was no pain in his passing, in Harrison’s opinion.
The world healed when he died, and yet, the population mourned, and his family’s hearts broke, and everyone else hurt. Everyone but him, and nature. Which makes this week of mourning, the visitors, the press, all that much more annoying. He feigns his frowns, and he forces his emotions, as to not be the evil bastard who doesn’t cry at his father’s passing. His feelings are not his own. He was handed a script to abide by, but he is not much of an actor, and he’s definitely not getting paid for his performance.
He just can’t wait for it all to be done.