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Chapter Text

Simon is really tired of pretty rich boys sitting down across from him at meals. It never fucking goes well.

“Hey, uh,” says this newest rich boy, sliding into the seat opposite Simon with a clatter of silverware as he sets down his plate, like he doesn’t even notice the invisible bubble of space that’s sprung up around Simon over the past few days. “We’ve never really met.” He’s one of Wille’s little group of landed heirs, and the only other first year, and he once made a snide remark directly to Simon’s face in class. But sure, they’ve never met. “I’m Henry.”

The last time one of the peerage intruded on Simon’s solitary lunch to introduce himself, Simon gave his own name in return with only a little reticence. He’s not stupid enough to do it again.

“What,” he says.

Henry is not deterred, or even particularly offended. Used to getting what he wants regardless of what other people want, probably. “I mean, I know who you are,” he says, oblivious to Simon’s instinctive flinch. Of course he does; everyone does. “Hard not to, since Wilhelm…”

Simon’s knife screeches across his plate. No one even looks at him.

“Talked about you all the time,” Henry says with a wince. Well, that’s something, at least. No one is that blind to social cues, untouchable rich boy or no.

But there’s nothing really to say in response to that, so Simon doesn’t. Every option feels too self-pitying, and he gets enough pity from everyone in his life already. Being categorically ignored at school is almost a relief.

Henry is just so determined to ruin that. “I just wanted to say,” he starts, fidgeting, in the awkward silence where Simon’s reply should be, “that it isn’t fair. What happened to you. And it’s not fair that everyone’s only talking about Wilhelm.”

Simon barks out a laugh in a voice he doesn’t even recognize, startled out of his commitment not to engage. “Everyone in the country is talking about me.”

There are whispers starting here, too, from the rest of the table. Simon resolutely doesn’t look to see if Wille’s voice is one of them.

Henry looks down at his plate, embarrassment coloring his pale cheeks. It’s a wonder he manages to stay afloat in that viper’s nest of a society if he wears his emotions so openly on his face. Even Wille has a better poker face than that, and look where that landed him.

“Yeah, but… people here know you. You’re a person to them, not just a headline or a, you know, a… screenshot.” Tactful, Simon thinks, as Henry stutters his way back to the point. “It shouldn’t be just about Wilhelm here.”

Simon can’t make himself look up from his plate, either. “Thanks.”

He thinks Henry will leave, because he’s said what he wanted to say and neither of them are enjoying this, but Henry surprises him by taking one quick, shallow breath and saying, “you were pretty cute together. We all wondered – or at least his friends – but he was so quiet about it, and no one wanted to… so I’m sorry someone ruined it for you.”

There’s a lot to process there. One, that for all of Wille’s fears and secrecy, his little rich-kid club – sure, okay, his friends, if Simon is feeling charitable – clued in just as quick as Simon’s did. Two, that… that Henry thinks there was something there to ruin. That he, and by extension people like Victor and Nils and maybe even August, was just waiting for Wille to gather the courage to be honest. That all the what-ifs Simon tortures himself with every night might not be as far-fetched as they seem.

But none of that matters, because someone did ruin it, and a months-too-late overture of friendship from one of Simon’s ex-something’s closest friends isn’t going to fix any of the parts of Simon’s life that are broken now.

“Thanks,” he says again, and he smiles at Henry because that’s what you do when you thank someone and his mom raised him to be polite. Henry smiles back.

“This might make you feel better or it might make you feel worse,” Henry says, and it isn’t until Simon is watching him spear a carrot on his fork that it hits home that Henry really, truly plans to sit there and eat a meal with him. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. “But Wilhelm’s really pulled back from all of us since everything went down, so you wouldn’t be stealing me away from him. If you wanted someone to talk to.”

Simon doesn’t know how to feel about that either.

“Thanks,” he says, for the third time, rather than asking why on earth Henry even cares, and hopes desperately for someone else to come along and strike up a conversation because Simon doesn’t know how to have them anymore.

Henry smiles, again, and it’s so unlike the pitying smiles everyone gives him nowadays, so much closer to the way Wille used to smile at him, that it makes Simon want to try, a little bit. “So. What does your dad do?”

Simon has to laugh, quiet and helpless, because it’s ridiculous, sitting here with Henry like Henry wouldn’t have spit on him two weeks ago. But this whole thing is ridiculous, and maybe Simon should just start going along with it.

“He deals booze to kids and lives off your dad’s tax dollars.” Why the hell not; it’s not like he’ll be returning to Hillerska after the holidays anyway. Who cares what anyone thinks.

“Shit, you’re funny,” Henry says, like it’s a revelation but also like he’s pleased about it. “I get why he likes you.”

Simon bites back a not enough, apparently, because it isn’t helpful and he isn’t about to go baring his soul to anyone again anytime soon. “He liked me because I told you to go fuck yourself,” he says, and even though it’s not exactly a joke he tries to make it sound like one. He picks up his plate and stands. “Nice talking to you.”

He’s done with pretty rich boys. But it was nice, for just a second, to pretend there might be a world where he didn’t have to be.

Chapter Text

It’s not as weird being back at Hillerska as Simon thought it would be. Still weird, obviously – nothing in his life is ever not going to be weird now – but not as weird.

It’s kind of like it was when he started there, for the first month or so before Wille came and before he joined the rowing team, when no one spoke to him and everyone whispered about him behind his back. Even Sara has pulled away from him again, though she still seems perfectly close with Felice so Simon has no idea what he’s done wrong.

Two things are different.

The first, of course, is that Wille is there – in some ways is never not there, because it feels like everywhere Simon turns, there’s Wille, standing nearby and pretending not to look at him. It’s horrible and painful and awkward, but it’s probably better than being totally ignored.

The second is that he does have one friend. Sort of. Reluctantly. And he wouldn’t even call Henry a friend, not really, because you’re supposed to have common interests with your friends, and Henry’s only interest aside from being an entitled daddy’s boy seems to be bothering Simon when he doesn’t want to be bothered.

He’s nice, though, which is the problem.

They study together sometimes, like Simon and Wille used to, and Henry’s not as good at ignoring August glaring daggers at his back like Simon is, but he fakes it well enough.

“It’s just kind of weird now,” Henry says, when Simon finally grows curious enough to ask why he’s spending their break cross-legged in the grass with Simon, rather than by the picnic table with his actual friends. “It was weird before Wilhelm came, being the youngest, and now he’s not around at all and I have to stand there and take orders from August even though he’s – “

He cuts himself off. Simon has to admire his loyalty, even now with August giving him a distinct cold shoulder.

“Broke?”

Henry’s posture relaxes a little, tension seeping away with the realization that he hasn’t just invited an awkward line of questioning or spilled a secret worthy of some horrible petty retribution, knowing August. He rips up a handful of grass and lets it drop. “I guess Wilhelm told you too.”

“I told him,” Simon says, plucking a stray blade of grass from his knee and twirling it between his fingers. He knows Henry won’t believe him, but it’s still fun to imagine that someone so sheltered and naive could look past his own privilege and see Simon as something more than just Wille’s shadow. Someone worth hanging out with out of more than just pity.

As expected, Henry laughs and knocks his knee against Simon’s. “Oh yeah? How’d you find out?”

Simon rolls the blade of grass into a tiny ball and flicks it at Henry. “I jumped him after school and beat him up for drug money,” he says, ducking Henry's retaliating rain of shredded grass.

It’s okay to talk about this stuff like it’s a joke, like none of it really happened, to someone who’s too nervous about making offensive assumptions to ask follow-up questions. Simon barely recognizes the person he was for those few months; it’s easier to treat it like the lie Henry thinks it is.

“Anyway,” Henry says, “now that Wilhelm’s got his grudge or whatever against August, there’s not much point in sticking around to listen to August whine about how the monarchy’s going to the dogs and Wilhelm’s not fit to be king, like we all don’t know Wilhelm’s the one who fixed it so he could stay here.”

Simon hates that he still cares enough to ask.

“Grudge?”

Henry shrugs, dusting off his palms. His fingertips are stained faintly green. “Something like it. Wilhelm completely snubbed him before Christmas, didn’t even say goodbye. I don’t think they’ve talked since.”

Simon doesn’t say that he and Wille haven’t talked since before Christmas either, but from the guilty look Henry shoots him it’s clear he doesn’t have to.

“Good,” he says. “He’s a dick. He always called me socialist boy, like it was an insult.”

“Aren’t you though, a little bit?”

Simon glares. This is why it’s hard to be friends with Henry, because he’s so out of touch with most people's lived reality that he thinks Simon is the outlier. “Why? Because I think people like you should have to pay the taxes you're supposed to pay?”

“Sorry, I just meant – it’s not an insult,” Henry says, holding up green-tinted hands in apology. "Ask anyone in America and I'm a socialist."

It is when August says it, but Simon lets it slide. Not everyone is like Wille, who thought Simon calling the royal family welfare recipients was well said. And Simon doesn’t want Henry to be like Wille, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Around them, people are starting to stand and head for their next classes, and Simon is grateful for the excuse to end the conversation. Henry plants his hands in the grass in front of him and pushes himself to his knees to stand, like a kid. If he did that at Marieberg he’d be teased to hell and back, but it’s kind of sweet that he’s gone sixteen years without anyone telling him how silly it looks. He moves to rub his grass-sticky palms on his thighs, and without thinking, Simon reaches out a hand to stop him.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Henry says. He doesn’t look nervous or suspicious, like some of the other boys do, even though Simon misjudged his aim and they’re now essentially holding hands.

“Um. You have grass stains on your hands. Those are nice jeans.”

Henry pulls his hand away, like anyone would – but slowly, like it doesn’t mean anything, like he doesn’t care that people might see them standing so close together and make assumptions. “What, socialists don’t use stain remover?”

“Um, yeah, no, we do,” Simon says, too confused to joke back.

“Thought so,” Henry says, and then his hand is a firm, warm pressure on Simon’s chest, raking down to his stomach and then gone almost even before Simon processes that it’s there. “See you later.”

Simon glances down, instinctive, to find a pale, five-pointed smudge of green directly over his heart. “What the fuck, Henry,” he says, but Henry has already vanished, plaid shirt flaring behind him as he rounds the corner and nearly trips over a student just getting to his feet.

The student turns, muttering apologies, and, for the first time in over a month, stares straight at Simon.

Only this time, he isn’t smiling.

Chapter Text

Slowly, and in the same way that his friendship with Wille did, being friends with Henry starts to make everything else easier too. The students he used to have casual conversations with during class and in the halls have deemed him okay to speak to again, and the prospect of another two years at Hillerska –  even with Wille’s unreadable eyes on him at every turn – seems more bearable.

“See? That’s what happens when you make friends with the rich and powerful,” Henry says, ducking his head up from his algebra textbook to grin at Simon. Simon knows it’s not as much of a joke as Henry makes it out to be, but Simon moderates his political beliefs to be Henry’s friend, too, so he laughs along. “We’ll make a monarchist out of you yet. Although if Wilhelm couldn’t manage that with his hand on your –“

Simon shoves him off his chair. Henry shoves back, and then they’re both in a heap on the library floor and Henry is laughing, not even a little apologetic.

Henry is the only person, outside of Rosh and Ayub, who makes jokes like that. No one dares say anything about Wille where August might hear – and August is everywhere, at all times, like a rash, in some campaign to queer-ally his way back into Wille’s good graces. But he never does it while Wille is watching, and Wille is always watching Simon, so Henry escapes unchastised.

Simon doesn’t mind. Having someone who doesn’t take it seriously makes the whole thing easier. Simon thinks he would feel more uncomfortable landing with his thigh draped over Henry’s forearm if Henry didn’t make those kinds of jokes. But he moves his leg away to put a respectable amount of distance between them anyway, because he’s never been a very cuddly person and he doesn’t see a reason to start now with Henry.

Footsteps on carpet tell him they’re being watched before Felice steps between him and the light. She doesn’t seem as surprised to find Simon and Henry sprawled on the floor of the library when there are two perfectly good chairs next to them as she probably should be. “Hi, Simon.”

“Hey.”

Simon doesn’t dislike Felice. She’s always been nice to him, and she’s Sara’s friend, and from what it looks like she’s been a real rock in Wille’s life ever since the video came to light. He’s grateful for her.

But he is allowed to be a little bit sad that Wille replaced him as a confidant so immediately.

“Hi, Felice,” Henry says uncertainly, though his smile up at her is true. Felice doesn’t talk to any of August’s friends; Henry only gets a pass because he hangs out with Simon. Something must have gone really wrong with that breakup, especially considering how cagey Sara always is about it.

“The girls are having a movie night tomorrow,” Felice says, to Simon only. “Sara’s coming, so I thought you might want to.”

“Am I invited too?” Henry asks.

“Uh, sure.” Felice hesitates a second before she turns to leave, rings flashing in the overhead lights as she twists her fingers nervously. “Wille will be there.”

Simon doesn’t know if that’s supposed to be an enticement or a warning. He doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge, either, but Henry tilts his head and says, “and so will we,” and that seems to settle it.

Simon stares after Felice’s retreating back until he can’t see her between the shelves anymore.

“What?” Henry says, when Simon finally turns back to him. “You wanted to go, and you were going to say no just for his sake.”

That’s true, but Simon wishes Henry wouldn’t say it out loud. It sounds much less pathetic in his head. “You’re just jealous that I got a personal invitation and you didn’t.”

Henry punches him on the arm and stands, offering a hand up. “Maybe Wilhelm already invited me and I didn’t tell you about it. Or maybe I just miss slumber parties now that I don’t have a little sister around to force me into them. But your sister’s pretty –“

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

Simon absolutely does not want to know what Henry thinks Sara is. But he lets Henry sling an arm around his shoulders as they leave, even though it makes navigating the narrow aisles difficult and they nearly trip over Stella’s backpack.

“Alright, fine, sisters are off-limits. If it makes you feel better you can sit between us and we can hold hands instead,” Henry says. He’s blushing a little, but considering that Stella made a very obscene gesture at them when Henry turned back to apologize, Simon feels okay just being offended rather than concerned that this will be a repeat of the last movie night he went to.

Still.

He shakes out of Henry’s hold. “Funny.”

“It was,” Henry says, accepting the brush-off and shrugging his messenger bag higher on his shoulder instead. “Take a joke, movie star. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

Simon raises his hand in a useless wave and lets it drop. Henry never looks back after he’s said goodbye, unlike someone Simon knows.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to go, even if the thought of being trapped in a dark room with Wille is a little terrifying. It’s just that the last time he got in too deep with a crowd of surprisingly nice rich kids, his life ended up in ruins. He has to be extra careful this time.

Chapter Text

The fact that Simon shows up to Felice’s movie night in the shirt Henry smeared grass on is almost entirely unintentional: most of his other shirts are in the wash, and this one was lying on the floor in plain view and he was in a hurry. He hasn’t given much thought to his outfit at all, actually, because thinking too hard about how he looks in preparation for spending two hours in a room with Wille feels a little pathetic. It’s hard not to remember, though, that this shirt and those grass stains were the first thing in months that caught and held Wille’s attention.

So Simon didn’t exactly intend anything by wearing it. What he didn’t intend at all is for Henry to burst into laughter the moment he sees it and clap Simon on the back so hard he nearly topples into the doorframe.

“Proving me wrong, socialist boy?”

Simon still isn’t one hundred percent positive there isn’t a little bit of an insult tucked away in there, but even if there is, that’s just how friendship with Henry works: Simon makes self-deprecating jokes and Henry makes cutting ones, and neither of them acknowledges out loud that it’s not the healthiest dynamic.

He tries not to let any sudden melancholy bleed into his answering smile as he searches for a suitably glib thing to say, but Henry’s attention has already drifted to the person stood motionless in the doorway behind Simon.

“Henry. Simon. Hi.”

“Hey,” Henry says, hesitant. Simon says nothing.

The lights in the lounge are dimmed already in preparation for the movie night, and Wille is backlit by the incandescent hallway, expression as shadowed as his guarded greeting. Even so, Simon knows without having to see it that Wille’s eyes have landed on his shirt once again, a smudgy signifier of the casual touch he must also have witnessed just moments ago.

“Are we in your way? Sorry,” Henry says, when it becomes clear that Wille and Simon have nothing to say to each other. “Are you sitting with anyone? You can sit with us, if you want.”

Simon glares at Henry and hopes it conveys his absolute conviction that Wille cannot, in fact, sit with them. Henry grins back.

“I’m sitting with Felice,” Wille says, formal and awkward, and shoves past them into the room.

“That went well,” Henry says.

Simon isn’t in the mood to laugh at such a tired joke. “You shouldn’t have offered. He’s still mad at me.”

“No shit.” Henry slings his arm around Simon’s shoulders in his easy, proprietary way and steers him toward the front of the room. “Let’s sit where he has no choice but to watch you all night.”

“You’re the worst,” Simon says, even though the idea does have some petty appeal.

It doesn’t do anything to diminish Henry’s cheer. “Probably. But I’m also the best queer ally at this school. August wishes he were me.”

“Ha ha.”

“You know we’re not all as terrible as you think we are.” That’s enough of a non-sequitur that it startles Simon out of his Wille-induced funk. Henry’s hair flops into his eyes, blue in the light of the projector screen, and his normally transparent face is washed out into inscrutability. “Even me.”

“I don’t think you’re terrible,” Simon says, but he kind of does. Taking pity on the middle-class kid just because he got outed doesn’t make up for months of snobbery. Or for entrenched economic privilege and a willful blindness thereof, for that matter.

Henry links their pinkies, almost in a mirror of the time Wille once had, only to twist Simon’s hand up between them like Sara forcing him to pinky promise when they were children. “You’re only friends with me because I haven’t given you a choice. If you’d taken a shot on anyone besides Wille, you’d have realized there are plenty of people who want to be your friend.” He lets go, flashes a sheepish grin, and shrugs. “Just saying.”

That’s probably all true. Simon has a decently high opinion of himself; he knows he’s likable. But it’s hard to admit that he came in determined not to like anyone – that maybe he is partly or even largely to blame for his own loneliness.

He takes refuge in insincerity. It’s a coward’s move, but it’s what Henry probably expects and Simon isn’t ready to face his own culpability in a room full of his sister’s friends, his exp, and – improbably – his new best friend. “Taken a shot on you, huh? I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

“Asshole,” Henry says, slugging him on the arm, which is exactly the kind of normal Simon needs in that moment. “But I’m willing to act like it to make your ex jealous, so stop looking this majestic fucking gift horse in the mouth and touch knees with me, or whatever repressed little princes do.”

Simon chooses not to reveal that that’s exactly what Wille did. “Out of curiosity, have you ever seen a horse?”

“Terrified of them,” Henry says cheerfully, tugging Simon to the floor. “Think Sara could teach me to like them? I hear she’s a really good –“

Simon attempts to smother him with a squishy unicorn pillow.

“ – horsewoman, Jesus, calm down. I don’t think I even want to know what you think I was going to say. Let’s just watch fucking Barbie Princess Party Three or whatever and you can duel me over your sister’s virtue later.”

They watch Brokeback Mountain, and Simon spitefully holds Henry’s hand through all of the sex scenes. He refuses to turn around to see if Wille is watching him do it.