Chapter Text
Basil took the stairs two at a time, of course after checking that no one else was in the stairwell. He had been longing for his bed all day, ever since waking up minutes before his first class and getting halfway to the building before realising he had forgotten his collar and tie, and then having to weigh the options between arriving to class an inexcusable mess or spending even more time retrieving them, and- Well, he didn’t see the point in re-living it all in his mind. Suffice to say, memories of his armchair and a plate of cookies were the only things keeping him sane.
He rounded the top of the stairwell, entering the hallway and walking to his room in a trance. He opened the door; and he must have opened the wrong one – except that was his chair, his paintings, his rubbish permanently-open window. It was only that there were now a great number of trunks he'd never seen before on his floor including multiple open wardrobe trunks with clothes pouring out, jackets and waistcoats and- who brings a masquerade costume to college?
His question was answered when he looked to the settee, where a man was sitting and reading a little brightly coloured book, his shoes on the upholstery. Well, not any man, and not any book.
“Henry!” Basil exclaimed. He had the terrible feeling that this wasn’t a sleep deprivation induced nightmare.
Looking up, Henry (and it certainly was Henry, those hazel eyes and wavy combed hair were instantly recognizable to Basil) tossed his book to the side-table and smiled. “You were out awfully late, Basil.”
It’s barely past seven, he thought about saying, or perhaps that’s Mr. Hallward to you or get out of my room this instant! Instead he pulled at his hair with one hand and sputtered.
“Why are you here? You don’t live in this building, I know I would have seen you.”
“The fine guerrilla architects of my building have decided it is time for a floor plan with more open space and so half the building has been liberated from the burden of having walls.”
“The fire?”
“Yes, the fire” Henry replied, rolling his eyes. “Christ’s sake, Basil, I’m trying to be eloquent. My rooms are still intact enough but the roof is not, so I’ve been sent to live with a student who has an empty bed. Thankfully my possessions are more or less unharmed, so I can remedy your… unfortunate decoration skills. I wasn’t supposed to choose who I would be sharing a room with but I wasn’t to put up with that now, was I, so I asked my father’s friend in the whatever-it-is department and had a conversation with him. He told me of an art student I could room with, and imagine my surprise when I learned it was Basil Hallward, the funny boy from the river! I quite enjoyed our conversation, you know. It’ll be a pleasure living with you, I’m sure.”
Stop saying my name, I’m the only other person in this room, Basil thought. Instead he sighed.
“How long will you stay, then?” He almost doubted the story, but no one would bring this many trunks as a joke.
“Until the building is fixed,” Henry shrugged.
Basil stopped. Until his building was fixed? That would be weeks, at least, perhaps months- no, he could not put up with this!
“That’s preposterous!” he said, expressing as much. “You cannot barge into my rooms for months with no warning. Why this is just- it is-”
“You want me to have no home? You would see me put in the workhouse?” Henry asked, looking up at him like an orphan deer.
“Bloody Hell, you’re a Lord! I’m confused as to why you live in measly dorms in the first place.”
“I refuse to be deprived of the true collegiate experience. Morning, a lovably annoying room-mate in my dorm, afternoon, classes I pay no attention to, evening, splendid parties, later the same evening-”
Basil waved his hand, and surprisingly enough, Henry stopped. Unfortunately it seemed to be only for a moment, as he then jumped up and put his hand on Basil’s shoulder.
“Well, I’d love to see my new accommodations in further detail. Will we be sharing a bedroom?
Basil nodded, unable to speak. This was all happening far too fast – could they not have sent him a letter? He had to keep going with it, he supposed, as the alternative was senseless screaming or boarding the train straight back home, neither of which seemed smart.
“We will be sharing a room, but there is an extra bed. It is this way,” he explained mechanically. Henry grasped his elbow as he led him through the doorway (and wasn’t that just vexing!).
How he would miss having a room to himself! He knew it had been too good to be true when he learned his room would not be full, but he was still distraught. He had made this room his own, as much as he could with no authority to change wallpaper or money to buy furniture. The second bed was in use as a drying rack, while his paints were lined up on shelves next to his books. There was a mess on the floor, as there was in his room back at home, but even that was his mess. His shirts, papers, brushes, stray crackers… Even the desk was his, with his paperweight from Father’s office and the fine ink given to him for his acceptance to Oxford.
Henry was clearly in a less melancholic mood, strolling into the room, letting go of his host’s arm as quickly as he had grabbed it, picking up a painting, and inspecting it. It was a half-done picture of Saint Sebastian for Basil’s parish church back home. He was so proud of receiving a commission from the church that he had the painting displayed prominently on the bed-drying rack, but it was still wet, and so-
“Don’t touch that!”
Henry put it down after an excruciating few moments, not noticing (or caring) about the paint on his hand. “Is this classwork?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Basil realised that the figure was nude save for a loincloth and that he hadn’t painted in the arrows yet, as well as the picture that portrayed to an onlooker. He did not want to get into a further conversation with Henry, so he nodded and explained it was a figure study.
“Hm,” Henry hummed. “They don’t allow you to paint the female figure, I assume?”
“No, of course they do not. If we were to see a woman nude they would all let their skirts fall down and be with our child by the days end.”
“And is that true for you?”
“Oh God, no,” Basil grimaced. His brothers always told him he would see the appeal of women when he grew older, but he was still awaiting that particular revelation. “I think I would rather read law than let some tart sit for me in the altogether just so she can become offended when I tell her I have no interest in taking my own clothing off in reciprocity.”
Henry raised his eyebrow. “Smart, I suppose. Women are vapid, simple creatures, nothing good comes of associating with them. Now, will you tell me why you would dare wear that waistcoat you have on the bed?
Basil sighed for what must have been the twentieth time that day. Wasn’t this ever going to be a fun afternoon?
Basil swung open the door one afternoon, opening his mouth to shout “Are you here, Henry?” before realising how pointless that was.
A pile of Basil’s effects laid haphazardly in the centre of the room, the draft from the door knocking a sketchbook from the top and sending pages gliding across the floor. Henry was standing at his sideboard, arranging flowers in a wide variety of vases that were new to the room. There were hyacinths in blue and white, large sunflowers, and white lilies - and that was only what Basil was able to see. The vases were dazzling in their own right, both blue china and cut glass accented with gold. It was the way the Parisian studio Basil kept in his dreams was decorated, and the way Northern mothers certainly did not let their sons decorate their rooms.
“What are you doing to my sideboard, Henry?!” he asked, uselessly gesturing with his hands. The man himself turned around,
“First, I told you to call me Harry, second, it’s now our sideboard, and third, I’m fixing your unfortunate decorating choices - or rather, lack of,” Henry explained, sighing. He raised his eyebrow as if to ask “anything more?” before turning back to the sideboard and pulling a strange statue - a nymph? - out of a box and silently debating over where to put it.
“No!” Basil said, rushing over and dislodging several more papers from the heap in his haste. When he arrived, he took a moment to look at the display and was promptly distracted.
Among all the expensive trinkets and next to the flowers was a photograph of Henry, perched on a settee beside a girl holding a doll. Although she was both the wrong sex and much younger, there was a striking resemblance to Henry in her (front tooth-less) grin and heavy-lidded eyes.
“Gwen,” Henry answered, seeing the question in Basil’s eyes. “She is the only one of my siblings that I would mourn, which is just as well seeing as the rest of them have already had dreadful little funerals. She insisted I bring the photograph with me to Oxford, and little girls will act in a way befitting the Old Testament should you not obey their every whim and fancy.”
Having no way to even begin replying to a statement like that, Basil blinked and then decided he was going to make this even. He quickly ran over to his trunk, at the foot of his bed in the other room.
He opened the trunk and dug in, past shirts and paints and the set of weights he foolishly thought he would use every day but remained rotting under all the rest of his things. At long last he found it, a cabinet card only slightly battered from its journey. It was hard to believe it had been only two years since his family had posed before a fairytale castle backdrop (his mother’s choice). He felt a momentary pang in his heart at the realisation that he hadn’t seen the faces of his family in over a month. Swallowing, he put away the feeling and jogged back into the sitting room.
“Here,” he said, placing the cabinet card beside Henry’s, pushing away a small porcelain horse in the process. Henry squinted at it and then hummed. Basil was in the centre of the image (always the precious baby son), with his parents above him and four older siblings posed around.
“Your people, then?" Henry asked. "I must say I’m surprised. I expected something more… provincial.”
Basil rolled his eyes. “Of course you would think that, you are going to become a Duke someday. To you I must look like a peasant. I am not, thank you! My family are wealthy, we rent out our farm and have for many years. It is a respectable business.”
Henry looked extremely unimpressed. “My father is a Marquess. Lord is a courtesy title,” He explained, tone as exasperated as it would be if Basil asked him what two plus one was. Oh, Basil just hated him! He didn’t know what to do- really, he didn’t, so he simply stood with his arms folded as Henry looked at him with vague disinterest.
The silence between them dragged on uncomfortably, and Basil wished to jump from his skin. He was granted respite when Henry glanced at the picture once more.
“I have an older brother as well, you know. He is the worst person I know.” he said, checking his nails.
Basil once again had no idea how to reply, but his awkward laugh earned him a smile.
“No, I mean it! Really, he once pushed me out a window, I must explain…”
Basil frowned and scratched out the last few words he had written. He had been battling his essay for hours, attempting to write decent paragraphs but realising that every sentence started with the same words and he had demonstrated the same point three times. How he hated writing! He wished that art school was only painting and drawing like his father thought it was.
He was sharpening his pencil with a small knife when he heard a strange noise from the sitting room. He paused for a moment but didn’t hear anything, and it was only when he resumed his whittling that he heard it again. It was a sort of cawing, shrieking noise, distinctly animal but not something he suspected Henry could produce. Basil quickly stood and walked to the door, opening it and preparing to speak before he learned what exactly was going on and realised he had nothing to say.
A grey bird was perched on Henry’s head, feet digging into his hair and beak nipping at the shell of his ear. Henry looked to not mind, casually flipping the pages of his book with his feet up on an ottoman. Hanging his coat on the hook made some noise, making Henry (and therefore the bird) turn his head to see him.
“Get-out! Get-out!” The bird cawed, making Basil practically jump back into the wall. He would not admit it, but he had thought parrots speaking was something made-up for pirate stories. They really did have voices; awful, grating voices as it turned out.
“Basil! You finished that essay?” an equally grating voice asked. “You really ought to grow out of the idea of taking your schooling seriously, it will turn your hair grey before your graduation.”
“Why is there a bird in my- our room?
“This is my dear Oscar, I was given him for my twelfth birthday. Annoying little bugger, but that’s the only good way to be. He’ll say anything he pleases and does so frequently but he hasn’t the faintest what it means, he only wants reactions.”
“Funny, I’ve recently met a man matching just that description.”
Henry laughed at that, tipping his head back. The bird hopped off and onto the chair back. Basil was having a hard time believing that its squawks were completely random.
“Bastard! Bastard! Funny!”
“Oscar, you little-” Henry said, attempting to flick the parrot with his fingers but failing as it ruffled its wings and flew away.
“Quiet down, Oscar!” the bird squawked. It had landed on the top of a mirror and was now seemingly content silently picking at its feathers. Basil was getting the sense that its “speech” was simply repeating what was said to it in the past. He supposed the old adage about dog owners growing to look like their pet may extend into birds and behaviors.
“Why wasn’t it here before now?” Basil asked, a bit more disoriented than when he came in but still just as confused.
“I thought you’d be angry - well, more angry than you already were - if I brought a pet, so I left him with my friend until I had properly settled and it would be too much of a bother to kick me out. Will you prove me incorrect?”
Basil had never desired any sort of violence but he wished quite badly to hit Henry or scream or perhaps do both. Instead he huffed and closed the door behind him.
“If that thing makes any noise at night, I’m going to bring in a cat,” Basil warned, sitting down in the farthest chair from Henry and the- the creature.
“Don't worry, he has to sleep too,” Henry said, turning his head further to glare at Oscar. “It takes rest to be so bothersome! ”
Basil couldn’t believe that he now had a flatmate who argued with a bird. Truly, this was the worst week of his life. Henry, however, seemed to not be all that bothered. After a sigh, Henry put his book face down on his knee, took a sip of his drink, and smiled languidly.
“Come, Baz, talk with me,” he said. “I have been waiting to talk with you- don't make that face, you aren’t in the headmaster’s office to be birched, I only want someone to listen to me rant about the awful ‘play’ - if it can be called that - I saw yesterday. You would not believe it.”
Basil blinked his eyes open, fresh from a dream in which his essay on 17th-century painting techniques came alive and chased him about the room. It was pitch dark and the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the mantle. It was too dark to read it, but he knew that it must have been very late as he had only fallen asleep after midnight.
As he was wondering why he was now awake, there was a crash in the corner of the room and Basil’s now-adjusted eyes saw a shadowy figure standing above a fallen coat rack and walking towards him. He nearly screamed before remembering that he did, in fact, have another person residing in his rooms. Unfortunately.
“Henry!” he hissed, sitting up onto his elbows.
“Oh!” Henry answered, far too loud for this hour. Basil would have covered his ears if he had the energy to do anything. “I forgot you live here too, so funny, I was talking about you tonight, actually, lots to ah… say, I suppose, distracted me from the all of the…”
“What happened?” Basil asked, only half wishing to hear the answer.
“Oh, it’s- it is nothing,” Henry slurred, drawing out the G sound for longer than a sober man could even think up. “For you to worry about, my little Baz! I have many problems that I will not explain to you because… Spheres of influence and all that, you know… The mystery of a… Well, I can’t be fucked, really. Night-night, dear!”
With that, Henry flopped onto his bed with a dull thump and curled up against his pillow, still fully clothed.
Basil was not interested in being kind to his new flat-mate, but he was equally as uninterested in hearing him whine and moan tomorrow morning, and so he quietly rose to his feet and walked over to Henry’s bed. The man was unsurprisingly already asleep, snoring lightly, but Basil was still careful as he removed his hat and cane from the sheets and placed them beside the bed: the former because it would surely be crushed and the latter because no one wished to sleep on a wooden stick all night.
He took just a moment to watch Henry, awkwardly curled on the mattress and breathing deeply. His eyelids were shut (whyever was Basil thinking about their softness?) and his delicate yet strong features were gently silhouetted in moonlight. A feeling rose in Basil’s chest – something warm and dancing and rising – that he did not wish to examine. He took one last look, filling himself with that unknown emotion, before turning back to his own bed.