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.