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Richard Papen is someone who hides beneath everything that surrounds him. He blends into the crowd; he smiles in a just pathetic and sweet enough way that you don’t think anything of him, except for harmless. His eyes are a cool toned brown with thin strands of honeysuckle highlights in them, he has barely visible freckles on the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, the skin that covers his body is clear and darker than any other in the greek class. Bunny and Francis make jibes about his Californian nature, about how obvious it is that he’s from the sunny west when he’s surrounded by the pale skin of the classics department.
He’s tall and thin, there are sharp angles in his muscles that Henry notices during long days at Francis’ aunts home. The soft, smooth skin under his eyes are dark and sunken near constantly. His lips are always bitten red. His hair is dark and curly, it looks soft to the touch, it’s messy when he wakes up, it shines bronze in the sun. He’s younger than everyone else, only nineteen, and he seems so innocent. A little, lovable lamb with soft skin and weak knees.
At first he hardly paid any attention to Richard. He saw the softness of him and didn’t care much for it. He wrote him off as someone that Francis would have more interest in. Gradually he felt more fond of him; the nights and early mornings where they were the only two awake. He likes the way Richard stares at him, open, and attentive to every word he says. He likes the long stretch of limbs that make up Richards body when he lazes around, soaking up Henry’s voice like the sun. He likes the crisp white of the shirts the other members of the class gift him against his tan skin. He reminds Henry of Alcibiades, the young beautiful lover of Socrates. The beloved and the lover, as he speaks in low fevered greek he wonders if Socrates thought of Alcibiades the same way he thought of Richard during those beginning months.
Then everything goes wrong, things become needlessly convoluted. The farmer dies, Bunny starts to threaten and Richard is a lovely fragile sunflower that he no longer has time to water.
He doesn’t start to see the small marks of darkness that hide behind the facade of a fawn that Richard creates until he’s back from Italy. Richard is like a phantom, he is everywhere and nowhere all at once. Henry looks for him all over campus, searching rooms, trying to find the whisper of him in hallways and by closed dorm rooms. Sometimes he can see the faint image of Richards body leaving a room while he enters but he doesn’t know if it is a mirage or not. Richard is young, beautiful, unblemished, soft and innocent. He is a pale, pure, little lamb and yet he hides in shadows like he has lived in their darkness his entire life.
When he finally finds Richard he’s bleeding from his head, his honeysuckle eyes are glassy, skin grey and there is a small smile on his lips. It’s a sardonic smile, one that Richard gives to many people, has given to him multiple times. And yet, when Henry sees it now, he sees the bitterness that lays underneath it, sees the cruelty that is pinched back beneath his canines. It is a smile that is worn by someone craving violence; someone who wants to see the small beautiful destructions that can be manufactured by people. Richard collapses and Henry takes him to the hospital. Stays by his side while he heals from the intense hypothermia he experienced. He curses himself for not noticing the beautiful cruelty earlier, for not seeing the talons and teeth that Richard hides expertly. He’s sure that Richard could confess to murder and people would still believe his innocence with how well he conceals himself. While he sips shitty hospital coffee he stays at Richards bedside.
He invites Richard to stay with him, he practically demands it. While they are living together he starts seeing the similarities that he hadn’t noticed before. Richard has a odd code of honor that he lives by; it doesn’t stop him from behaving in an immoral way but it stops him from being the first person to take a bite of food, stops him asking for money from his friends. Richard enjoys cruelty and he dislikes his enjoyment of it. He sees it in his eyes whenever he talks briefly about Poovey or the other girls who have fallen too deceptively soft eyes. He sees it every time Richard looks at roadkill or whatever poor dead animal they pass during everyday life. He stares at it; his eyes, which Henry thought of as innocent, are a void on his face, he doesn’t look away until they pass it; the cruelty, the morbid curiosity, the small, sickly enjoyment, lingers underneath his skin and coats his insides like a thick paint.
The biggest similarity he sees is the dead look in Richards eyes that appears when he thinks no one is watching him. He is stuck in the same tedious cycle of life, breathing but not feeling it. When he sees a pretty girl touch Richards arm he wonders if he even feels it, or if everything around him comes to him through a foggy daze. When he sees Richard he sees the same life he was living before he found the farmers dead body, before he took a breath and could feel the air rush into his lungs.
Living with Richard is far nicer than he wants to admit. He sees Richards thin, weak body, that still shakes far too much whenever the fans run too much, and he buys groceries to make meals that he never bothers to make for himself. He makes simple meals, and while he cooks Richard sips wine, plays music quietly from Henrys record player and insists quietly that he helps do something. They start going to the store together, Richard checks each fresh vegetable they buy and attempts to find the freshest ones, his nimble hands cradle everything he holds softly, his fingers prod at the fruits bruises with divine attentiveness. Richard drags him over to the frozen food section and makes Henry buy a box of uncrustable sandwiches, he laughs when he sees Henry’s face cringe when he first takes a bite.
Henry thinks its stupid, Julian would be disappointed with the plebeian things that Henry has started to enjoy with Richard. Yet he can’t bring himself to stop. With Richard Henry feels embarrassingly, stupidly, weakly human. With Richard all he is, is a young man who stumbles around with his lovely, sharp friend and nothing more. He touches Richards arm and he jumps, he can see the goosebumps rise on his skin, the embarrassed spark that comes to his eyes, the rosy flush that runs underneath the apples of his cheeks and he knows that Richard can feel him. Henry can dissolve the saran wrap that separates Richard from everyone else like his hands are made of acetone.
He learns that Richard reads constantly, almost as much as Henry. Books with stupid covers and dumb titles, books in Henrys shelf that are more worn down and loved than others, books about Platos forms, about french absurdism, art movements, bird migrational patterns, music composition, magazine articles written for teenage girls, bodice rippers from grocery stores in small towns that Henry wants to stare at incredulously. Richard reads everything he can get his hands on like he has been starved of literature everyday of his life.
The only time Richard doesn’t read is when Henry is talking to him. That’s the only thing that doesn’t change about Richard. He stills soaks up Henrys words like he’s the sun. He still listens to Henry; both up before the sun, as he rambles in greek. Half of the things he says might not make any sense at all, sometimes he finds himself having stopped on accident, being distracted by Richards warm, cold, dead, alive, corpse next to him.
Henry tries to buy Richard nice, expensive clothes. He accepts them most of the time, but sometimes when he sees the price of the clothes he looks at Henry like he has just said that Aristotle taught Socrates. Richard takes him to a thrift store. He makes Henry try on itchy tweed jackets, ridiculous colorful button ups, a bright green hat from a Saint Patricks Day years ago. Henry makes Richard try on a dress. It’s long, cream colored with small red, pink and purple flowers on it and short sleeves. Richard takes off his white button down in the dressing room and slips the dress on over his grey trousers. When he comes out Henry was excepting him to look gangly and ridiculous. He does, his arms are long and twisted, his chest doesn’t fill out the dress the way a woman’ would and the fabric gaps, but all it does is fill Henrys chest with an unbearably fondness.
When Bunny and the rest of the greek class come back he wants to bludgeon their skulls in and tell them to leave. Richard and Henry have created a balance and the others will ruin it. Camilla with her beauty, Francis with his sharp gaze and jealousy, Charles with his alcoholism and fear, Bunny with his complete and utter stupidity. The dorms open up and Richard knows there is something that he is not telling him. One day he packs and Henry stands a few feet behind him, a carefully blank look on his face, he doesn’t stop him, just tells him he can borrow his car.
Bunny gets worse, he targets all of them, but he targets Richard the most. Richard, who too Bunny’ knowledge is completely innocent. Richard excels at balancing on the precocious line between truths and lies, attention and disregard. Bunny’ acute scrutiny throws him off balance like it would any liar. Bunny mocks him, brings attention to his lack of generational wealth. Bunny doesn’t know exactly what Richards financial status is, none of them do. Julian refuses to accept students on financial aid and Hampden is far from inexpensive yet Richard is there with his salvation army jackets and not Hermes ties.
When Richard finds out the truth about the farmer he looks directly in Henrys eyes. Francis is in the room and Richard gasps in shock, looks troubled, sick and concerned at all the right times. But Henry knows Richard now. He is not blind to him like the rest of the group is. Richard learns that he is a murderer and he stares at him straight in the eyes, he doesn’t even blink. Charles dislikes the fact that Richard knows now. He says that Henry is manipulating the poor, innocent boy to be an accomplice in murder. Henry doesn’t think he manipulated Richard that much at all, he had to try harder to get Richard to accept a nice pair of shoes than to get him to cover up a murder and start planning a second.
But Richard is masterful with his lies, no one else can see that he is not a lamb that Henry will tear apart with his wolf teeth. Richard is a raven, he helps Henry hunt, alerts him when trouble is near, leads him to dead animals to feast on. Henry, in return, keeps him feed, keeps his life out of the dull and forever lasting monotony that drains everything away from you. It’s a symbiotic relationship, mutually beneficial, except everyone thinks that the sick joy Richard gets from it is misery. Henry knows better, he knows Richard better.
Bunny isn’t dead yet, but everyone wants him to be. They all just ate dinner at Henrys apartment, a delicious meal that the twins brought, it’s raining outside and Richard looks at it with disdain. Henry doesn’t want him to walk in the rain, doesn’t want him to get soaking wet and cold, doesn’t want to think of his body grey, icy and shivering.
“You could stay.” He says to him.
Richard turns away from the window, “Oh no, it’s fine.” he smiles lightly, “I’ll be back to the dorms in 15 minutes, it’s just a small nuisance.”
“You should stay,” He turns to Richard, faces him fully. “You should stay here, I think you should move in again.”
He expects arguing. Richard saying “Oh no, you don’t have too, you already let me stay for so long!” He expects to have to stand firm and insist, just like last time, if not more so.
Henry looks at him, “Please stay,” he says, he pleads, he begs. He thinks it’s the first time he has ever truly meant those words.
Richard stares at him, eyes wide. They aren’t empty when he looks at Henry, the brown swirls with honeysuckles and his lashes are long and thick like dead vineyard vines, and Henry feels like its the greatest compliment he has ever received.
Richards swallows, nods his head, short, shy and quietly, to a point where Henry doesn’t know if he heard him correctly, says “I’ll stay with you.”