Valiant wasn't home, blast it. Henry had rapped almost tentatively on his door, fancying spending a little time on this relatively empty Saturday with his friend, but he was out. Just like him, probably doing still something else with Fiona. And to think that all the time Valiant was spending with her wouldn't matter in a day or so.
But perhaps Henry was contradicting himself- after all, he knew full well that had Valiant been available for him to spend time with, something would've come to pass that would make Henry change his mind.
So maybe it was better this way.
Henry headed home, passing by the flowing fountain in the square. He opted not to give it a sideways glance. It just reminded him of what had transpired mere weeks ago. They had fancied themselves alone, but Henry had seen them; he'd watched Valiant get down on one knee, he'd watched Fiona's face as his friend had asked the question that he was too far away to hear, but still felt like a slap in the face. For the longest time, he'd considered Valiant's affections for Fiona and Fiona's affections for Valiant likewise to be a temporary thing. Even as the once-newborn bond between them had hardened into some kind of certainty, Henry still tried to tell himself that nothing was forever.
He didn't even know what he was trying to tell himself anymore. Everything he decided was certain crumbled away to be replaced by a new belief almost overnight. After Valiant's proposal Henry had mentally berated himself for feeling so jealous, told himself that he'd just leave his friends alone and accept his role as just their friend as gracefully as possible. The next day, he was formulating a plot in his head to quickly and seamlessly split the two up, just in case. The next day after that, he'd gone to hire a forger, and he was moving full speed ahead because he just couldn't take it anymore. Going home alone to an empty room at night, seeing Valiant and Fiona kiss, hearing Fiona's voice from what felt like miles away when she spoke to him- all of it was too much to bear. Henry began to feel that needing this, needing Fiona, as badly as he did made everything right. And so things were arranged.
In two days, the forger he'd hired, a prisoner known as 246014, would be finished with his work. And Henry then would find a way to pass off this document to Valiant- secretly, so as not to call any attention to himself, but so that Valiant would surely run across it. He had one idea, but it felt wrong. It involved stealing something that he knew was in Fiona's house at the present moment, involved taking something from her when she wasn't looking. It was a locket of hers, a pretty thing that Valiant had given her some time ago. It felt wrong taking it, but what choice did he have? Valiant would certainly take note if a gift he'd given his lover suddenly turned up back at his home.
So he brushed away the guilt, just as he tried to brush away the guilt he felt about what he was planning to do to Valiant. Already, he'd started to create a thick wall around his heart of not caring, a barrier that was supposed to stop him from hurting when his friend was gone. But this barrier failed him whenever he was with Valiant. He could see only his mild, unsuspecting brown eyes, and the sheer innocence of intention written on his face- the look of someone who themselves had done nothing wrong. Henry could picture only the affable, even-tempered, trusting if somewhat naive and pliable person that Valiant was, and then the guilt would start to overwhelm him again.
Was that why, then, that he had wanted to see him again today? Was the rational part of his mind trying to use his friend as a foothold to climb up out of the mad turmoil that had been guiding him in the past weeks? He didn't know.
He made it home and unlocked his door, heading inside, and wondered what his friends were doing at the moment, and when he'd be able to retrieve the locket.