one thing the tsh fandom will do is constantly overlook the significance and also implications of henry and bunny's friendship in favor of relationships like henry and camilla. (and these were all realizations i had while talking to a friend so-)
we never see Bunny directly break down. well, we never see anything period because we're looking through Richard's eyes, and Richard never sees Bunny upset. I don't mean the upset where he's being mean or being a drunk in his dorm, I mean the kind of upset where he's sobbing and yelling out insults and threats and wrestling with Henry on the floor of their palazzo. I'm talking the kind of upset where he's screaming at Henry to stop touching him while crying in his bed.
We only ever hear that fight, and the other one in Rome we just get to hear of it. None of the others ever saw Bunny in that state, and I doubt they knew how the situation even arose. Only Henry did.
Only you know the way that I break.
And matter of fact, nobody saw Henry genuinely angry too. Even when he was dealing with Charles, he wasn't pissed per se, he was just annoyed and more ready to commit his third murder. I can't remember a scene where Henry genuinely loses it with someone he knows well (so, none of his friends). We only hear of him losing his shit with Bunny EXCEPT for the scene with Judy.
You push my buttons in a way nobody else can.
You know that makes me think, again, that him losing his shit at the party had less to do with Judy and more to do with Bunny. Think about it. Why would they be at a party where Bunny is nowhere to be seen? Why wouldn't Bunny, a party animal, be there with them? You'd think he might have invited the others, or at least heard of their intent to go and wanted to join them- but he just wasn't there. Why? What made the perfectly composed, stoic Henry lose his shit over something that, characteristically, shouldn't even annoy him? Who was later established to be the only thing in Henry's life capable of making him snap to the point of losing all self-control and resorting to violence?
That's right.
Bunny.
In every other case of aggressive, intentional, sober violence displayed by Henry, Bunny is the cause, on the receiving end, both times.
Henry and Bunny knew each other too much, way too much, and I'm tired of pretending theirs was not perhaps the most significant relationship in this story. Put aside the fact that the story is literally DRIVEN by them, put aside even the fact that they both are the only ones to die at the end (too much symbolism here kms), but their relationship genuinely is so fucked up and heavy it leaves more questions the more you think about them. So no, I don't think "Camilla was the only one who saw Henry for who he was" just because she was the recipient of his occasional smiles, because Henry was not just the gentle-giant she got to see. Neither do I believe "Richard was on the same frequency as Henry" because they had a shitty childhood (tbh all of them probably did?) and because Henry saved his ass from freezing. Henry was more so his rage and the anger he tried to keep sealed with the rest of himself, a destructive force trying desperately to reign himself in. Yes, he was not a bad person per se, but he was, like Bunny, a ticking time bomb (albeit a much more destructive one).
But even despite the anger and bitterness that later poisoned their relationship, I sometimes like to think of them whilst keeping in mind the fact that Bunny was the only one who could make Henry laugh. And Henry was the only one Bunny directly told about his past/home life. I think of them as freshmen, with Bunny's hair catching the sunlight in his lazy curls as his eyes crinkle and his tone rears back in preparation for a joke Henry doesn't see coming. And Henry, awkward in his detachment, with his nose in a book, trying to keep his lips from quivering up as the awful, stupid joke registers, and then failing to keep the chuckle from slipping through when Bunny's stupidly expectant face wriggles its eyebrows at him.
They were soulmates before they were friends.
And they were friends before they were enemies
