The List

The picture stares at him with a natural smile that unnerves him slightly. He looks back at Richmond, whose smile seems a little forced, but which, Moss reasons, must be far less forced than the one on the screen. It's odd, he thinks, how alike the two look, for Richmond has a very distinctive face, even without his pallor, all angles and eyeballs.

He doesn't like this character. The sanguine complexion, the sandy blonde spikes, the bright blue of the eyes. They seem out of place. He must have grown used to the black-and-white vampire in the last five years.

"Can you change it?" Richmond asks.

"Yes, the protection on the site isn't very advanced, I should be able to get in within a few minutes," Moss replies, not looking at the goth behind him, not noticing the smile on his face suddenly becoming much more natural, but genuinely natural this time. Richmond doesn't smile when he doesn't need to any more. He doesn't see the point. So when he smiles, you know he means it.

Exactly what Moss does to hack into the site, Richmond isn't sure. He only understands the basics, what he could teach himself. When he first came down to the basement when he was imprisoned, he became too afraid to ask about anything his new function entailed, and so just got by without learning. It eventually led to a painful shyness that he was sure would make him unrecognisable to his former friends and family. Not that he ever wanted to see them again. That was why he had come to Moss, after five years of mistrust finally come to an end, with his proposition.

"There you go, all done," Moss announces, smiling proudly.

So this was it then. Soon enough his family would check to find one less name on the Missing Persons Register. No more worrying. No more false hope that he might one day come back.

Richmond Avenal has been found dead on the fourteenth of June 2007. Cause of death has been confirmed as suicide.

He reads it again. And again. And again.

He's dead, then.

Moss notices a mascara-stained tear rolling down Richmond's face, under his chin and down to his neck, leaving a watery black trail on his cheek. He doesn't know what to do. After all he heard, right from the start, about depression, morbidity, unrest, this is the first time he's seen Richmond cry.

Hesitantly, he lifts a hand, and rests it nervously on Richmond's shoulder, wondering if this is right. When Richmond doesn't move, he joins his other hand with Richmond's other shoulder, eventually finding the courage to draw him closer into an embrace. Richmond's arms cross around him, and they stay there for a moment or two, before pulling apart.

"Thank you," Richmond whispers, his voice cracking. He takes a fifty from his pocket and passes it to Moss.

Moss looks at it. "Keep it," he says. "I don't want it."

Richmond smiles, sadly but still genuinely, and this time Moss sees it and smiles back, comforting.

"Thank you," he says again.