for Rat

[silenttrainbaby]

It isn't as if Grey has found a sense of peace in the two days since he's seen Rat. He hasn't found the solution, an answer to his existential crisis. But he remembers where Rat lives. And, carrying the cat once again, he finds his way to the building and to the door and he taps his fingers against it. There were flowers on the side of the walk as he'd come here and he plucked them and they are already starting to wilt, even as the cat tries to eat them. Silly cat.

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[plaguedrat]

Aside from the quickly expanding stack of books, there's very little he's done to personalize his apartment. It speaks of his reluctance to accept that he might be here for a long time. As it is, there are barely any cups to drink from and only a few changes of clothes in his closet.

"Here." He passes over a glass of water.

[silenttrainbaby]

Taking the cup, Grey cocks his head to read book titles. Against his chest, the cat's nose is in the air, taking in new smells.

[plaguedrat]

Most of them are classics. The Divine Comedy, The Decameron, the collected poems of Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda. They're neatly ordered except for Shakespeare's plays, moved off the shelf and the volume labeled Tragedies open across the arm of his couch.

"You okay?" He doesn't know what else to ask, to say.

[silenttrainbaby]

He's okay. Grey nods, holding the now-empty cup in his casted hand. Moving to the open book, he peers at the open pages, at the heading on top. Was this what he heard when he was at the door?

[plaguedrat]

"Romeo and Juliet," he explains. "A tragedy of young love doomed by the stars. Or by teenage idiocy. It really depends on how you want to read it."

[silenttrainbaby]

Looking down at the page, Grey finds the words he heard, then reads on, his finger following the words on the page:


ROMEO
101 Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET
102 Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO
103 O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
104 They pray — grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

The words seem nearly foreign.

[plaguedrat]

Rat takes in a deep breath, seeming to shift into another person, wilting and feminine in a way that's natural, not farcical.

"Ay me! O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet." His voice is soft, heavy with the ache of love and conflicted emotion.

"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy."

[silenttrainbaby]

Oh.

Grey shifts easier, settling on the chair to watch. He shifts the cat against his chest, urging claws to be put away.

Love. Is it that strong?

[plaguedrat]

Still acting as a lovelorn Juliet, he disappears, convincingly female as Rat flows away, replaced by his stage persona of Eve.

"Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name!" he pleads as Juliet.

"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name, which is no part of thee take all myself."

[silenttrainbaby]

Without thinking of it, Grey touches the word over his heart, the one covered by the bandage.

Coming together, anew ... is that what this means?

[plaguedrat]

The look on Grey's face gives him pause and Rat forgets to read the next few lines. It's a look for that faraway Gilliam, he thinks, and Rat feels as though he should turn away. It's as if he's witnessing something utterly private.

[silenttrainbaby]

That is the only love Grey has known. It is his only experience. Is this, in this book - he holds it now - is this love, too? A kind of love like that?

A different kind? He raises his head to Rat. Please keep going.

[plaguedrat]

" I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Romeo."

Playing Romeo, the male role, is somehow odder for him. The only men's parts he's taken are Mercutio, Puck, and Ariel and often then he plays them from a place between genders.

"What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, so stumblest on my counsel?" he skips Romeo's next lines, continuing as the lady. "My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?"

[silenttrainbaby]

Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized.

Hope. Love, connected to hope. Oh, Grey feels something lurch in his chest. He's leaning forward now. Love can make someone know what they are. Who they are.

[plaguedrat]

Again, that quelling look. Rat pauses, startling back into himself under Grey' gaze.

"What?"

[silenttrainbaby]

Fingers tap to the page and Grey looks questingly at Rat. Is that what love is? This? As described here? Is that love?

[plaguedrat]

To Rat's mind, it's madness and infatuation, very different indeed from real love. Real love doesn't end with six people dead.

"I don't always know that I believe they're in love, not really...When I'm Juliet onstage, I play it that way..."

[silenttrainbaby]

So, people can think they are in love, but they aren't? Grey's brows knit in question.

[plaguedrat]

"They meet and marry the next day...By the end of the week, some of their dearest friends and family are dead," Rat says, laying his hand flat on the book.

"I don't think real love is so thoughtless."

Hypocrite.

[silenttrainbaby]

No. Grey doesn't want to think it is. He wants to think that life - his life - has meaning.

When Gilliam told him to go forward, Grey went. It was what he did. That wasn't thoughtless.

Grey touches Rat's fingers. What does Rat think love is, then?

[plaguedrat]

Rat stares at their hands, barely touching but still connected.

"Love is blissful. And painful," he says quietly. "And losing it is the worst of all."

[silenttrainbaby]

For once, Grey thinks he knows something Rat doesn't know. He reaches forward and takes Rat's fingers, bringing them to his arm. Die!

That's worse than losing it. Seeing the one you love die is like dying yourself.

[plaguedrat]

"Yeah," he agrees. "It is. It's the worst thing..." He's seen Shion die. He understands.

Then he chose to walk away.

"It makes you realize everything you've ever done to hurt them...Things you can never take back or make up."

[silenttrainbaby]

It means not being able to see his face again, not being able to touch him, to be touched.

Yes, Grey knows that. And he's missed touch so much. Living with Curtis isn't the same.

Grey covers Rat's hand with his casted one on his arm.

[plaguedrat]

Rat looks at him, at the hand on his arm. The last person he touched before coming here was Shion. Now there's someone else. His chest squeezes.

"Yeah."