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Leave mail for Rat here.

"Rat here. I probably don't have this on me. Leave a message."

August 2014
A weary Rat arrives in Darrow and meets Aurora, Cissie, Esther, Shikamaru, and Toshiko Sato. Later, he sneaks around the Matsuri. Searching for medical supplies, Rat meets Curtis Everett.

September 2014
Rat finds the one thing that does make him happy and visits New Leaf Used Books with Aurora, Damon, Eden, John, Shikamaru, and Yona. That night, he meets Marius Pontmercy and has a mini fan-attack at Tintern Abbey. Later, he meets Grey and has no idea what's coming. Having met all of the train's refugees, he chats with Curtis again at the beach. On the 19th, he celebrates his eighteenth birthday with Grey, Aurora, and Daphne. Then he helps Grey rescue a cat and they meet again at the library. It's not a date. Grey comes over. Also not a date.

October 2014
Starts off with a bang when Grey, Curtis, Tara Knowles, Damon, Jennifer Mason, and Aurora find Rat shrunk down to the age when he was first burned. A skittish Rat and Zuko trade burn stories. But what are friends for? Grey and Daphne meet him for bao. Rat returns to his normal age. Grey is very glad. And he has the misfortune of being home when Sibyl starts a fire. Good thing an excited Grey is a good distraction. Later, he's a guest at the Kennish-Vasquez birthday.

It should have been a quick stop. All Rat had wanted was to pick up a new tag for Polyphemus' collar with his new address because like hell would he let Grey's cat be at risk of straying again. Polyphemus had started life as a stray and lost an eye and Grey had loved the damn thing and Rat, begrudgingly, had loved him too.

If he'd been anything like his old self, Rat's sentimentality would have ended there.

Waiting for the tag to print, he'd been drawn to a tank with a small colony of female mice. First one, then two, then five had crawled out of a hiding spot and pressed their little paws against the glass window. Rat had been ready to turn away until he heard a clerk mention that one of the snakes needed feeding.

And then he'd been an idiot.

The result of the evening has Rat walking home from the pet store carrying a plastic travel tank containing five mice as he rehearses an explanation to Marius in his head. Mostly what crosses through his head is "so much for the heartless Demon of the West District." When did he become like this? He wants to blame the city but he knows it started long ago when an escaping criminal befriended another boy in Cronos.

Letting the ideas roll through his head, Rat keeps walking.

"Can I think about it and call you back?" Rat looked at the script in front of him as well as the drafted contract. The casting agency's offer was far more than he'd expected, especially for an 'out-of-towner' and Rat needed the money more than he was actually willing to admit. The city stipend paid his bills bu. Marius but Rat had a little more pride than that.

"Okay, Mr. Nezumi," the casting agent said, looking a little less than pleased with it. Rat felt strange being addressed as a Mister anything, much less a stage name he'd made up because he didn't have a real last name.

Besides all that he liked working. Television was a new prospect and it wasn't the stage, but there were plenty of actresses here. They didn't need to put a dainty man in a dress and hope the audience was forgiving the way they had in the West District. There was only so much call for Shakespeare too. Rat had to either diversify or embrace his niche.

But playing an effete gay secondary character, a drag queen? Rat wasn't sure about the script. On paper, it wasn't much of a part or even much of a show. It was a miniseries, apparently, with hope for renewal as a full time show. Dark stuff, they promised. Very edgy. Rat wasn't impressed, but he was hungry and he needed work.

"I'll call you first thing in the morning with my decision," Rat said, letting himself out through the lobby.

continued

His feelings, his wants all crystallized into one powerful certainty. If Marius was willing to give, so was Rat. Kissing, sex, it didn't matter so long as they stayed close. Maybe this was a fleeting thing, but it almost didn't matter if it lasted a month or a thousand years. After that orb had filled him with doubt, he needed to forget, to find something good in today.

"If you want me to stop, for any reason, say so," he said, turning to drop kisses on his throat and the juncture of his shoulder. If Marius did not stop him, Rat was too tempted to nudge Marius into bed, to make love. He needed so deeply.

He'd stubbornly avoided the city's latest mischief. Any glimmer of glass or crystal had sent him walking in the opposite direction, determined not to get involved. Didn't want to see his future, didn't trust destiny or fate or any preconceived future.

But lately it seemed as though the damn things were following him. The more he walked away, the more Rat found the glinting spheres in his other directions. Apparently, they had a message for him.

"Fuck you," he muttered, even as scooped the stone into his palm.

Grey. Grey back but his rat tattoo nowhere to be seen. Grey who lounged by Curtis, exchanging lazy kisses with the devotion he used to think he would enjoy forever. Now he had no interest, no memory of Rat. All he wanted was Curtis.

Curtis pinning Grey to the bed with his good arm, forearm across his shoulder blades, marking him up with bites. Kisses. Fucking him.

Rat, unloved, alone.

Snarling, Rat threw the crystal aside. "It's not real."

Rat laughed, low and throaty, before letting the sound get swallowed up in the kiss. His hips pressed down against Marius', not quite grinding so much as making him aware of their closeness, the pressure. Skin touched skin, both of them lean and warm. It wasn't the same as Grey, there was no replacing him. Rat was fully aware that it was Marius he was kissing, that it was Marius who was filling him with need.

"I won't scare you."

As he walks with Grey into their bedroom, Rat reflects that he doesn't think it actually does make a difference. Like they said before, he loves Grey and Grey loves him and whether or not he speaks doesn't change that. It'll be fun to find out what sounds he can coax from Grey, but that won't make the sex inherently better. It'll still just be them when it comes down to it.

That's all he wants.

Smiling, Rat peels off his shirt and nudges Grey into bed.

It's that department store dressing room all over again. Rat grabs Grey's hand and grins wickedly, sneaking with him to the nearest empty space they can squeeze into.

He's still uncertain of how he let himself be convinced to do this, but it puts money in his wallet and it keeps him from being smoked out of his own apartment. That doesn't mean Rat has to play nice; hell, he's hoping that Sybil will even tire of him if he plays it cranky. So far though, it's done little to dissuade her from showing up.

Maybe he's getting soft on people. Shion's fault, he thinks. Once you've let someone in, it's all to hell after that.

Sighing and forcing those thoughts aside, he sets out the ingredients on his counter. A raw chicken, onions, garlic, thyme, plus a box of chicken stock and risotto. To him, they're idiot proof dishes.

Also it uses up some of the several dozen boxes of chicken stock that he looted from the grocery stores.

He's found a kind of happiness here; Rat doesn't take it for granted. People are...better here than in the West District or No. 6. He's seen them be kind in ways he's never expected. He knows this isn't necessarily an evil or bad place.

But it's still a city that stole him against his will with no way out. It's not something that sits comfortably with him, the restriction, the not knowing. He worries he'll forget that--too caught up in the distractions and pleasures of the city--and give up on himself. It's what drove him to the library today, bringing home books on Darrow's history and cartography. There's got to be something in here that will answer his questions.

If not...who knows.

So he sits on his couch, the books spread open across the coffee table.

"In brief, to set the needless process by, how I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd. How he refell'd me, and how I replied...Damn...that's..."

Rat sighs and adjusts his posture in the mirror, trying to capture Isabella's conflict, her desperation, her guilt. He hates admitting it, the idea that after only two months he might be settling by looking for work. But a proud soul often means an empty stomach and he's nothing if not practical. There are few jobs that he's suited to perform and equally few he's willing to submit to without being desperate.

So he stands in front of a mirror, wearing a thrifted dress that he's pinned to flatter and diguise his figure. A little makeup, expertly applied, and he's transformed into Eve again.

For two months, Rat has done his best to avoid cooking meals. To him, it marks acceptance giving in to the form of the city and letting the apartment it provided become his home. Grey's presence has changed that rule. It's why he's bought carrots, potatoes, a round of beef, stock wine, and spices. For Grey.

Cooking for himself, letting this place be any kind of permanent? Rat can't do that. For Grey, though, he can.

The seventh day has come and gone. Despite others' reassurances that these things end, Rat's starting to despair he'll ever look his own age again. He'd gone to bed that night, still in the shape of his five-year-old self. The burns had still ached and sleep had been hard.

Drifting out of uneasy dreams, the first thing he notices is the lack of pain. Blinking his eyes open, Rat sees the hand that's half under the pillow. It's not a pudgy toddler's hand but that of an eighteen-year-old man. His own hands, his real body.

Rat sits up quickly, pleased that he doesn't have to stand gingerly. He swings long legs over the edge and stands up, hurrying to dress.

He's always preferred to own his books, but his refusal to seek out work and forge any real ties to the city have forced him to budget, to compromise. It's what takes him to the public library today. Signing up for a library card is different, he tries to convince himself. It's not as if it requires money, nor does he have to maintain it. It's different.

It's netted him a thick stack of books that he's negotiating into a bag while he sits on the steps. The acetate-bound copy of The Odyssey rests on his knees, the one he plans to read first.

Perhaps he's like Odysseus, trapped for years on an island and prolonging his foolish journey.

He hates his cell phone, hates carrying it. It reminds him too much of the ID bracelets in No. 6 that the citizens had worn without complaint, letting the city track and own them. He barely turns it on, ever, but today he checks it and frowns, noticing the date.

September 19.

He's eighteen today.

In some cultures, that means he's a man grown, though he's been one for years it seems.

Shion would have called it a momentous occasion and put together something sentimental. Rat finds himself feeling hollow for that lack, which is stupid and weak. He doesn't know if he has the right to long for Shion, not when Rat was the one who chose to leave. But miss Shion he does and that, more than anything else, is what sends him to a local bakery to buy a small cake and then to the bookstore for a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.