Too much to believe, too much to deny, you fool me again to quiet my pride

[plaguedrat]

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."

Comments

[pontmercyfriend]

Marius woke up in his own body sometime in the middle of the morning, thankfully. He'd let himself have a few hours to readjust from his child's mentality, wincing at some of the memories (mistaking a stranger for his grandfather, fleeing a cop on the back of Flavia's bicycle, etc) and savoring some of the others (Dorian magically healing his knee, Eleanor being lovely to him, Rat giving him clothes, feeding him, reading to him, etc).

After a lengthy shower and a breakfast he barely tasted, he'd decided to go for a walk. The fresh air would do him good, he thinks, grabbing a light jacket to throw on as he makes his way towards the park.

He's walking at a steady pace, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, when he hears a familiar voice and the blunt sound of an object getting tossed aside.

"Rat?" He calls out, turning the corner to find the other man visibly upset next to some sort of crystal ball. Marius hurries his strides, craving to be at the other man's side. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

[plaguedrat]

"Nothing," Rat said, voice choked and harsh. He kicked the ball away and leaned against a nearby wall, back hunched and shoulders pressed in tight like he could keep Marius out by that alone.

Grey had been his world but now the reality of this place confronted him. He could come back and never know Rat, could fall into someone else's arms and leave Rat behind with his wounds.

Love was pain and folly. He should have never allowed it into his heart once, much less a second or potentially third time.

[pontmercyfriend]

He can tell by the way Rat pronounces 'nothing' that something has, indeed, happened. The other man is visibly upset; his body folds in on itself like an animal trying to shield itself from the edges of a cadge. Marius approaches slowly, taking care to keep some distance between them so as not to seem as though he's encroaching on Rat.

He glances again at the crystal tossed off to the side; such a seemingly innocent object, yet clearly capable of causing much pain, if Rat's expression is anything to go by.

"What did you see?" He asks, quietly. He won't make the man talk if he doesn't want to, but he's not going to leave him alone.

[plaguedrat]

"A reminder," Rat said, scowling. He tried to remember what the old woman had told him. Never sigh over someone because it meant they'd become part of your life. Sentiment was a death sentence, a consignment to his own heartbreak. How could he have forgotten?

"Go away. I should be alone." Had to be alone. Had to keep himself safe. He'd forgotten with Sion and forgotten with Grey and he was in danger of forgetting himself with Marius. Marius who would remember himself soon enough, realign himself to a destiny and a happily ever after with the daughter of Jean Valjean.

He had been so stupid.

[pontmercyfriend]

"Reminder?" He asks, keeping his voice calm and even as he speaks. Rat seems to him as brittle as a branch in the wake of winter; vulnerable, and prone to snapping at any moment. Still, he doesn't back away; instead, he gradually inches closer, tilting his head to gesture the abandoned ball. "And you're certain that what you saw in that is the truth? Not an illusion designed by the city to mess with your head?"

For his own part, his stomach knots every time he so much as looks at the ball; he's heard the rumors, of course. Of stones showing people various possibilities of their fates. So far, he's been able to avoid seeing them for himself. This one, of course, seems to have cornered Rat.

"Do you want to be alone?" He asks, stilling for a moment. He wants to reach out and pull the other man in for a hug; he wants to hold him and keep the loneliness at bay. He doesn't want to cause Rat discomfort; he also wants Rat to know that he's not just going to go away. He knows full well what he feels for Rat. Perhaps, in the Paris he left behind, some version of himself is with Cosette - married to her by now, probably. But himself, now - he isn't that person, and he's not going to forget Rat anytime soon, on a whim or otherwise.

[plaguedrat]

"I have to be," he said darkly, eying Marius with a deep suspicion now. "You'll remember yourself soon enough." Or else be ruined by him and then leave. Rats may have been social vermin, but he was a solitary man for his own safety. Who did he think he was kidding? It had been so reckless, letting someone else in, only to realize what his future was.

Rat laughed at him, angry and barking. "It's all such a joke, you and me. Who are we trying to fool? A gentleman, a veritable aristocrat, and who am I?" Vermin. Garbage. Someone who'd seen the worst of the world and done the worst.

"Grey would have left. Eventually."

[pontmercyfriend]

"No one should have to be alone," Marius says. Solitude, he knows, is its own poison; he once clung to it, in protest against his grandfather and as a way to hide from the rest of the world. It proves a solid defense, sure enough, for a time. But even the most well-built defenses crack. He wishes he could get Rat to see that. "Remember myself? What about myself do I have to remember? I know who I am." Who he is is leaning against the wall next to Rat. And he's not going to leave, even as the man's next words sting.

"People," he replies, voice quiet. "We're two, lonely people who found solace in each other. I didn't think we were trying to fool anyone."

He folds his arms across his chest as he keeps his gaze on Rat. "You know that for certain?"

[plaguedrat]

"Because I saw him!" Rat shouted, angry and wounded, determined to push Marius far away before he could be hurt again. "I saw him in this. Coming back and crawling into bed with his old leader, not...not giving a fuck about me!" He tried to ignore the hot tears pricking through.

"And why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he go back to a strong, scarred leader!?"

[pontmercyfriend]

Likely, Rat will actually shove him away for what he's about to do. Or punch him. Or both. But Marius, once he catches the glimmer of tears fighting their way through on Rat's face, doesn't pause to consider the consequences. He reaches forward and grasps him by the face, his touch warm, but firm.

"This damn city likes to hurt us like this all the time," he says, never tearing his eyes away from Rat. "It likes to torment us with possibilities, like with these crystal balls, or it likes to remind us of our past by giving us objects from it."

"That stone showed you what it wanted you to see," he says. "That doesn't make it the truth."

[manwiththeknife]

"Jesus," Curtis said, ducking out of the way of the stone as it sailed his head. It landed in the grass, unharmed.

"What the hell's the matter with you?"

He hadn't seen a lot of the kid, since Grey had vanished. In all that time, it looked like his mood hadn't improved a hell of a lot.

[plaguedrat]

"You," Rat said, gritting his teeth. The sight of Curtis when Rat had just seen him, just watched Curtis pin Grey to a bed and fuck him.

"Did you ever sleep with Grey!?"

[manwiththeknife]

"Did I what?" Curtis said, because whatever he'd expected out of Rat's mouth, it hadn't been that.

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

[plaguedrat]

"He looked pretty fucking familiar with you in this," Rat said. He pointed viciously toward the stone. "Like he was used to crawling into your bed. Like he could come back and never remember me at all because he knows you."

[manwiththeknife]

"Of course he knows me. He's known me his whole life," Curtis said, and if he was avoiding the real question, it was only because it pissed him off, being asked in the first place.

"And I'm not sure it's any of your fucking business, Rat. You might want to back off."

[plaguedrat]

"Then answer the fucking question. Tell me that none of that was real. That he would never crawl into your bed, if he came back. That you wouldn't fuck him just because you could," Rat snarled, pointing an accusatory finger first at Curtis and then at the orb again.

[manwiththeknife]

"I never fucked him just because I could," Curtis snarled, angry and feeling dangerous, for the first time since he'd lost his arm.

"I fucked him because he wanted me to. Because I wanted to. And it's still none of your fucking business."

[plaguedrat]

Rat was feral in that moment, angry and hurting. "And did you here?" he asked, somewhere between viciously angry and deeply afraid, hurt. "Did he...did he go to you when he and I...?" He couldn't finish that sentence.

[backward]

He'd shown her the picture before. The one of — of Grey, she reminded herself, having blocked him as well as she could from her mind. It wasn't that she felt a sense of ownership or possessiveness over those features or that smile. Far from it.

But seeing either always had a tendency of bringing those voices back, forcing Effy to pay attention to every passing sound no matter how small or subtle, down to the shifting of the wind.

She wasn't sure what they said now, as Effy had a glimpse of the image in Rat's stone, but they festered in the curve of her ear, whispering. Hissing. Something was amiss. She watched as the crystal sphere rolled towards her, settling by her feet.

"Why let something that isn't real upset you?" she asked, leaning down to pick up the object. "You know it's shit."

[plaguedrat]

"Because it could be real," he muttered, not expecting her to understand or even to want to. His Grey, her Freddie. Rat couldn't even blame her for wanting to stay a thousand miles away from him. It was the same courtesy he felt owed.

"He never told me. Couldn't have told me."

[backward]

"Love isn't exactly perfect, is it?" Effy murmured, her voice almost dull as she continued to stare down at the stone in her hand, watching it shift from image to image, still stuck for now on Rat's life. She wondered what it would show if it shifted in focus to her own. Whether or not it'd still be that face, paired with someone else, fixed in a different location.

Other than that, not much needed to change.

"So if it was real, would that make what you had with him mean any less?"

[plaguedrat]

"It would mean he wanted to fuck someone else. That maybe he already did..." Rat's voice closed up and he took his phone out of his pocket. It took all his strength not to hurl the stupid thing into the sidewalk until it smashed.

But even he knew he'd regret.

[backward]

"So what if he fucked someone else? More likely that the city's fucking with you, but... not like fucking someone else means that you love them," Effy said quietly, raking her fingers through her hair, remembering that moment when the world had stopped spinning and she could look at her life with alarming clarity. Remembering the very moment she realized she couldn't stay with Cook.

Remembering.

"And even if you do, the idea that we can only love one person is shit. That's not how it works. You can be in love and still fall in love with someone else," she added, her voice growing softer still.

[plaguedrat]

"He..." Rat pressed a hand to his chest where Grey had tattooed Rat's name. "We agreed. Just him. Just me..." And if he hadn't? If the boy he'd fallen in love with had been a lie.

"He wasn't...God damn it. He wasn't. That's not what we were."

[backward]

"Then don't let a fucking crystal ball change what you know," Effy suggested, arching a brow. She didn't know enough about either man to guess or assume what had happened. Frankly, she knew from experience that even those who seemed the most innocent could easily give into temptation.

But she also couldn't help but think that there was nothing to gain now from Rat assuming the worst. Nothing to gain from the doubt and suspicion.

And that made her hold her ground.

"Do you really want to be that person? Do you trust him or not? It's that simple."

[plaguedrat]

"You make it sound so damn easy," Rat said, smirking at her despite how painful the idea was. Just walk away from the possibilities and cherish Grey for who he'd been. Would it ever keep him from wondering?

"I trusted him completely. With my life. And now he's gone. If he comes back, he won't remember me...That's the worst part."

No matter what happened, he had lost Grey. He only had the memory.