Rat

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. 

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."

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.