Theme Set #: #01
Theme #: #06 – Lies
# of Words: 1,014
Rating: K
Summary: The night after their first kiss, they contemplate the truths and lies they have come to know.
Authors: Hyorin and Yukari Rin.
Notes: Spoilers for episode 08.
Disclaimer: Romeo x Juliet and related properties belong to William Shakespeare, Gonzo, and related parties.

"Lies"

He doesn't understand.

What he saw, had to have been a mistake, a misconception; there had never been any doubt in his heart of how he saw her. Of what she was to him. Was it just not a night ago that he had confessed their names to each other? That they had not shared what he had never shared between any one before, had they not- Romeo does not like the idea of having any doubt against her now.

She was just Juliet.

His Juliet.

Perhaps it is the dark churning in the racing of his heart- a heart that had gone all too still when he saw her in that man's arms (a man who looked like he knew the meaning of night). Who was that man? If only Romeo's thoughts could stop turning enough to even give way to contemplate that perhaps that man was a relative, a friend, and just one of those things, nothing more or less or else- because to think that that man could be anything else to Juliet- what Romeo was to Juliet-

Cielo flies on smoothly despite Romeo's agitation, his sudden fear, but fear of what? As the quiet observer, who had cowardly came and gone, who was he to judge her? She, a Capulet, she of a name he was never to acknowledge, to never do anything against- even hate (for you cannot hate what is not there, yet his father searched and searched and searched- needing the hate needing to fear) "A lie." He murmurs to himself over and over, not noticing how white his knuckles were as they gripped Cielo's reigns. (How much confrontation should be put into-) Juliet had suffered for more years than the hours he had been with her; had he not said he wanted to no longer allow her to suffer alone, suffer at all? (But what was loneliness in the face of stranger, was that man a stranger? Was he-)

-it would be wrong of him to even consider for one moment that Juliet did not feel for him as he felt for her.

It'd be like-

He closes his eyes agonized, opening them to the night, the wind from motion. Shared feelings could not be a lie.

--

Tybalt's arms have wrapped around her, holding her close, but stiffly. Awkwardly, almost. Nothing like the embrace she and Romeo had shared the previous night. (But that must now be forgotten, she had given him the handkerchief, all debts were paid.)

The tears slide down her cheeks as sobs wrack her slight frame. She cries because she is not strong enough to truly fight yet. She couldn't kill. Why couldn't it have been a lie? Why was a priest, a man supposed to help the people, aiding the Duke? She wouldn't have believed it if Tybalt had not brought her here tonight, at that hour. If she had not seen the money fall from the soldier's hands into his own.

Oh, why did it have to all be true?

She cries in anger at him, and at her own inability. This was the man responsible for Lancelot's death! He deserved to die, and she had sworn to do it. But she had faltered at his words, just like-

Just as every time Romeo spoke to her she wanted to be simply Juliet, and him to be simply Romeo. Cordelia had warned her, everyone had told her how she must lead the revolt against Montague, must reclaim her rightful position.

'Is it truly wrong to love him?' she asks herself as she cries, oblivious to everything around her. Now that he knew for certain who she was, would she have to kill him as well?

She wanted to love him, and if she saw Romeo again she knew she would not be able to be silent, she would not be able to lie to him. The realization only makes her cry harder.

--

Juliet would not lie to him.

There is a difference between not telling the truth and hiding the truth. It's thin, like warm water that comes in contact with the heels of your feet, but still- there is a difference.

He returns to the keep, grateful for Cielo knowing where to go even when Romeo often did not. This place is what he should call home; this place is what his home was. Where did Juliet call home? A house he never saw, a place he'd never enter. (Perhaps that man has entered-) he moves to get down from Cielo but notices something is stuck around the straps of the saddle, he bends sharply to free that captured from its restraints; a crushed iris is what he holds up in the dark, his sweating cold palms. He engulfs the dead flower in a lose fist.

As he had told her their names did not matter, she was Juliet and he was Romeo. The name of Montague, he would never uphold it. It was a name that he would lie about to himself. It was a name he didn't need.

--

Minutes (hours?) pass and she has cried herself dry. She draws away from Tybalt and feels like a child as he stares down at her. "Thank you, for..." she lets her voice trail off as she sighs, looking to the chapel. He asks if she needs a ride home, but she shakes her head no. She needs to be alone right now.

She walks through the streets, half wondering just how many of Tybalt's men are keeping track of her as she goes, half lost in thoughts of Romeo.

How she ends up back at the theatre she doesn't know, but she slinks in silently and changes into her nightgown numbly. She slides under her covers and looks out her window. The moon is full and bright, and she wonders if Romeo is looking at the moon, too. If they cannot be honest with each other, maybe they can be honest to the moon and the stars.