It took Romeo and Julian twenty more lines to get to parting is such sweet sorrow. Kurt felt it, like the pull and snap of a rubber band, holding them together, only for him to wind up backstage beside Bethany again. She watched him with anxious eyes.
"It's different," she said. "From the way Chris does it. Did it. God… I hope he's okay."
He realized she was crying, big messy tears, and felt a stab of guilt for not being more preoccupied with the fact that Chris was in the hospital. As he hugged her, Kurt felt the role of Julian melt away, even as he could hear Noah and Ian on the stage together, performing the next scene.
They moved to the edge of the curtain, far enough downstage that they could watch Romeo petitioning Pastor Laurence. Since even in 2010, only one church in all of Italy sanctioned same-sex marriage, a Methodist sect known as the Waldensians, Bryce had decided "Friar Laurence" would instead be a pastor of that sect. Ian really was a very good actor, giving Romeo patient counsel.
"He must hate Noah," Kurt murmured to Bethany.
"Who, Ian?" She shrugged, standing at his shoulder. "I don't think he thinks about what happened with Noah much. They're not kids anymore."
Romeo, sitting at the pastor's feet, earnestly talking about his heart's dear love, certainly did not look like a kid. Watching him speak about marriage with such passion, such convincing enthusiasm, made Kurt feel dizzy.
"He doesn't want to get married," he said.
"What?"
"Noah. Puck. He—"
He saw Bethany peering at him with such incredulity that he shut his mouth again.
"You asked Puck to marry you?"
"No!" he snapped. "Of course not. I'm going to college next year, and he—he isn't—"
She gestured impatiently. "He isn't what? Isn't going to college?"
"Well, no, he's not, but that's not what I mean."
Kurt didn't say anything. Pastor Laurence was chiding Romeo for forgetting so soon about Reginald: "Young men's love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their… eyes." He gave Romeo a knowing glance.
"You don't think he's in love with you?" Bethany persisted.
"No," Kurt said, "no, he's—he is."
She sounded somewhat mollified. "Yeah, at least you know that. Because he totally is."
"I pray thee, chide not," Romeo protested to Pastor Laurence. "He whom I love now / Doth grace for grace and love for love allow."
I do, thought Kurt, sniffling. He doth. He really, really doth.
"Kurt." She tugged on his arm, staring at him in confusion. "What do you mean? What about Puck?"
What could he tell her? He couldn't say he isn't gay, because that wasn't accurate. And he wasn't about to tell her about Greg and and Noah and therapy, because Noah was a private person, and—
"He doesn't know what he wants," he finally said.
She looked at him as though he'd sprouted wings.
"Uh, yeah," she said emphatically. "He does."
Kurt just shook his head, closing his eyes, as Trinity called, "Act 2 scene 4, places."
"You want to take a walk, clear your head? You don't have to be back until scene 5."
He usually watched scene 4, in which Anthony wove incredible word-pictures with Shakespeare's bawdy puns, but he found himself nodding. "I'm just going to get a drink of water."
It was a long walk out the backstage door and around the building to the front where the water fountain was. He propped open the stage door so he could come back in through the same way, without interrupting the stumblethrough.
Teresa was at the water fountain with Harriet. Kurt paused, out of sight of both girls.
"That's not what I heard," Harriet was saying. "Ian said Puck came back from the city that same morning, and he was covered in blood. He had to throw away his shirt, it was so bad."
"God." Teresa made a face. "I mean, I see his point? Bryce could have given Romeo to Ian, and then Puck would have just played Pastor Laurence. But he gave Puck a second lead instead."
"Exactly." Harriet gave her a pointed look. "He didn't. Leads three years in a row, and this is Ian's last year, don't you think he deserves…"
Kurt backed away, the water fountain forgotten. He felt ill. He had to throw away his shirt, it was so bad. Even in the shade, it was hot. He tripped on a rock on his way back to the propped door. He didn't get any water, and he was going to have to do his longest monologue, and he had to throw away his shirt.
"You're an actor," he whispered to himself, pacing back and forth on the path strewn with wood chips. "Make it look good."
By the time he was back on the stage, tucked into the familiar setting of Julian's courtyard, it was easy to slide back into the scene, reciting his monologue just as he'd practiced it. He bounced Julian's soccer ball against the wall, feeling the rhythm of it. The fear and confusion Kurt harbored about Noah was obscured by Julian's excitement about the prospect of hearing what his nurse had learned from Romeo.
"The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; / In half an hour she promised to return." He spoke to the audience as though they were there, but although often several of the other actors might have been watching from the house, tonight they were all backstage. The house was silent and empty except for Bryce's pencil-scratching.
When his nurse did arrive, it took forever to wheedle the answer out of her, but of course, she finally did smile and told him, "Then hie you hence to Pastor Laurence's house; / There stays a husband to make you a spouse."
He whooped and whirled her around, laughing in relief while she complained and tutted at him, before jogging off in his sneakers to meet Romeo and Pastor Laurence at his humble home.
Ian gazed at Julian blandly as he arrived. It fit his character, but Kurt couldn't help wonder, now that he knew more of Ian's history, how much of it was personal.
"Here comes the lord." He beckoned Julian in, and Julian ran straight past the pastor and into Romeo's arms. Pastor Laurence chuckled. "O, so light a foot / Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint."
"Ah, Julian," Romeo murmured, kissing him again and again, "if the measure of thy joy / Be heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more / To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath / This neighbor air, and let rich music's tongue / Unfold the imagined happiness that both / Receive in either by this dear encounter."
You're the one with the skill to blazon the neighbor air, he wanted to say, but he said his lines instead. None of the actual words mattered. They were together, and they were about to get married. It always felt to Kurt at this point in the story that things might actually turn out okay for Romeo and Julian.
As though the story was actually supposed to end a different way, he thought. He squeezed Romeo's hand.
"Come on," said Pastor Laurence, patting their joined hands. "Let's get you two fuckers hitched."
"Ian," Bryce sighed, as the rest of the cast snickered from the wings.
"Sorry," Ian called back cheerfully.
"I do know it's the end of the act, and we're approaching intermission, but please, let's maintain our focus, shall we?"
"Come, come with me, and we will make short work; / For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone / Till holy church incorporate two in one." Ian made the sign of the cross. "Sanctioned fornication, hallelujah."
"All right, that's enough." Bryce didn't sound even a little bit upset as the cast laughed again. "The stopwatch is still going. All of you, come down here for five minutes of notes, and then you'll get a ten minute break before we go on."
Most of the cast received few notes, which Kurt guessed, from the reactions of the others, was unusual for a stumblethrough. Bryce interspersed a couple of specific requests between largely positive comments before turning to Noah. He settled his clipboard on his lap and gazed at him in silence.
Noah crossed his arms and watched Bryce warily.
"Well?" he finally said.
"What do you suppose I'll be telling you?"
Noah sighed, rolling his eyes. "That I went too far?"
"Perhaps not in the way you might think." Bryce gestured at the stage. "This production of Romeo & Juliet does not deal with the issues of power and politics in quite the same ways that others do. In Shakespeare's time, the idea that two men might be having sex with one another was not nearly as scandalous as one might think. But we have not chosen to set this play in Shakespeare's time. It is present day Italy, before the legalization of civil unions. As we know, homosexual activity has been legal in Italy since the 1890s—and, yet, over 85% of people in Italy are Catholic." He looked at Kurt. "What do you think Julian's Catholic family might think if they found out Julian was gay?"
"I think they already know," said Kurt, "but they're not talking about it."
He inclined his head in agreement. "And Romeo's?"
Kurt hesitated, not looking at Noah. "I think they would be surprised. Because he's… less obvious about it. And I would guess, from their conversation in Act 1 scene 2, that he's been at least pretending to like girls, whereas Julian hasn't even tried to pretend."
"All right, then." He smiled dryly at Noah. "Your interpretation of Romeo is, shall we say, colorful, but thus far I have not seen anything out of character or inappropriate for the setting. Except, as I have already noted, the descent from the balcony."
"Yeah." Noah actually looked a little embarrassed. "I think I just have to practice that to make it less silly."
"There you are. That's all I have. Ten minutes before we continue, and not one moment more." He shooed them away with a wave of his hand before turning to Trinity to discuss their technical notes.
Noah spent the entire intermission deep in conversation with Joel about Tybalt's upcoming scene, describing the choreography with his hands and his body. Kurt managed to get a drink from the fountain without hearing any more distressing gossip about either Chris or Noah.
Grace came to sit next to him as he waited in the wings for act 3 to begin. "What do you think?"
"It's amazing," he said honestly. "To see it all put together like this, all the work everybody's done."
She nodded. "It's intense to do it like this three times in one week, but by the time we get to opening night, it will feel smoother. Less… surprising."
Grace was far more subtle than Bethany, but Kurt knew she meant Noah. He nodded. "I'm not going to assume there won't be surprises. This is his first time ever doing this role. He's not even sure what he's doing yet."
"Of course." She shrugged. "He'll find his way. But you, too. You're having to play off him at the same time you're doing what you've practiced. That's bound to feel confusing."
"Mmm. And what are you doing next year?"
Grace smiled quizzically. "Next year?"
"You're a senior, right? Sounds like you should be going into psychology."
"Maybe social work," she said, grinning. "Or teaching. Not theater. Sorry, but I actually want to have a stable paycheck."
"You'll hear no judgment from me."
Act 3 began with a juicy, vicious argument between Tybalt and Mercutio that ended with both of them dead. Noah and Joel's sword work was once again almost nonexistent, but Noah got most of his lines and followed every one of Trinity's blocking directions. The Capulets ran in at the end to discover Tybalt slain as Romeo escaped, and Quentin as the Prince declared Romeo would be exiled.
Following Julian's bizarre monologue about cutting Romeo into little stars after he died, Julian's nurse reported to Julian of Romeo's plight. Hearing about Romeo's exile sent Julian into a tizzy of confusion about family loyalty. He gave his nurse a ring to deliver to Romeo, who was now hiding at Pastor Laurence's house.
It's not how I wanted to give him a ring, Julian thought unhappily, watching his nurse depart, but it's better than nothing.
That lament with his nurse had always been an intense scene for Kurt to perform, but the scene that followed between Laurence and Romeo was even more heavy. When Romeo raged and cried to Pastor Laurence about the cruel torture of banishment, that death would be preferable to separation from his dearest love, Pastor Laurence accused Romeo of having inappropriately girly feelings. It was the first time Kurt had seen Noah cry on stage. It was harder to take than he would have imagined. Kurt found himself choking up, watching from the wings.
Then Julian's nurse arrived at Lawrence's house and produced Julian's ring. Kurt saw Romeo's eyes widen as he beheld it. Noah's skill was such that everyone in the scene, perhaps in the whole theater, held its breath while he took it in his hand, then kissed it tenderly. The touch of the ring to his lips, even from this distance, felt unquestionably intimate. Kurt squirmed.
"How well my comfort is revived by this," Romeo said hoarsely, blinking away his tears.
The pastor instructed Romeo to go to Julian, to spend the night before escaping to Mantua. Backstage, Kurt climbed the ladder to the balcony in preparation for the next scene, as Lady Alice and Lord Capulet plotted for the Thursday marriage ceremony that would supposedly lift Julian's spirits.
"Kurt."
He paused on the ladder, feeling the way Noah's voice saying his name landed like an impact. A word and a blow. He sighed.
"What's in a name?" he said, trying to joke, but it came out sounding flat.
"You'll be Julian soon enough." Noah touched his heel, and he stopped where he was on the ladder. "Are you pissed at me, or what?"
"I don't know what to think." He rested his head against the rough wood. "I don't know what to ask you."
"No, not—I mean this next scene. How do we play it?"
Kurt looked down at Noah. His mouth was set in a hard line, betraying no emotion. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
"I guess we'll have to see how it goes," Kurt said.
Noah shook his head. "Look, just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."
"If that were true—" Kurt cut himself off before he could finish that statement. "Fine. Chris and I always played it loving. Why, you think I should be pissed?"
"If you want to be consistent, yeah. Julian's been annoyed as shit for the whole play." He gave him a pointed look. "Even if it's not really about Romeo at all."
"Even if it is," Kurt retorted.
Noah followed him up the ladder to the narrow platform inside the door. There was nowhere to stand but directly beside one another. Kurt wasn't about to say Chris always waited on the ladder. Instead, he grasped Noah's face in his hands and kissed him, hard. Noah whimpered a little in surprise, but he didn't hesitate to kiss back.
"We just had a whole night of sex," said Kurt against his cheek. "Probably we did it again after we woke up. Maybe it's the last time we're ever going to see one another, but… why would I be pissed?"
"Because." Noah brushed his lips across Kurt's ear. It made Kurt's legs so shaky, he had to clutch at Noah's arms to keep from falling off the platform. "Because it's never been this good before. Because you're not at all sure it's ever going to be like this again."
"And you're so sure you're the only one feeling that way?" he demanded. He leaned back to look hard into Noah's tense face. "What, you think I don't wonder that every day?"
"You're going to college," Noah said. He sounded exhausted. "The world is full of smart, talented guys who are going to fall in love with you, and wherever you end up, you're going to meet a whole fucking bunch of them."
"Guys who are better for me than you are, is that what you mean?"
Noah turned his head to look out the balcony window. "Out of sight, out of mind, Kurt."
"Right. Because you think it doesn't matter at all that we're married now?"
Noah's eyes flew back to Kurt, wide and shocked. He struggled free from Kurt's grip. "We're not—that's not what—"
"Act 3 scene 4, guys," Trinity called. "Let's go."
Kurt opened the door to the balcony and stepped out. Whatever he was supposed to be doing, he had no idea. He didn't even know who he was. He just wrapped his arms around himself and hung on, staring out into the middle distance of the empty auditorium—until he felt another pair of arms enfold him from behind, and he started to cry.
"Wilt thou be gone?" he said through shaky tears. "It is not yet near day."
Lips kissed his cheek. He turned toward them, seeking comfort from whatever source they might come. How am I to know who is kissing me?
He gestured at an imaginary tree. "It was the nightingale, and not the lark / That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear."
"It was the lark, the herald of the morn, / No nightingale." The voice was soft in his ear. It sounded like Noah, but the words were Romeo's.
Kurt swallowed and shook his head emphatically. "Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I. / It is some meteor that the sun exhales / To be to thee this night a torch-bearer / And light thee on thy way to Mantua." He made an attempt at a smile. "Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone."
Steeling himself, he looked directly into the eyes of the person that stood beside him. They were gentle and calm. He'd seen than look in Noah's eyes before, so many times, and he'd never known for certain who Noah would be the next time he saw him. Supportive or angry or withdrawn—and didn't Kurt love him, every way he was, regardless?
Kurt offered a hopeful smile, and received an encouraging one in return.
"Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death. Come, death, and welcome! Julian wills it so." He hugged Kurt again. "How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day."
Oh. Kurt swallowed. There was his answer. There was no question who had said those words. Noah would never have agreed with him so readily; he would have argued and denied and stuck to his position, no matter how idiotic it was. This person beside him, this Romeo, who was willing to say or do anything to make Julian happy—this wasn't Kurt's Noah. Julian's rage rose up into his throat.
He put both hands on Romeo's chest and gave him a little shove. On the balcony, it had the effect of nearly sending him off the edge. Romeo managed to grasp the railing in time, but he was clearly startled.
"It is, it is!" Kurt said angrily. "Hie hence, be gone, away! / It is the lark that sings so out of tune, / Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps." He crossed his arms and turned his back on Romeo. "O, now be gone; more light and light it grows." The light of truth, at last.
"More light and light," Romeo said, with suspicion; "more dark and dark our woes."
Kurt wanted to turn around and reassure him, but he knew Julian wouldn't do that. Julian was absolutely sure this was all going to be done in an instant, and he would never be happy again—but he sure as shit wasn't going to say that to Romeo. He was going to push Romeo away before being hurt beyond repair.
The nurse put her head through the doorway. "Good sir, your lady mother is coming to your chamber / The day is broke; be wary, look about!"
Julian bowed his head in bitter defeat. "Then, window, let day in… and let life out."
"Farewell?" Romeo paused, watching, but when Julian stayed where he was, he sighed. "Farewell."
He swung his leg over the balcony, preparing to jump down, and paused yet again.
"One kiss, and I'll descend," he pleaded, but Julian shook his head, refusing to kiss him goodbye.
Romeo landed in the center of the picnic table and gazed back up at Julian in sadness.
"I will omit no opportunity / That may convey my greetings, love, to thee."
Julian sniffed in disdain. "Think'st thou we shall ever meet again?" Think again, buddy.
"I doubt it not," Romeo insisted.
"Oh, God," he muttered in disgust. Julian came to the railing, planting both hands, and bared his teeth as he stared down at Romeo's earnest face. The hurt and anger weren't hard to feign now. "I have an ill-divining soul. / Methinks I see thee, now thou art below / As one dead in the bottom of a tomb."
Romeo blanched visibly. He stumbled back, staring up at Julian in shock, and shook his head in denial at the threat.
Julian laughed, taunting. "Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale."
"And trust me, love," Romeo whispered, "in my eye so do you. / Dry sorrow drinks our blood." He turned away, stumbling toward the wall, much as he had done that first night—only now, instead of drunkenness, it was in grief. "Adieu."
Julian almost relented, reaching for him across the courtyard, one last time, but Romeo's back was to him, and he never saw the gesture. By the time Romeo was over the wall, Julian was crying again.
"O fortune, fortune!" It came out in a roar, just as helpless as a cry for all it was in anger. "All men call thee fickle. / If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him / That is renown'd for faith?" He glanced spitefully at the vacant garden wall. But how likely is he to stay faithful, really? This is Romeo we're talking about. He'll be paired off again in a month.
The door opened again, and Grace stood there, looking uncertainly at him. "Why, how now, Julian?"
"Madam," he said, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his sweatshirt, "I am not well."
She nodded. "Evermore weeping for your cousin's death? / Well, lad, thou weep'st not so much for his death / As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him: that same villain, Romeo."
"God pardon him." He took a shaky breath, staring up at the sky. "I do, with all my heart; / And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart." To his mother, he added, "Would none but I might 'venge my cousin's death!"
If Julian was willing to lie to his mother about what was troubling his heart, he definitely wasn't willing to agree to marry a woman, especially not on Thursday next. His anger broke through the moment she made the suggestion.
"I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam," he swore, "I will not marry yet; and, when I do / It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, / Rather than Alice." He said her name with disgust, and when his mother drew back in shock, he laughed in her face. "These are news indeed!"
"Here comes your father; tell him so yourself," his mother snapped back, "and see how he will take it at your hands!"
Julian knew better than to stick around for his father to use as a punching bag. Even as he climbed over the balcony and dropped to the ground, Lord Capulet entered, staring down at him from above.
"Uh," he said, squinting across the stage, "this isn't exactly what we had—"
"Roll with it, Curtis," Bryce called back.
Curtis, who was another of Ian's friends, glared down at Kurt with very real annoyance. "Making changes during production week? Really?"
"Julian is pissed at the world," Kurt said. "He's not about to cave to his father's demands. Especially now that he's said, aloud, that he's married to a man."
"All right, all right." Curtis sighed. His scowl lifted as he returned to character. "How now, wife! / Have you deliver'd to him our decree?"
"Ay, sir; but he will none, he gives you thanks." Grace's eyes narrowed at Julian. "I would the fool were married to his grave!"
Kurt shivered at the statement. Better dead than gay.
"Doth he not count him blest, / Unworthy as he is, that we have wrought / So worthy a good lady to be his bride?" Curtis glared down at Kurt. "Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage! / You tallow-face!"
"Fie, fie!" Grace said in shock, "What, are you mad?"
"Good father, I beseech you," Kurt called up, "hear me with patience but to speak a word—"
"Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!" he spat. "I tell thee / what: get thee to church o' Thursday / Or never after look me in the face."
"You are to blame, my lord, to rate him so," scolded his nurse from the doorway.
"Peace, you mumbling fool!" Curtis shouted over his shoulder.
Grace grasped his arm. "You are too hot," she protested.
All through the terrible ensuing speech issued by Lord Capulet, Kurt could feel Julian in his limbs, itching to climb the wall, to head for Mantua, and never return. He gazed helplessly up at his mother as his father stormed off.
"O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!" he begged. "Delay this marriage for a month, a week." He thrust his finger, pointing beyond the garden wall to the Capulet tomb. "Or, if you do not, make my wedding bed / In that dim monument where Tybalt lies."
"Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word." Grace's face was thunderous. "Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee."
As she departed, Kurt collapsed onto the seat of the picnic table, where Julian and Romeo had pledged their love hours earlier. "Alack, alack, that heaven should practice stratagems / Upon so soft a subject as myself!" He looked up in despair, and saw his nurse standing on the balcony. "What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy? / Some comfort, nurse."
Bethany sighed. "Faith, here it is. / Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing / That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you; / Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth. / Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, / I think it best you married to the countess."
She watched Kurt anxiously as he rose to his feet.
"She's a lovely lady," she added.
He schooled his face before turning to look up at her. "Speakest thou from thy heart?"
She nodded emphatically. "And from my soul, too."
"Well, thou hast comforted me marvelous much." He laughed uselessly. "Go in: and tell my lady I am gone, / Having displeased my father, to holy church / To make confession and to be absolved." He turned back to the audience as Bethany departed, leaning heavily on the picnic table. "I'll to the pastor, to know his remedy: / If all else fail, myself have power to die."
Kurt hurried off the stage as the curtain came down on the end of Act 3. Curtis still looked annoyed, but he touched Kurt's arm and said, "That was good," which Kurt thought was big of him.
Kurt had always done the next scene, the one with Pastor Laurence and Lady Alice, as though Julian's heart were broken. But the confrontation he'd just had with his father made Kurt think Julian was more determined than that. Indeed, he had to wonder about Romeo's heart. He wondered if Julian had broken it with that last conversation. Had their characters, in effect, switched places?
He approached Pastor Laurence and Lady Alice with more swagger than usual. From the way they regarded him, he thought they could tell.
"Look, sir," said Alice, "here comes my lord towards your house." She reached out her hand in greeting. "Happily met, my lord and husband!"
He ignored her hand. "That may be, good lady," he said, with a frosty look, "when I may be a husband."
She regarded him blankly. "That may be must be, love, on Thursday next."
He tossed his head. "What must be shall be."
"That's a certain text," muttered Pastor Laurence.
"Poor soul," consoled Alice, "thy face is much abused with tears."
"The tears have got small victory by that," he shot back, "for it was bad enough before their spite."
She looked startled, and somewhat annoyed, for which he didn't blame her. "Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report."
"That is no slander, madam, which is truth."
"My lady," Pastor Laurence interrupted, "we must entreat the time alone."
She smiled at them. "God shield I should disturb devotion! / Julian, on Thursday early will I rouse ye: / Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss." She offered her hand, and although at first he turned up his nose, finally he sighed and pressed his lips to its back.
As soon as she was gone, he turned furiously to Pastor Laurence. "Shut the door!" he hissed. "And when thou hast done so, / Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!"
"Ah, Julian, I already know thy grief." The pastor placed a hand on his own heart. "It strains me past the compass of my wits: / I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, / On Thursday next be married to this countess."
"Tell me not, Pastor, that thou hear'st of this," he moaned, "unless thou tell me how I may prevent it! / If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help, / Do thou but call my resolution wise…" He brandished the plastic dagger he had at his waist. "And with this knife, I'll help it presently!"
"Hold, dear son," Pastor Laurence said quickly, holding up his hands. "I do spy a kind of hope, / Which craves as desperate an execution. / Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent / To marry Alice?"
When Julian gave him a confused and reluctant nod, the pastor exhaled and put his hands down, then took the knife, setting it aside. He explained the plan: he would give Julian a drug to make him appear to be dead for two days, and send a letter to explain this to Romeo, and to invite him to come meet Julian at the family tomb upon his awakening.
"And this shall free thee from this present shame," said the pastor sternly, "if no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear / Abate thy valor in the acting it."
The plan gave Julian no comfort. There was a sense of expectation, but Kurt knew it was far more about futility than hope.
"Give me, give me!" he demanded, grabbing the vial the pastor held out, and stood tall and fierce in his despair. "O, tell not me of fear!"
Julian returned to confront his parents, but the whole scene was nothing but a lie. As he spoke each line, Julian's apology to his father and asking his mother for help to select clothes for his wedding, all Kurt could think was how glad he was that his father and Carole weren't like that. He could tell them anything, and they wouldn't blame him or yell at him.
But that's not how it is with Noah's mother, he thought, waiting in the wings as the stage managers moved Julian's bed to the center of the stage. Or his father. At least Noah remembers it that way. No wonder he's always so angry at the world.
But was it really like that anymore? He'd heard Aaron Puckerman himself, the way he spoke plainly and honestly to Noah, telling him about himself, his history with Felix. They were going to therapy together, presumably where they did even more talking. His mother had agreed to let them clean the house. Things were changing for Noah, for his family.
Kurt's head was whirling with all of these thoughts as Bethany joined him on stage. She took his hand briefly, and he smiled at her, with a rush of sentimentality.
"Julian was lucky to have someone like his nurse," he told her.
She snorted. "Are you kidding? She's terrible. She told him to marry Alice, even though she knows Julian's gay."
"No, but… she actually loves him, for himself. Now I think, maybe, that's not as common as I used to think it was."
Kurt loved the monologue in act 4 scene 3, in which Julian reflected on all the possible outcomes of drinking or not drinking the elixir he'd obtained from the pastor. But this time, as he set the dagger down beside his pillow, he wished he could urge Julian: Just put it in the drawer. Don't leave it out. You don't have to settle for this ending. It doesn't have to be this way for you and Romeo.
Except, of course, it did, because it wasn't his story to write. He was just there to retell it. There was only so much remixing one could do before the story wasn't the same anymore. This, now, was as close to fate as he could imagine—if such a thing existed in reality—because here, they were forced to read the script that had been written for them.
"Romeo, I come," he whispered, holding up the vial. "This do I drink to thee."
He lay back on his pillow and waited for the stagehands to move the bed to the front of the stage.
"Nice job," murmured one, carrying one end. He was pretty sure it was Oliver.
Dead Benvolio, he thought, doing his part to be sure the story came to its conclusion. What could he say? I played my part, even if I didn't want to?
"Thanks," he replied.
Act 4 scene 5 was performed around him, as he lay drugged on the bed. One at a time, they discovered him "dead," and reacted in various ways. Bethany, being a consummate actress, played the nurse's sorrow brilliantly. Grace's interpretation of Lady Capulet's character led her to say very little, but her body language carried the scene. Countess Alice was more surprised than anything to find her fiancé in such a state. And Lord Capulet—well, Kurt had opinions about Curtis's capacity for acting, but he would never be as openly mean as Chris had always been about it. In any case, eventually Curtis stopped talking, and Pastor Laurence arrived to direct them with false sadness to bring the body to the cemetery, and the story continued.
"Places for Act 5," called Trinity.
Kurt rose from the bed and went to stand in the wings again beside Bethany and Joel, whose character Tybalt was now dead, having been slain by Romeo.
Bethany sighed. "Act 5. Otherwise known as the shitshow of bad fortune."
"I haven't read Act 5," Joel admitted, "since I'm not even in it."
"If only any one of x, y, or z hadn't happened, Romeo and Julian might have made it out of the city and into Mantua, where—okay, where life would have been pretty sucky for them, being teenagers without families or jobs. But at least they would have been alive." She gestured at the stage. "Behold."
The first scene consisted of Romeo hearing from his cousin Balthazar that Julian was dead and in his tomb. Balthazar was played by Anthony's roommate Isaiah. He had received no letters for Romeo from the pastor. Noah played the scene more bereft than Chris ever had, but Kurt thought that was appropriate, given Romeo's state of mind. He went off to find an apothecary, played by Anthony, whom he paid 40 ducats for a poison with which to kill himself.
"But I thought Ian—I mean, Pastor Laurence—I thought he did send a letter?" Joel whispered during the scene change.
"He did," Bethany agreed. "But it never got there because the family was sick, and they wouldn't risk letting him bring the letter to Romeo."
Pastor Laurence, having discovered this, wrote immediately to Romeo again, but it was obvious from Joel's stricken expression that even he knew it would arrive too late to make a difference.
"So what happens next?" he asked.
"Lady Alice arrives at Julian's tomb to find Romeo and Balthazar approaching," said Bethany. "Romeo sends Balthazar off with a letter to give to his father, Lord Montague, and then he breaks into the tomb to retrieve the wedding ring Julian gave him, in order to sell it for money. Alice thinks he's a grave-robber, so Romeo kills her."
"God," Joel said, his eyes huge. "This sucks."
"It gets worse," Kurt told him, with a shrug. "Sorry. Tragedy, right?"
The definition of tragedy felt different than it once had. Kurt thought about his junior prom, at which he'd been jokingly elected Prom Queen. At that time, it had felt like the most awful thing possible. At this moment, though, surrounded by death and misery and bad luck, Kurt thought he might have a sense of what grownups meant when they said it gets better. It wasn't really that it did. It was just that, in perspective with all the other terrible things in the world, the woes of his earlier life paled by comparison.
You think tonight qualifies as a tragedy or a comedy? he had asked Noah that night. And Noah had said, later, as they'd bid one another goodnight: It's the end of the act. Are you smiling or crying?
Kurt hadn't been entirely certain of the answer then, but as he walked into the tomb and lay down on the bier, he was now.
He couldn't hear most of the early part of the scene from where he waited, still in feigned death, but when Romeo approached, Kurt felt himself tense at the utter ruin he heard in Noah's perfectly enunciated lines.
"Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, / Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth," Romeo said through gritted teeth, prying at the door with his crowbar, "Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, / And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!"
He abandoned the crowbar on the floor of the tomb while he fought Lady Alice's page on her behalf. She sent her page off to call the watch at the end, and was slain by accident.
"If thou be merciful," said Alice to Romeo, as she lay dying, "open the tomb and lay me with Julian."
"In faith," he replied, shaken, "I will. Mercutio's kinswoman, noble Countess Alice! O, give me thy hand, / One writ with me in sour misfortune's book! / I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave."
He carried Alice into the tomb.
"Death, lie thou there," he murmured, "by a dead man interred."
Romeo went from Alice to Tybalt and back to Julian, speaking words of reflection, and gave Julian one final kiss. Kurt could feel his lips trembling as they touched.
Noah's voice only broke when he raised the poison aloft, saluting the heavens. "Here's to my love." He drank it all, and gasped, "O true apothecary, / Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die."
He collapsed beside Julian. There they rested together, quiet and still, as Pastor Laurence arrived. He and Balthazar, who had been watching from outside, entered the tomb.
As Pastor Laurence quietly lamented, Julian woke.
"Where is my lord?" he asked in confusion. "I do remember well where I should be, / And there I am. Where is my Romeo?"
"Come, come away," Pastor Laurence implored. "Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead, / And Alice too." He withdrew as the noises outside grew louder. "I dare no longer stay."
Julian shook his head angrily. "Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. / What's here? A cup, closed in my true love's hand? / Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end." He threw the cup across the stage, where it clattered and lay still. "O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop / To help me after?" He rose to his knees, touching Romeo's still face. "I will kiss thy lips. / Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, / To make me die with a restorative."
He leaned into Romeo, feeling Noah's erratic breath, and breathed Julian's own sadness into Romeo's mouth as he kissed his still body.
"Thy lips are warm," he said, wonderingly. He glanced up at more sounds from outside the tomb. "Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief." Casting around himself, he seized Romeo's knife. It was the same plastic dagger he'd threatened to kill himself with earlier at Pastor Laurence's house. "O happy dagger, / This is thy sheath. There rust and let me die."
Bryce had cautioned him to fall in such a way across Romeo that he could lie for some time, as the rest of the scene continued. He'd never had a problem resting upon Chris before. Now, finding himself strewn across Noah's shaking body, it was hard not to gather him close.
"I love you," he whispered to Noah.
"God, Kurt," Noah whispered back. "Talk about rotten timing."
Kurt let out a little choking laugh, and Noah followed with his own, and they devolved into paroxysms of hilarity.
"Gentlemen," Bryce drawled.
"I'm sorry—" Kurt gasped, holding up a hand. "We're—it's okay. Sorry."
"For fuck's sake," said Curtis in disgust, and they began laughing all over again.
"Begin at This is the place, where the torch doth burn." Bryce settled back onto his stool. "And, Romeo and Julian, if you would attempt to control yourselves, as dead bodies are not known for their sense of humor."
It was easier this time, partly because they'd had a chance to eliminate some of the tension, but mostly because now Noah was holding Kurt in his arms. He was, if not smiling, at least pleased.
Under cover of Pastor Laurence's lengthy description of the events of the past several days, Noah turned his head, until he and Kurt were face to face on the bier.
"I love you, too," he murmured.
Kurt nodded, blinking back tears. "This was… um. Really intense."
Noah exhaled slowly. "You're telling me. You got any notes for me?"
"Lots. But let's wait until we're not dead anymore, okay?"
He did smile now, and Kurt could see he was crying, too. "Deal."