poetiicdissonance

Lotor knows better than to let Sendak get to him. He’s been a constant since Lotor was a child, and had his father telling him how he should be more like Sendak. Sendak is tall with broad shoulders, Sendak plays sports, Sendak hadn’t brought shame upon the family when he was caught kissing a boy– not that Lotor can even remember his name now. He’d been an unimpressive, wasted taste of teenage rebellion, but nothing had ever been the same after that.

Sendak leers, his arms crossed over his chest. “With hair like that, I’d suggest you join the cheerleading squad.” He says, “Cheer me on when the team wins.” Lotor rolls his eyes, and doesn't intend to react. It isn’t exactly a novel insult, nothing Lotor hasn’t heard before. Sendak was head of… whatever the university's main sports team was. He had never paid that much attention. He’d attended one volleyball game when Ezor had been on the team, before deciding it wasn’t exciting enough to stick with it.

However, intention means very little when Ezor drapes an arm over Lotor’s shoulder, and pushes herself onto her tiptoes to rest her chin on his opposite shoulder. “He can’t.” She says, and Sendak looks away from Lotor to her.

“And why not?”

Ezor grins in the way Lotor has long since learned to fear, because it means she has an idea, the sort of idea that makes Zethrid smile at her girlfriend and make he and Acxa exchange looks of mutual wariness.

Ezor brandishes a purple gel pen from her back pocket and writes down all four of their names on the first poster in range. Lotor reads the title to see what she has unwittingly signed them all up for. At least she had the good sense not to include Narti in this madness. Romeo and Juliet. Lovely. He hasn’t read it since highschool, and he doesn't remember liking it all that much. Not that Macbeth or Hamlet had been much more interesting, but at least those had more interesting plots.

With a deadpan look, Lotor looks back at Sendak. “I’m otherwise engaged.” He says. Well, at least so were his roommates, so that was a benefit if nothing else. Misery loves company and all that.

-

Lotor is reading through Acxa’s copy of the play, tucked in one of the stackable chairs brought to the hallway outside the abandoned backroom that was going to be their practice space. Ezor and Zethrid had been there earlier before they finished and went to go get lunch, but both promised they’d be back in time to hear the cast listing.

Across the hall, he can see Allura and Lance running lines, hoping to get the titular leads. Lotor looks back down at the pages in front of him, just to remember it is a tragedy rather than whatever romance they seem to think it is. If he can get Montague, he’ll be happy, barely any lines, but enough to say that he went out and was simply beaten out by the better actors.

He gets called up, and passes the script back to Acxa, who's running her lines under her breath. It’s not, he knows that she’s particularly interested in any starring role, but he knows her well enough to understand that her perfectionism will allow for nothing else– they are well matched in that regard, it’s what makes being her roommate easy.

The audition goes, if he is so bold to say it, well. Passion tempered with dignity, and he only stumbled on two lines, both of which he can pass off as being simply for dramatic effect. He finishes with one hand outstretched, “That I might touch that cheek,” he says, and Coran looks pleased, writing down something on the clipboard.

“Very good, very good,” he says, and Lotor nods, heading back to the chair he’d been in before.

In the time it took for him to audition, Shiro has arrived, book bag slung over one shoulder. Several people had come and gone to classes, but he hadn’t thought anyone else would be arriving now, not with so few people left to go.

Lotor settles back into his chair, and pulls out his own textbook to study. If he is going to be stuck here for what looks like at least another hour, he's going to get some work done.

By the time Coran comes out of the rehearsal room, the hallway has filled again with the soon-to-be cast. Ezor sips on her coffee, leaning against Zethrid who’d arrived just in time. Coran looks around, seeming to do a head count, before brandishing a paper.

“What everyone’s been waiting for,” he says, and waves a hand. “The cast list, and yes, it will be posted so you can all double check.” He says, and clears his throat. “Acxa, you’ll be Juliet, I have one who seems to know all her lines already!” Lotor laughs, seeing the panicked way Acxa blinks. She hadn't chosen to participate in the play, so much as, like Lotor had been, forcibly signed up for it.

He’s not going to be the one to say that the only reason Acxa knows all the lines is because the university is making her take an English class and it was either Shakespeare or children's literature. She hadn’t hesitated making the choice.

Somehow though, she had gotten the main lead, which made her a better actress than Lotor had ever expected. Perhaps their years of speech and debate, and hiding her obvious crush, had paid off.

“Right then, for everyone else, Keith you’ll be Tybalt,” Beside him, Ezor and Zethrid giggle, the long-standing crush between those two had been bright as day since high school. He’s almost disappointed Keith didn’t get Romeo, the irony would have been poetic, and perhaps been enough to get them together. Cousins rather than lovers; with any luck, it would still be enough. “Romeo will be Shiro,”

Allura frowns. She and Lance had planned to get the leads, he knew, had choreographed matching auditions and everything. Saccharine, if he has to pick a word for it. If he knows Shiro at all, he had gone into it with an honest portrayal well suited for someone like the Prince, and then come out of it with Romeo.

As Coran reads out the rest of the roles, Lotor leans back in his chair until he hears his own name. “Lotor, Benvolio,” Cora frowns at the next role, and looks up. “Lance, do you think you could get your sister to participate?”

Lance offers him a salute. “Yeah, she planned to anyways, but she had class,”

Coran writes it down. “Alright then, Veronica will be Lady Capulet.”

-

The first rehearsal is a singularly awkward experience; all of them gathered in a loose semicircle, copies of the scripts in front of them, reading the play aloud. Most of it, if Lotor is honest, is taken up by Coran wincing at the butchered Shakespearean English.

By the afternoon of the second rehearsal, Pidge has successfully pawned her role as ‘chorus’ off to Risavi and Leifsdottir, the other two members of Griffin and Kinkade’s quartet. Lotor isn’t going to bother asking why Pidge and Matt, the people who would be doing the lights and sound backstage, were here, but he long ago decided that some things were not worth questioning.

Rehearsal starts with Coran trying to get the two women to do the opening sonnet in tandem and failing spectacularly. Leifsdottir’s reading is level and slow, contrasting Risavi’s high energy, positively bouncing across the lines. He watches as Griffin and Kinkade wince, and go to talk to them. Several minutes later, they try again, and this time, it’s somewhere between the two, and actually sounds like it should. He’d dare to say it’s impressive, both the change, and whatever the two had said to get them on the same level.

-

Acxa is miserably ill, and Lotor says as much when they walk into the practice room. Coran nods, and waves him off, searching through the stack of papers overflowing off his desk. He’s not entirely certain that the man heard him, but he wasn’t going to fight with it.

For the next few minutes, Lotor leans against the wall talking with Ezor and Zethrid, and then Coran claps his hands, seeming to have found whatever it was he had been searching for. “Alright team! Let’s run Pilgrim’s Hands.”

“Acxa’s sick,” Lotor reminds, and Coran frowns.

“Who’s her understudy?”

Allura raises her hand, and Coran gestures towards the center of the room, as Shiro steps up across from her. He and Acxa had only just graduated to actually touching during this scene, working out chemistry, and Lotor doubts he is thrilled to have to try and do this now with a new person.

“Good pilgrim-“ Allura begins confidently. And then her expression falls. “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much. Which… which….” She trails off, and bites her lip. “I know it, I promise! Which…”

Lotor slips his hands into his pockets. “Which mannerly devotion says in this, for saints have hands that pilgrim’s hands do touch.” Shiro’s eyes widen gently when he hears Lotor take over Acxa’s part, and steps away from Allura. There’s twin thumps on his back that push him forward; Ezor and Zethrid, damn them. Lotor pulls his hands from his pockets, a change that Shiro adapts to quickly.

He reaches out to run his fingers down Lotor’s arm, across the thin, sensitive flesh of his wrist, left exposed by the rolled up, short sleeves of his blazer. “And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.” Lotor flips his hands to slide his fingers between Shiro’s.

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” Shiro’s free hand reaches to push a stray strand of Lotor’s hair that had escaped from his bun, behind his ear, and for a moment, they stand there, eyes locked. And then Lotor says his next line, remembering it only because of how many times he has run this scene with Acxa.

“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”

Shiro moves closer- impossibly close, his foot sliding between Lotor’s. There’s a hand on the back of his neck, hot and distracting, from where Shiro’s hand had drifted out of his hair, but not left. The room is silent, their hands still held gently beside them.

Shiro’s eyes flicker down to his lips, “O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do…” for a moment, Lotor thinks that Shiro will lean in and kiss him, wanting to lean in himself. “They pray, grant thou, lest,” it’s too quiet, it is, Lotor knows it is. Shiro and Acxa’s run of this scene have never been this close, always several steps back, both hands held between the two of them, and even then, only fingers curved loosely around each other, nothing entwined like theirs.

“Lest faith turn to despair.” Lotor finishes for him, a flawless transition, as if that is the way the scene is meant to be performed. The air between them is positively electric, and then the moment breaks.

“Good job, Lotor! ” Coran says, and within an instant, Lotor and Shiro have separated, Lotor running his hands down the sides of his lilac blazer, tips of his ears flushing red. “Let’s run Tybalt’s death next.”

He doesn't notice when Ezor slides her phone into her pocket, but he sends her a questioning glance when he hears her giggling.

-

When they get back to the dorm room, Acxa is curled up on the couch, the salmon coloured blanket that Ezor had thrown on her before they left for rehearsal still there. A testament, Lotor thinks, for how sich she is. Ezor grins, and flops beside her, as Lotor sets his bag down.

“I have to show you this,” Ezor says, pulling up a video of her phone. Before he has time to find a way to stop Ezor showing Acxa the recording, Zethrid’s hand closes around his shoulder to keep him from moving. He is going to kill his roommates. Through the speakers of Ezor’s phone, Lotor can hear he and Shiro’s recitation of the scene, and feel the subsequent blush high on his cheek.

Ezor is giggling, and even Acxa looks up at him with a raised eyebrow once it’s over. “For something that’s supposed to be a romantic scene, I have to say you do it better than we do.” She says, and Lotor sinks his head into his hands.

“Don’t say it.” he groans, and Zethrid tightens her hold on his shoulder. “Don’t worry so much, it’s not like the entire cast saw the way you and Shiro played the romantic scene with all the veiled sexual tension of… actually they did.” She says, and he groans again.

He takes back whatever positive sentiments he has ever expressed about his roommates, because clearly they hate him.

-

That is not the end of it. Despite, or perhaps because fate seems to want to see him embarrassed. At the next rehearsal Coran claps his hands together with a particularly wide smile. First, he looks at Acxa. “Welcome back!” He greets, and she raises a hand in a wave.

“Feeling much better.”

“Good! Now… it came to my attention last rehearsal that perhaps we haven’t pushed the bounds of this performance far enough.” He says, and Lotor wants nothing more than to hide, or perhaps, drop out of school altogether. Yes, that would be a good response to this whole situation, unless, through some miracle, Coran means something entirely unrelated to the scene with Shiro.

“Acxa, do you by chance know Lotor’s part?” He asks, and Acxa, the traitor, nods.

“We run lines together,” She says. Enough rounds of every scene meant that they could both recite almost the entire play.

Coran nods excitedly. “Then because we’re so close to the start, I’ve decided that we’re going to trade Acxa and Lotor’s parts.” And there, Lotor thinks, is the other shoe dropping, like he’s been waiting for, the culmination of his dread. Here lies Lotor, he died of embarrassment.

Beside him, he can practically feel Ezor’s excitement. Acxa at least, has the good grace to hide her smile behind her hand and nods. “I saw a recording of the scene last week, I think that would be for the best.” She agrees, and again, he can’t help the part of his mind that calls her a traitor, best friend or not.

“Fantastic!” Coran says, “So from now on Acxa is Benvolio, and Lotor is Juliet….” He trials off, and for a moment, Lotor almost hopes he’s reconsidering it, realizing that Juliet is a woman’s part, and despite Sendak’s commentary, and his father’s continued displeasure with the length of his hair, he is most definitely not. “Julien.” Coran seems to decide, and no, Lotor thinks, no such luck.

Everyone else nods, even if Allura looks distinctly put out by the whole affair. Lotor wants to tell her it’s not like he wants this. He can’t even blame Acxa for being sick last week, as much as he wants to, because ultimately, he’d put himself in this position by speaking up at all.

-

Despite most of the cast's initial reservations, Lotor can tell they’ve come around to the idea of him playing ‘Julien’. He caught Pidge and Hunk whispering to each other about how the scenes with them had more chemistry than anything between Acxa and Shiro, not counting the few awkward attempts with Allura.

Gone are the barely clasped hands, and feet of space between the leads. Between him and Shiro, Lotor can almost understand why people looked at it like a great love story even if it only lasts three days. In the past several rehearsals, as they run the rest of their scenes, the tension between them only seems to magnify. Shiro is a better actor than Lotor originally gave him credit for.

He’s just grateful that Coran seems to have conveniently forgotten the fact that they should, at some point in the play, kiss.

After rehearsal, Shiro catches his wrist. “Hey, do you want to run some of our scenes? I’m not totally happy with the blocking for the death scene yet.” Lotor is going to refuse when Ezor, Acxa, and Zethrid all wave at him.

“We’re going to meet up with Narti, we’ll tell her you’ll be late,” Ezor says, and Lotor knows a slightly more-subtle-than usual push when he sees one.

He looks back at Shiro and nods. “Yeah, of course.”

-

“It seems unfair, that now that Juliet’s not a girl, that she gets no more agency.” Lotor complains, gesturing with the open script, page held in place by his thumb.

Shiro laughs, and shrugs. “She’s still the damsel though. It’s a tragedy.”

Lotor rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but Coran decided to swap Acxa and I, without considering why Juliet’s a girl to start.” He says, and leans back against his headboard. Shiro laughs again, and leans back against the wall, his own script abandoned between them.

The first two times that he and Shiro had practiced together had been awkward, with stretches of silence not filled by the chatter of their castmates. Now, a week, and five extra practices later, Lotor feels comfortable in Shiro’s presence, and their conversations have slowly meandered away from the play only.

Shiro shrugs. “It’s not like Coran is known for long thought out plans, or that the choice to switch you and Acxa was exactly… something he considered from the start.”

Lotor sighs, and looks back down at the play. “We might as well rehearse ‘but soft through yonder window breaks’ again.”

-

Lotor has known Takashi Shirogane since he was fourteen and they started at the same highschool. In that time, Lotor could convincingly tell himself he didn’t find Shiro attractive approximately zero times. They’d rivaled for club space between speech and debate and student council all through the later years, and the it had been a schoolwide toss up between which of them would be valedictorian. In a move that seemed to surprise the entire student population, it had been Allura instead. On more than one occasion, he had gotten distracted watching Shiro’s arms when he’d been waiting for Ezor and Zethrid to finish with track practice.

Lotor gawks when at the start of rehearsal, two months in, Coran says that he and Shiro should run through their scenes, and actually kiss, so that when it comes to the shows proper, it won't look rehearsed, but like two actual lovers. It’s not a lack of attraction that makes him want to hide, but rather, the fact that in the past month and a half, Lotor has realized how painfully he likes Shiro. He likes his dry sense of humor, and unwavering consistency. He likes the fact that Shiro is brave and wants to do the right thing, and is surprisingly smart. And perhaps most damning of all, likes the feeling of Shiro’s hand in his, even if it’s all pretend.

Once they get through the fist one, it’s surprisingly easy to wrap it into the performances. It fits into the gaps between them naturally.

When he sees Acxa and Keith making out after the first dress rehearsal, he’s not even surprised. Their scenes had always been charged, even more so after she became Benvolio. He’s only jealous that they seem to know exactly what they want.

-

They’re both in Lotor’s room when Shiro gets a look in his eyes, running his gaze down Lotor’s body. Lotor raises an eyebrow, and suppresses the desire to shiver. “What are you planning?”

Shiro pulls him to his feet. “I have an idea,”

“I guessed as much,”

Shiro laughs, and moves forward, one arm going under Lotor’s knees, the other behind his back. In his shock, Lotor’s arms go around Shiro’s neck, and then he’s looking at Shiro's smirk from a place several feet above the ground.

“What was that for?”

“We get married, and it's not like I can carry you across the threshold. So I figured off stage was close enough. I just had to make sure I could lift you.” He says, and Lotor pushes at his shoulder. Shiro drops him back on his bed, and sits beside him.

“Well now you know you can. Curiosity assuaged?” Lotor asks, running a hand through his hair, to push it back, partially for the excuse to do something with his hands.

Shiro nods. “Yeah, no more surprise lifts, don’t worry.”

-

It’s their last rehearsal, and Lotor catches Shiro’s eyes in the mirror as he does up the zipper on Lotor’s costume. The backstage is abuzz of energy, with their first performance tomorrow. Months of work had all led up to these last few nights, and Lotor can admit to himself that he’s enjoyed it more than he had ever expected.

For a moment, Shiro’s hands seem to linger on his waist, where the zipper ends, but Lotor assumes it’s just his imagination, because Shiro removes his hands after another second. “Are you ready to marry me?” Shiro asks, and Lotor laughs.

“Only if you’re ready to die for me.” Shiro presses a hand to his chest in mock hurt.

“I’m always ready to kill myself for your love. I do it four times every week.”

-

Despite how many months it’s been, Shiro hasn’t ceased to surprise Lotor. It seems like each time they run through the play, there are differences. A hand on his hip where there hadn’t been before, a softening glance, a smoother delivery.

They run the scene where Shiro picks him up before the others arrive for rehearsal, and it’s a good thing they do, because the first time, Lotor flinches so hard that Shiro almost drops him, because he picks him up the line before he expects it.

The night of their first performance, Coran gathers them all together in the green room. Rizavi is halfway through touching up Romelle’s makeup, and Kinkade is pulling at Griffin’s costume to get it to lay flat. Hunk is running through his lines, looking a little nauseous at the idea that he has to perform in front of an audience. Lotor feels surprisingly calm, but the nervous, thrumming energy doesn't escape him. Through the door, he can hear the muffled sounds of footsteps and conversation as everyone filters into the house.

Coran looks around at them all. “You all look very good, and I have faith in the work you’ve all put in.” He says, and there’s murmurs of agreement from all of them. “It’s showtime, though! And there’s a full house out there, just waiting to see how our young lovers fall in love,” he says, with a wink towards he and Shiro.

They break, Coran going to peek at the audience, as the others do their last minute adjustments. Acxa is leaning against Keith, and Ezor and Zethrid are doing their utmost best to keep each other’s costumes intact. The actions are spilling into the dressing rooms, though the cursory decision of the left being for the men, and the right being for the women seems to have fallen apart.

“Break a leg tonight, everyone,” Shiro says, and the answering call echoes through the room.

And then the curtain is rising, and they’re out.

Acxa and Keith kiss off stage, for themselves, like they’re trying to make up for years of missed opportunities. He and Shiro kiss on stage, to the delight of the audience. And it is to their delight when, half way through the play, what is supposed to be a loving, but otherwise unremarkable kiss, ends with his arms around Shiro’s neck, Shiro smirking down at him from the dramatic dip.

The crowd claps loudly even before the scene is done.

-

The stage lights beat down on them, and Shiro’s head is in his lap for the second of their three performances. The crowd is silent, holding bated breaths, as Lotor runs a hand across Shiro’s cheek, the prop dagger already in place for his suicide. Everyone knows how the story ends, everyone knows both lovers die. Violent delights, violent ends, and nothing between them has ever been moderate– in that, Shiro’s displays work even better. The unreservedness does more to sell them as incandescently in love than two people who can barely look at each other.

He’s supposed to kill himself, and let the play end. That’s his role, it’s what's written on the script. After tomorrow night, there will be no more afternoons spent in a back room, no Shiro catching him after rehearsal saying they should spend some time practicing. Romeo and Juliet fall in love, he wasn’t supposed to fall in love in between the fantasy of it all, certainly not with Shiro.

The background music is playing out, and there’s a moment where he thinks that he will let the play go out as it is always meant to. Romeo dies. Juliet dies. Before he can spend more time debating with himself, Lotor leans down to press a gentle kiss to Shiro’s lips. It’s not scripted; it’s not Juliet kissing Romeo, but Lotor kissing Shiro. His curtain of hair hides Shiro’s open-eyed shock, and the distance between them and the first row covers the way that Shiro’s hand settles on his hip on the side not facing the audience.

Lotor pulls back, and Shiro resumes playing dead as if it had been all part of the performance. First kiss and final kiss all rolled into the same under the stage lights. It’s only fair, Lotor thinks, considering how many times over the months Shiro has surprised him by making the performance just that shade more intimate.

Lotor barely remembers the rest of the play, heart beating in his chest, from where he’s laying pressed half against, half on top of Shiro, hands clammy against the prop blade.

When they do their bows, Lotor catches the way Shiro looks at him through the corner of his eyes. When the lights go dark, Lotor leaves before Shiro has the chance to talk to him.

-

It’s strange, Lotor thinks, sitting on the edge of the stage. The seats are all empty, the props cleared away, just the backdrop left to be dealt with tomorrow before the stage can be used again. He’s removed his stage makeup with a borrowed makeup wipe from Ezor, and changed out of his costume, brushed his hair out. It helps that by the end of the play, it’s down anyway. Months of work, from one spontaneous decision to spite Sendak all played out, the final curtain drawn.

He lifts one foot to balance on the edge of the stage, and leans against his knee. His roommates had already left, yelling something behind them about the afterparty. There’s a shuffle behind him, and then Shiro sits down next to him, in his own normal clothes. The adrenaline that he’s been running on all night is starting to leave, and he’s not going to run from this.

“It’s quiet.” Shiro says, and Lotor hums in agreement. They haven’t talked about yesterday, and Lotor would be happy never doing so. Shiro seems unbothered by the lack of a response.

“Now that we won’t be seeing each other four times a week, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to kiss me, instead of Romeo?”

Lotor’s head snaps to look at Shiro. “You’d want to?”

Shiro runs an awkward hand down the back of his neck. “Yeah, I mean I’ve wanted to for months, but it never seemed like a good time to ask y’know? And then you were Juliet and that seemed like a spectacularly good way to ruin the performance if anything went wrong.” He shrugs, and gestures behind them at the stage. “Did you think I did it all for the performance?”

Lotor nods, and drops the knee he’s leaning against back down to hang from, leaning back on his arms to look out over the seats. “Best Romeo I could have imagined playing opposite.”

“I admit, I expected a ‘Juliet’ rather than a ‘Julien’, but I think I prefer how this turned out.”

Lotor laughs, and leans across the small space between them, and kisses him, and kisses him again. And this time, there’s no pretense of the performance.

They pull back, “I think there’s an afterparty they’ll be waiting for us at.”