An Ill Fated Tale about Rosencrantz & Guildenstern

Rosencrantz was hiding from his sister.

I've never been able to get the full story of how Rosencrantz knew Guildenstern before -- Guildenstern never has done anything to get anyone's attention that I know of. I just know that it started in university.
Guildenstern was a reclusive student, who split his time between being alone and being in classes. The other students thought he was snotty. For some reason, something about Guildenstern attracted Rosencrantz. He tried to be where Guildenstern was, but as far as I've been able to discern they never were friends or even spoke.
Yet, something Guildenstern did left a lasting impression on Rosencrantz.
So lasting that, a few years later, when his parents were discussing marriage possibilities for his younger sister he suggested Guildenstern as a fortuitous possibility. He said he thought his sister would get along Guildenstern excellently.
Rosencrantz rarely expressed interest in such matters, so his parents took his suggestion to heart and investigated the marriage. It was Rosencrantz who discovered the unusual arrangement that made a union between the families mutually beneficial.
Rosencrantz had spent much of his adult life living with his married brothers and sisters as a semi-permanent houseguest, so its possible his parents thought he had enough perspective to make a passable prediction as to maritial happiness. I'm not sure that even Rosencrantz knew what he was thinking, in suggesting his baby sister should marry someone he was oddly fascinated with a few years ago. Perhaps he didn't expect to be taken so seriously.
Nothing had prepared him for the change marriage caused in his little Joliana. Perhaps she had been wearing a mask all those years when she was a quiet and modest young lady, and she was just waiting for the freedom to take it off.
He had merely assumed he would move in with them, of course. Just as he had with all of his siblings, passed around like a familial hot potato. The strange youngest son who didn't have quite enough money to live on his own but plenty to live with others. He had no way of guessing how things would turn out.
He had a queasy feeling in his stomach -- if he were the type of person who felt guilty, that's how he would have identified it.
What had happened between Joliana and Guildenstern on their wedding night was common household knowledge fairly quickly. Serving girls giggled behind their hands at him. Rosencrantz started to develop weird stomach problems. It never escalated to the point where he felt sick, but it bothered him.
She always had something she expected them to do. Once, Rosencrantz quickly hid in the closet when he heard someone approaching. To his surprise that someone hid in the closet as well. They both screamed in surprise, before identifying each other.
"Hiding from her?"
"Of course not," Guildenstern answered in a slightly condesending stage whisper, "even a woman has to be allowed to feel like she has some control over her life. I'm just trying to save her the humilation of me telling her 'No'."
"Me too." Rosencrantz responded.

Guildenstern did that a lot.

Guildenstern got sick again, his chronic cough of childhood returning with a vengance. At first, he attributed it to dust being stirred up by Joliana's rearranging and the exertion of helping. But it wasn't long before you could tell where he was in the house by his hacking, regardless of what else was going on. He went to the doctors, and the blood letting weakened him to the point where he needed to be confined to bed.

Joliana expected Rosencrantz to help with rearranging and spending that Guildenstern had helped her with previously. So, Rosencrantz redoubled his efforts to hide from his sister, finally hitting on the idea of both hiding from her and making friends with Guildenstern at the same time by paying him a bedside visit.

*******************

Rosencrantz wasn't sure why he had waited so long to talk to Guildenstern. It just seemed like every time Guildenstern and he met he was somehow in Guildenstern's way and obliged to remove himself. Its difficult to make conversation with a person that you're just a barrier to. And he had nothing to talk to him about.
But, now he had that taken care of. Another gentleman he gambled with had a "Greek manuscript" (it really appeared to be paper loosely bound between two pieces of wood with strings of leather). Rosencrantz did his best to get it, thinking that it might be something he could talk to Guildenstern about.
He kept it a few days, imagining giving to Guildenstern. The look of pleasure on his face Rosencrantz was sure he would get at the gift. Maybe they could translate it together. Rosencrantz never came up with a particular scenario, his thinking never quite getting past "This will make him happy."
On his way to Guildenstern's room, Joliana saw him and grabbed him by the elbow.
"Good," she said with apparent satisfaction, "I need you to..." her eyes were dragged to his book and became large. "Where are you going with that?" Her words seemed accusatory, which didn't make any sense to Rosencrantz at all.
"I'm going to cheer him up. He must be lonely, being in bed all the time."
She looked at him oddly, as if he were a stranger who had walked in off of the streets and into her house.
"I told him you were my younger brother. Don't contradict me."
This confused Rosencrantz further. For the life of him, he couldn't imagine why his sister would tell Guildenstern that he was younger than her, or, for that matter, why he would say anything to contradict that. He could feel her eyes on him as he walked to Guildenstern's room. Coughing was audible inside. Taking a deep breath, Rosencrantz walked in.
Guildenstern had lost some weight since his confinement started; he seemed to struggle with every breath to not cough. The doctor had said he had weak lungs and that it should pass off soon. As a precaution, however, even the servants avoided his room as if he were quarantined.
He barely lifted his head as Rosencrantz entered and fell into another coughing fit.
"I brought you a book." That wasn't any good.
"Leave it." Guildenstern said irritably and rolled over, coughing a few times for good measure.
"I thought maybe we could look at it together. It must get lonely in here by yourself." Rosencrantz opened the curtains on a window to bring some light into the room.
Guildenstern's only response was to cough violently, which Rosencrantz chose to take as assent.
"Its supposed to be Greek. I heard you enjoyed classical works and I thought..."
At this he sat up and looked.
"Is that the wrestling book?" Rosencrantz really didn't even know how to begin to respond to that question. "Yes, it is. The other day, one of the maids were laughing over it. Joliana told her to mind her business. I didn't get a good look at it, but from what I saw it looked like a depiction of Greek wrestling moves. I can see why a young girl might giggle over something like that."
"I actually haven't looked at it yet. I got it because I thought you might be interested."
Guildenstern's eyes got wide, but he didn't say anything just yet. Rosencrantz pulled up a chair from the desk and set it next to his bedside, laying the book between them and opening it.

It was more graphically intensive than Rosencrantz had suspected it would be and did appear to be wrestling moves of some sort, though it did definitely have Greek lettering on it.

After flipping through a few pages (Guildenstern didn't ask him to stop so he could read anything) Rosencrantz decided to ask about something that had started to bother him.
"Are these to scale? Because that doesn't look right, there."
Guildenstern tried (and failed) to stifle a cough.
"It looks like they're wrestling a snake." he choked.
Rosencrantz turned the page, wondering why Guildenstern was so silent.
"Oh, now there are two snakes..." Rosencrantz observed, "It looks like they each are trying to bite the snake's head off."
Guildenstern shut the book with a snap.
"Just what are you playing at?" he asked -- both his voice and his hands trembling with anger, shock and something else...
"I thought this was something you'd like." Rosencrantz said weakly. He had done something very wrong, and he wasn't quite sure what, yet. That response seemed to provoke further anger.
"You thought... I knew that books like this are often called 'Greek' but... this..."

"Is something wrong?" Rosencrantz was still not quite understanding. He had done something that had upset Guildenstern, that much was clear. Now it was just a matter of observing and asking until he found out what. Something about the image of two men wrestling with snakes seemed to upset Guildenstern a great deal.

Guildenstern's expression changed quickly, the trembling stilled. He was almost too calm.

"I suppose I could have misunderstood the intent here." Guildenstern's eyes went to Rosencrantz cautiously, "This could well be a book of mythology... a story of Priapus or Hercules that just... looked like something else."
With a new sense of trust, Guildenstern opened the book to a random page. This time, what was happening was unmistakeable, even to Rosencrantz.
"Oh... they're..." he was shaken, as the realization of how this must seem came across him, "I had no idea..." After a few more moments of uncomfortable silence Rosencrantz added "It does look like a wrestling move if you look at it right."
"Yes." Guildenstern shut the book again.
This wasn't how he intended things to go at all.
"What's it like?" It had slipped out before he could stop himself.
"What?"
Rosencrantz didn't want to finish the question and looked down. But, feeling trapped, he did.
"Marital relations."
He didn't look up to see Guildenstern's expression, but he refused to allow himself to feel embarrassed. It was a legitimate question.
"It's a change of pace."
Rosencrantz wanted to reassure Guildenstern that he wasn't some sort of sodemite. He had been working himself up to speak to him for too long to ruin it so quickly. But every word seemed to dig a deeper hole for him. 'Say something intelligent, something intellectual.' his brain said. He had a feeling that the right words would get him out of this.
"You know, if you ever have any problems in that... not that you would... she hasn't... I mean, we could... try some of the things in the book... but you wouldn't have to... but I wouldn't judge you... and I'm sure it would translate to..."
Rosencrantz snuck a peek at Guildenstern, who was staring at him -- his mouth agape. Rosencrantz had enough sense to stop talking. As a half-formed unspoken idea, it seemed like a suggestion for a scientific method; but when it came out of his mouth, it sounded different somehow.

"I won't kick you out for my wife's sake. But don't come to my room or speak to me unnecessarily any more."

"I was just trying to be friendly..." Rosencrantz said helplessly. He was so upset, it didn't even sink in that during the last part of their conversation -- Guildenstern didn't cough once.