An Ill Fated Tale about Rosencrantz & Guildenstern

Rosencrantz got the skeleton key from the servants quarters. He was prepared to ask, but as no one seemed to notice him, he just took it. It didn't occur to him that Guildenstern might have locked himself inside his room for a reason. Guildenstern went out of his way to bring his message to him, even if they did forget it (if it were important, they'd write back). He needed to return the favor.
When he opened the door, Guildenstern seemed to be in the middle of pacing. Rosencrantz's entrance had to have been unexpected, but he didn't show it - throwing words at him like a hot potato.
"So, the question is: if fate exists (which we must assume it does for the moment), is it a free fall that only has one direction and a pre-planned ending or a maze that allows endless deviations, but only one correct course?"
Rosencrantz was even more startled than he normally would be at this. This was the first full sentence Guildenstern had spoken to him in a week - since their talk at the tavern. He automatically looked behind him and inside the room, in case there was another person around he wasn't immediately aware of. Finding no one, he stepped in, walking as if the floorboards were rotting and might cave in at any moment, quietly closing the door behind him.
Guildenstern continued walking briskly back and forth, staring at the floor, "Of course, we're not allowing fateful chance. That you might just be walking along, minding your own business, when a wrong step sends you down a slippery slope to oblivious. That is too randon, and as a result, too alarming for consideration. It only works if we assume everything adds up to a predetermined number." He turned to Rosencrantz again, stopping. "We do have to assume that, don't we?"
Guildenstern was looking in his direction, but he wasn't really looking at him. But Rosencrantz was fairly sure he was being addressed. He did his best:
"Would you like a smoke?"
"Yes, thank you." Guildenstern sat, crossing his legs and cupping his head in his hands. Guildenstern's behavior was odd, but Rosencrantz knew that he himself had been guilty of odd behavior, so he let it go.
His hands shook as he packed the pipe. There was an odd kind of tension in room. Rosencrantz generally ignored it the best he could, because when he acknowledged it he tended to say things without thinking. But he felt it, he had felt it since he first saw Guildenstern at university. Guildenstern seemed to feel it as well, if not even more acutely. It was like a strain, a continual pulling between them that was tightening. If it was broken, it would cause lameness - not of the leg or the arm, but of the mind. Rosencrantz did his best to push it to the side as he used the firetongs to get a coal and light the pipe. Thankfully, without dropping the coal.
Guildenstern took the pipe as if it were handed to him by a servant. Rosencrantz pulled the desk chair next to him as he started to speak again.
"None of it adds up. My father's first marriage led to the second (in a roundabout way), and his second marriage led to advantages and properties that made it so a marriage to your family was profitable. All of the things were set up, but nothing seems to have come of them. It's worse than not adding, its not multiplying. A dead end, all of it."
"You two seem happy enough. Always affectionate with each other. I do hear you... arguing at night, but it makes me sorry that I ever suggested that you were any less than happy. I really am, I didn't mean to offend you. You are so similar and compliment each other so well, I don't see how things couldn't work out."
Guildenstern didn't look at him, but rubbed the pipe in his hands before puffing on it and breathing his next words out with smoke.
"We are too similar. Like minds butt heads, and where we aren't alike we differ too strongly. Where I stand still, she runs, where I run, she stands... Where I comprimise she stands, and well... she doesn't compromise. I can't even hit her, because I think she's stronger than me." Then, for the first time, Guildenstern seemed to realize that someone else was in the room. "How did you get in here?"
"I took the key from the servants quarters. You got a letter..." he motioned to where he sat it on Guildenstern's desk as he packed the pipe, " and I thought you might like a smoke while you read it. I like to smoke while I read my corrospondence.." Rosencrantz wasn't allowing himself to feel what he felt at Guildenstern's words -- a mix of joyful guilt and guilty joy... but not yet...
"Thank you." Guildenstern suddenly seemed to realize that he was holding the pipe still, and offered to Rosencrantz. Who tamped the end with his finger - burning his finger in the process. It hurt but it seemed to make the increased tension more bearable. Indeed, the tension hurt more, but the physical pain temporarily made the pressure easier to ignore.
"Maybe I should go..." Rosencrantz suggested.
"Yes." But Rosencrantz didn't go, and Guildenstern showed no desire to make him. Instead he asked, "Why would you just walk in? You have six older brothers and sisters, you've lived in others households your whole life.. don't you ever knock?"
"People keep asking me that." Rosencrantz said with a sigh, "usually while throwing pillows at me... it gets disorienting and I forget."
Guildenstern looked away again.
"The garden isn't blooming."
"It isn't spring, yet." Rosencrantz pointed out practically.
"You'd expect something." Guildenstern said with irritation, "flowers budding, ready to become ripe and heavy with fruit. Everything is barren and dead."
The room had become unbearably hot and stuffy, so Rosencrantz put his hand on the end of his pipe to put it out. Of course, all he did was burn his palm and he yelped with pain. Before he had a chance to examine the hand himself, Guildenstern had taken it. He looked that the red mark forming, and circled it with his cool fingers.
"You don't normally smoke, do you?"
"I do when I have someone to smoke with." Rosencrantz offered helpfully.
"No." Guildenstern's eyes widened. "I was scared of you?" The tone seemed to be a question, with the emphasis on scared rather than you...but it was almost a statment.
"Why... why would you be scared of me?"
"I think you're stronger than me, as well."
Rosencrantz shook his head. "I don't think so."
"I could only get you if I took you by surprise." and with that Guildenstern leapt on him, pinning his chest back on the chair. Rosencrantz laughed because he should have seen it coming, but stopped slowly on seeing Guildenstern's expression. The room was definitely oppressively hot, the tension had risen to his throat and was threatening to choke him. "You could easily push me away." he seemed almost disappointed.
"I don't think I could." Rosencrantz managed to get out, but the words sounded as tight and choked as he felt. "Strength isn't only physical."
The tension pulled them together, binding them in a kiss that had no pretense at friendliness. It would allow nothing less, it had gotten too tight. Rosencrantz held Guildenstern pulling him closer -- then the weight change made the chair fall back, momentarily knocking the breath out of them both. The pipe fell on the floor and broke, scattering the ashes - though neither noticed.
Guildenstern's breath was soon in his ear, their stubbly cheeks sticking together ever so slightly as they seperated nervously and stood... It seemed that might be the end of it, but then Rosencrantz saw the Greek manuscript out.
Guildenstern followed his gaze. He seemed to want to try to explain "I couldn't stop thinking... I couldn't stop..." he didn't finish the sentence, but momentary downward glance at Rosencrantz said it for him. "I guess not all trees are fruit bearing... some trees just are."
Then there was no more need for talking at first... just mouths and hands awkwardly touching and pulling and unexpected pleasures that made him quiver as Guildenstern's fingers explored him inside.
Guildenstern did talk as they made love, almost frantically "The fire was already out of control... already... she started it..." and Rosencrantz might have asked him about it, but it was all too much and he forgot about it soon as the words became murmured kisses.