Found People To Love

ACT V

Last chapter, hope you enjoy!

Scene 1: James' House

[OLIVER and JAMES enter JAMES' living room. OLIVER carries in a small suitcase; JAMES closes the door behind him. For six seconds, the two of them stand there, shifting on their feet. JAMES watches intently as OLIVER looks around the room.]

OLIVER: I forgot you don't have a couch.

JAMES: I have my bed to lie in and chairs to sit in. I never needed a couch.

OLIVER: ...Where am I going to sleep?

JAMES: [matter-of-factly] On my bed. I'll put something together for myself—I have pillows, blankets, sheets... [with amusement] I could sleep on the coffee table.

OLIVER: [dryly] You're going to set up a bed on the coffee table at this hour. Yes, brilliant thinking.

JAMES: It wouldn't be this late if you didn't insist on that awful wait...

OLIVER: But it was the only Thai place. Blame yourself for choosing this tiny town.

JAMES: Blame yourself for taking my place and forcing me into hiding.

OLIVER: Oh, stop dodging responsibility. Blame yourself for killing Richard in the first place.

[Silence falls. JAMES looks away and his posture slumps nearly imperceptibly. OLIVER, by contrast, stiffens at his own words and appears to freeze up.]

JAMES: You can be sure I do.

OLIVER: [gently] C'mon, we've shared a bed before.

JAMES: [glancing over sidelong] Wouldn't bother you?

OLIVER: I still count myself lucky to have a real bed at all.

JAMES: [wincing] God, I can't wait until you're a rich and famous Shakespeare actor and you pamper yourself rotten.

OLIVER: You flatter me.

[JAMES cracks a smile and picks up OLIVER's luggage from his loosened grip, setting off towards the hallway before OLIVER can object. OLIVER follows him down the hallway to a bedroom.]

JAMES: You really are traveling light.

OLIVER: No other way I can travel.

JAMES: [unhappy] Oh. I should have known—

OLIVER: If you're about to apologize, I swear—I'm staying in your house! It's fine, you're making it up to me.

JAMES: Hardly even.

OLIVER: Well it doesn't matter anyway, because I did it gladly. How many times do I have to say it? I chose it for myself.

JAMES: I... The love that follows us sometime is our trouble / which we still thank as love.

OLIVER: It is love.

JAMES: [quiet] I know it is.

[OLIVER waits. He shifts from one foot to the other, his shoulders curling in.]

JAMES: Come on, then.

[JAMES opens the door and flips a light switch, illuminating a room that contains a dresser, a bed, and a small bookshelf littered with programs for Shakespeare performances and thick books whose spines read Shakespeare under the Microscope, Shakespeare in the 20th Century, Shakespeare on Gender and Sexuality: A close read of Twelfth Night, and other similar titles. There are no windows, but the walls are painted a faded sky-blue.]