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It was a summer night in mid-June, La Ratatouille was hosting a live band called Bears in Trees to perform at the restaurant. The band was about halfway done with their performance when Remy came out of the kitchen to make sure things were going okay. As soon as Callum’s eyes landed on the rat he knew he was in love, and the rest of the band noticed that their friend had fallen for him too. Iain knew Callum was too shy to make a move, so as Remy was talking to them before they left he slipped a note into Remy’s hat that was sitting on the chair next to him. The note was simple, it read,
257-050-1635 Call (or text) me, please :) <3 Callum
Remy saw the note once he got back home and was delighted that he got such a sweet note from the space bun wearing flutist. Once he woke up in the morning he decided to call the man.
“Hello, this is Callum, right?” Remy said once he picked up.
“Yes, who is this?”
“It’s Remy from La Ratatouille”
“Oh hello,” Callum blushed as soon as he said his name, “what can I do for you? Did something go wrong with the band last night?” He questioned the rat without wondering how he got his number because he was so excited to be talking to his newest crush.
“No, nothing was wrong with your performance, I was really wondering how you play your flute so well actually.”
“Oh, I could always teach you how to play.”
Their conversation carried on for a while, Remy being friendly while Callum blushed on the other end. They had set up to start flute lessons on Sunday mornings so Remy wouldn’t have to worry about the restaurant. It went on like that for nearly a year before things got weird. Well, weirder than a man crushing on a rat that he was teaching how to play the flute.
“Remy, I have something I would like to tell you,” Callum said, gathering the courage he needed to tell Remy how he felt about him.
“What’s up, Callum?”
Callum breathed in deeply, “Remy, I love you,” Callum shut his eyes tight out of nervousness.
“Callum, I’m flattered,” Remy started as Callum’s face relaxed to allow his disappointment to show “but I’m a rat and you’re not. You know that’s wrong, right?”
“I know,” Callum said sadly as he started packing up his flute “I just hoped you’d say something like ‘we can make this work’ or ‘who cares what people think, we can be unstoppable’. Callum stopped at the door, waving goodbye to Remy before he left.
Callum walked home, head hung low and the usual pep in his step was gone. George noticed him as he biked by
“Hey, babg,” George said, individually saying each letter of babg, “need a ride?”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes, sorry, George,” Callum said glumly
“What’s wrong? You’re always up for a good joke.”
“I’ve been shot down, rejected by the only man I will ever love and he’s not even a man.”
George gave Callum a confused look before he realized his friend was referring to Remy. “Why were you turned down? You’re like the sweetest guy I know!”
“Beasteality,” is all Callum said before looking back down at the ground
“Oh, that’s right. I could help with that, you know.” George offered, patting his friend on the back
“How? Make the world suddenly accepting of a man dating a rat? It took humanity ages to accept black people, gay people, trans-”
George stopped him before he could continue rambling like a lunatic, “I can make you into a rat, silly!”
“George, you’ve gone insane, haven’t you?”
“I haven’t, promise. I’m a witch and I know you really want to be with Remy. Trust me, I can let you be with him with no judgment from me or anyone else. Would you like that?”
Callum simply nodded before George got to work, chanting, “mures inclusi essent hominem, mures inclusi essent hominem, mures inclusi essent hominem” over and over again until Callum was a rat. Once Callum saw that his hands were now paws and he was only a few inches tall he squeaked for joy, running back to confess his love to Remy once more.
“Remy! Remy!” Callum cried as he reached the house that Remy and his friends Linguini and Colette shared.
“Callum?” Remy was confused when he heard his voice but didn’t see him until he saw a brown rat with a little rainbow bandana. Then he was even more confused. “Callum? Is that really you? What the heck happened?”
“My friend George! He turned me into a rat so that we could be together, so what do you say?”
“I say, you’re a handsome rat and I’d love to be your boyfriend, Callum!”
The two rats hugged while Linguini and Colette looked down on them, hugging as well. “Wait, Callum, what about your band? Would you still be able to perform as a rat?”
“Oh, we actually broke up, back on the 22nd of March.”
“Wait, why?”
“Well, Nick left Earth to be with his husband, Sonic, and Iain was finally captured by the Serbian police. With two of our members gone we couldn’t continue as a band.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Remy said, voice full of compassion for his new boyfriend. “You know, I know flute now so we could start a band together.”
“You know, Colette and I could join your band too,” Linguini said
Callum smiled and said, “Nick left a clone here too, he could be our guitarist!”
“So, what will we call ourselves?” Colette said, picking up Remy and Callum off the ground
“How about Twinks in Bushes?” Callum suggested. Everyone smiled and nodded, silently deciding on the name.
“Let's design some posters for the band now to get the word out that we’re going to be making music,” Linguini said
Callum climbed down from Colette’s hands as he said, “You guys do that, I’ll go find Andy so that he can be a part of Twinks in Bushes.” With that Callum the rat ran off.
Linguini started drawing poster ideas, then he decided, “Why don’t we just take photos?” Remy and Colette agreed to this as they set up for their photoshoot. Remy grabbed his flute while Colette got her fish-shaped bass guitar and Linguni got his drum set out of the closet. Within half an hour, Callum and Andy came back, just as Remy, Colette, and Linguini were finishing up their photos. Callum and Andy automatically understood what was going on, so Callum started to set up a microphone and Andy got out his guitar. They all happily completed their photoshoot and Twinks in Bushes was born through the power of friendship and two gay rats.