Fic: Peril in Thine Eye 2/2

[windblownfire]

 Pairing: Mercutio/Romeo (unrequited) 
Rating: R
Length: 9475 words :o 
Warnings: character death (do I have to say angst?)  
Summary: Mercutio's been in love with his best friend for a long time, whether he admits it or not, but some stars cannot be defied, and he will have to confront himself and his fate. The events of the play from Mercutio's perspective.
I intended this fic to fit within, or beside, the original plot, to compliment or supplement it, but it is a different story, really, examining some of the same themes as the original in different ways. Much of the dialogue from the play I included is abridged or paraphrased but I strove to make the overlapping scenes as true to the original story as possible... but if you know Shakespeare as well as your own kitchen, you will notice I have taken certain liberties. Part two! 
Part one is here


...Benvolio was calling them, “Come on you idiots, do you want to go or not? We’ll be late and miss the dancing.”

“Mercutio!”

Mercutio turned. It was Paris, in a ridiculous peacock mask, waving at him, making his way across the dance floor with a young girl on his arm.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” he said, arriving at Mercutio’s side. “This,” he added importantly, “is Juliet.”

“Young Lady Capulet I presume?” Mercutio said, bowing over her hand. “Charmed.”

The girl looked up at him, eyes shadowed behind the feathers of her dainty mask, and smiled, a small smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet a future kinsman, sir,” she murmured, hardly meeting his gaze.

Paris’ face was shining with pride. Mercutio raised an eyebrow at him. “Having a good time?”

“Oh yes. Everything’s going well.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Mercutio said sardonically. “I’ll just leave you two love birds at it.” He sauntered off before his cousin could try to get him to make conversation with that empty doll of a chit.

A dozen yards away, he spotted Romeo, standing by a pillar and looking as stunned as if he had just seen a flock of flamingos prancing by. Mercutio strolled up to him and waved a hand in front of his vacant gaze. The blue eyes were so wide they were almost perfect circles in his face. His mouth was slightly agape.

“Anyone in there?” Mercutio asked dryly.

Romeo blinked slowly, and then shook himself all over, like a wet dog. “Who was that?” he asked, voice cracking slightly.

Mercutio groaned silently. “Paris’ fiancé,” he said sharply. “Someone you want to leave alone.”

“She is the very goddess of beauty herself,” Romeo breathed

“She’s a vapid child,” Mercutio snapped. And then cajolingly, “Come on Romeo, let’s get out of here. Go to a tavern. Get drunk. Have some real fun.”

Romeo shook his head slowly. “She’s… she…”

“She’s Circe to your Odysseus,” Mercutio said coldly. “And she’s enchanted you already.” There was acid roiling in his stomach and a bitter taste in his mouth. “I wish you luck then.”

He whirled and strode away, feeling unreasonably angry, but Romeo didn’t even glance after him. Mercutio kicked a pillar as he passed, and made for the edge of the room. He didn’t want to be penned in by people.

There was a balcony running around the room. Mercutio climbed up the stairs and wandered around it. It was blessedly empty, but for the occasional scurrying servant with a tray of drinks. He leaned on the polished railing and surveyed the room, turning his painted devil’s mask over in his hands. Benvolio was swinging through the steps of a dance in the center of the room and Romeo, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen. Paris and his girl - Jeannette? Joliet? Juliette? - were dancing too, with a proper space between them.

Mercutio waved at one of the passing servants, snitched a drink off his tray, and drained it in one gulp. It was sweet, fancy stuff, too insubstantial for his taste, but it would get him drunk. That was the important part.

He gazed moodily down at the crowd of insipid, colorless nobles, idly watching one lean-legged young man dancing. Slim and tight assed, but with hair a shade darker than Mercutio cared for. Even as he thought it, he hated himself for it.

He growled a curse and threw back another shot of the thin, sharp alcohol.

Then he spotted Romeo. The Montague was almost hidden from the rest of the room, but clearly visible from the balcony. He was standing close to a slim slip of a girl, her face tilted up to his, and Mercutio recognized her by her smile, that sweet empty smile. Mercutio swore.

Of all the stupid, brainless, foolish…

“Good e’en, sir.”

Mercutio straightened and whirled. There was a woman, ten years older than he, standing behind him, painted, primped, and predatory. “Good e’en,” he grunted turning back to the balcony. His eyes wandered back to Romeo and the girl out of some masochistic compulsion.

She moved closer, and he could smell the slight rankness of her sweat under the heavy stench of her perfume. “You looked lonely up here.” Her voice took on a familiar husky note, and he felt her press against his side.

A wave of disgust clench his stomach. At least whores had some honesty; they needed your money with all the desperation they pretended to want you. All that this woman wanted was a night’s entertainment.

“I appreciate your concern,” Mercutio said coldly, eyes on his friend and the Capulet girl.

The woman looked up at him through her eyelashes and ran a tongue along her lips, shamelessly wanton. This close, he could see the cracks in the caked paint on her face, and the faint spidery lines of sun and age under it. He leaned away fractionally, glancing back at the floor below, and spoke distractedly.

“I’m not sure that… would… dammit!”

“I’m sorry?”

They were kissing, Romeo and the girl, bodies pressed together, faces tilted, mouths open. Mercutio yanked his gaze away. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say, his tone only slightly strained. “Let me save you time, by telling you, try someone else. I’m not interested.” He swept a contemptuous eye over her, and couldn’t help adding, “I’m afraid I have impeccable eyesight.”

She gasped, and then slapped his face with the flat of her hand. The crack was loud but more shocking than painful. Mercutio put a hand to his cheek and then raised his hand, fully intending to hit her back.

Her eyes widened in fear and she stumbled back, then turned and fled. Mercutio checked himself, and turned his attention back to the tryst in the dark corner below.

But they were parted. The girl was nowhere to be seen. He spotted Romeo and Benvolio talking, and then Benvolio looked around and pointed up at the balcony where he stood. They both beckoned and waved him down.

Reluctantly he stood back from the balcony and walked toward the stairs, grabbing another drink from a passing page on the way. Despite the apparent mildness of the stuff he could feel the initial buzz.

“I fear trouble,” Romeo was saying as he reached the two friends. “No good will come of all this.”

Benvolio looked to Mercutio in exasperation. “When he’s not bewailing love’s rough kisses, he’s fretting over fated misfortune.”

“I don’t believe in fate,” Mercutio growled.

“Beware how you speak of it!” Benvolio warned.

Mercutio scowled. “I put my trust in Lady Tyche.”

“Luck against Fate?” Romeo raised an eyebrow. “An interesting wager.”

“I’m in no mood for wagers,” Mercutio said. “What say you we leave this gaggle and get ourselves to some place for real enjoyment?”

“Or home to bed, yes,” Benvolio agreed.

Mercutio rolled his eyes. “You can be such a spinster Ben,”

“I take offense at that.”

Bickering with Benvolio was familiar and easy, as they left the Capulet house. At the gate they looked around, and Romeo was gone.

“Romeo?” Benvolio called. Inside the party had not yet ended and they were the only two in sight in the street or in the walled garden behind the gate. “Cousin? Are you there?”

Mercutio leaned impatiently against the wall. “He’s probably gone on ahead to bed. If we were wise we would go after him.”

“No, he ran this way and jumped over the garden wall.” Benvolio pointed into the darkness. “Call to him, Mercutio.”

Mercutio, who could guess too well where Romeo had gone, sighed long-sufferingly. “I’ll conjure him then.” He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted into the night, “Ho! Romeo! Madman! Lover! Won’t you come to me in the form of a sigh? Won’t you whisper sweet words in my ear, oh passionate lover mine? Tell Venus you love me and call Cupid by my name!”

“If he hears you he’ll be angry,” Benvolio warned.

Mercutio dismissed it. “He hears not. You see, the dumb ape is dead and I must summon him.” He raised his voice again. “I summon you by Rosaline’s bright eyes, her red lips, and her dainty feet. Won’t you come for her? Isn’t she the one you loved most? I summon you by her straight legs, her quivering thighs, her glistening cu-”

“Whist!” Benvolio grabbed his arm. “You mustn't say such things.”

He laughed derisively. “For fear of angering him? This won’t anger him. I am only reminding him of what he claimed to love most, just this noon past. What I’m saying is fair and honest. Invoking her name to draw him out of the darkness. Or is she no longer your love Romeo?” he called. “Are you so fickle as that?”

“You’re drunk,” Benvolio said wearily. “Come on. He’s hidden and doesn’t want to be found. Let’s to bed.”

That night, he tossed and rolled in bed, plagued by tormented, restless dreams of murder and death and blood in the moonlight, glistening darkly. Swords clanging, crossing, swords of steel, scraping sparks off bright blades, slashing, slicing in the sunlight, duelers dancing. A different dance, bodies writhing together, hot and slick, gasping, grunting, rough and primal. A blond head thrown back, mouth open in a silent cry, blue eyes tightly shut. The taste of salt on his tongue. Sweat and blood and semen. The buck and shudder of climax.

He woke gasping and shaking for the second morning in a row, his heart thumping wildly. His mouth was dry. He had a throbbing erection, and his head pounded dully.

Look on the bright side, he told himself, At least you aren’t dreaming about his death anymore.

Small comfort. He was aching with the need for release, and after a moment he gave in.

It didn’t take long at all before he was arching off the bed, gasping Romeo’s name, spilling warm sticky liquid over his fist and onto his stomach. He swore quietly to himself as he sank back onto the pallet. He was very aware of the rough texture of the sheets, the lumpy straw under his back, the current of air across his exposed chest. His senses were sharpened in the heavy slackness that followed orgasm.

His head was aching worse than ever, and his stomach churned with last night’s cloying alcoholic drink. Worse, he felt dirty. Soiled, contaminated by his own thoughts. How was it that fantasies that aroused him so acutely in the throes of climax could sicken him utterly a minute later?

There was a sharp rap at the door. “Who-?” he croaked, and then coughed and tried again. “Who is it?”

“Me.”

The acerbic female voice was familiar. “Come in.”

He heard the door scraping, but didn’t open his eyes or move to cover himself. He heard her make a noise of surprise, and then give an exasperated sigh. “Really Mercutio? Sometimes I think you deliberately try to provoke me.”

He smiled lazily. “Oh but I do. You’re so sensible about it. It’s refreshing.”

She tutted. “If I didn’t know you so well I’d take the wrong meaning from that smile on a naked man’s face.”

“If you didn’t know me so well, I wouldn’t be naked.” But the smile dropped away. It had been a mask anyway. He heaved a sigh.

She patted him on the arm, and then he felt a cool damp cloth on his stomach. His eyes snapped open. “Now that’s humiliating!” he exclaimed, snatching the rag from her hand and shoving her off the bed. “Give me that! Get with you! Go on. Shoo!”

She laughed as he wiped himself down. “At least you’re up. The sun’s hours gone dawn. Can I do anything else for you then? Help you dress? Lick your boots maybe, since you prefer boys kissing your ass?”

He laughed, and then winced, as his head throbbed sharply. “Get me a drink.”

And Maia, good friend that she was, heard the raw edge to his voice, and went to fetch him one without another gibe.

“Where the devil is Romeo?” Mercutio said impatiently, peering down the street, craning to see over the heads of the crowd. “Did he come home last night?”

Benvolio shook his head. “No. I spoke with his servant.”

Mercutio growled and scuffed a foot over the cobbles, sidestepping a man with a loaded mule. “He’s mad with love over that hussy.”

“There was a letter sent to his father’s house,” Benvolio continued, not listening. “From Tybalt. The Capulet.”

Mercutio drew up short, the dream of the duel exploding behind his eyes. It had been Tybalt in that dream, with Romeo’s blood on his sword. “A challenge,” he muttered. “I’d bet my life.”

Benvolio nodded gravely. “And Romeo will answer it.”

Mercutio’s mind was churning. “Any man can answer a letter,” he said slowly.

“Nay Romeo will answer Tybalt, being dared.”

Mercutio made a furious noise in his throat, fists clenched and teeth grinding. “Romeo is already as good as dead,” he snarled, startling a woman with a basket of chattering chickens. “He has been killed by love, shot to death with Cupid’s arrows, stabbed by treacherous vixens, pierced through the ear with a love song; and you say this is a man fit to face Tybalt?”

“Why, what is Tybalt?”

“More than Prince of Cats.” Mercutio spat. “Arrogant and quick with a sword. He’s like a tomcat, always yowling to prove his manhood. But he fights a fine duel,” he admitted, remembering the brawl, and how it had taken all his skill and attention to keep Tybalt’s blade from his throat. “He pays attention to time and distance and proportion. A neat fighter, he could butcher a silk button. A duelist, indeed! He takes his time, plays the game, measures the measures; one, two, and the third in your heart!”

“Here comes Romeo,” Benvolio said distractedly.

“Oh, yes, here comes Romeo without his roe, like a dried herring. But whether he emptied himself into a girl or the garden goat, that’s the question! Oh flesh, how easily thou art fishifed! Look at his feeble, lovesick face.” Mercutio listened helplessly to the vitriol gushing from his mouth, and hardly felt as if he knew the man uttering the words, nor did he know how to stop or even if he wanted to.

He raised his voice. “Bonjour Signor Romeo, there’s a French greeting for you French slops.” He spits the word, wondering why the hell he was feeling so vicious and hating himself for the look on Romeo’s face; white shock, like he’d just been slapped - or taken a sword thrust to the gut. “You gave us counterfeit fairly last night.”

Romeo’s expression of hurt became stiff. “Good morrow to the both of you,” he said formally. “What counterfeit did I give you?”

“The slip, sir the slip!” he cried waving expansively. He felt drunk.

“Pardon me, good Mercutio,” and there was a nasty twist on his name that made Mercutio flinch inside, “But my business was great, and in such cases a man may strain courtesy.”

Mercutio was soaring on wings of something black and loathsome. “Some business that had you exercising your buttocks no doubt.”

“You mean curtsying?” Romeo said scathingly.

Mercutio rolled his eyes theatrically. “Oh aye, you’ve hit the mark there.”

“How kind of you,” Romeo rejoined. “Ben-”

But Mercutio wasn’t done. “I’m the very pink of courtesy, I am.”

“A pink flower,” Romeo snapped.

Mercutio waggled his eyebrows.

[A/N The jokes they are making in this passage of the play do not translate easily into our modern language. I abridged this severely but it is meant to be a contest of wits and strung together (sexual) puns.]

A corner of Romeo’s mouth quirked.

Mercutio felt as if some huge tension inside him had been released. Relief flooded through him, heady and intoxicating as his anger had been, as Romeo tried not to smile, saying “My pump is well flowered then.” Somehow, in some twisted way, Mercutio had been forgiven, though by whom, for what, he couldn’t fathom.

“Come, break this up Benvolio,” he said. “I’m loosing this match of wits.”

Romeo made mock slashing motions in the air, dancing from foot to foot like a prizefighter. “Keep on, keep on, else I’ll cry myself the winner!”

“You see,” Mercutio said, suddenly at ease, “Isn’t this better than groaning for love? Now you’re sociable. Now you’re Romeo.” Now you’re mine, he added silently to himself. My friend. “Not some blithering fool who runs lolling up hill and down dale looking for some hole to bury his bauble in.”

“Stop there, stop there,” Benvolio cried, raising his arms, before Romeo could respond. “Look who comes.”

Mercutio turned and didn’t bother to stifle a laugh at the obese woman waddling across the square with a manservant trailing after her like a schooner after a man o war. “Ho!” he cried. “A sail, a sail!”

The woman spoke to her companion, unheard across the bustle of people, but as they moved closer, her next words were audible. “Give me my fan Peter!”

“Aye good Peter!” Mercutio cried jovially. “Give her the fan, for the fan’s the fairer face!”

The woman turned a sharp eye on him. “God’y good marrow gentleman.”

Mercutio bowed flamboyantly. “God’y good e’en, gentlewoman.”

“Is it e’en already?” she asked, fluttering her fan.

“Tis no less I tell you,” he said, tipping her a wink, “For the bawdy hands of time now sit upon the prick of noon.” He gestured up at the clocktower looming over the square, and sure enough both hands of the dial were pointing straight up, towards midday and the sun’s zenith.

“Out with you!” the woman cried laughingly. “What kind of a man are you?”

“One God hath made, himself to mar,” Mercutio said, tone suddenly reflective, as he gazed at the clock face. Last time he had noticed it distinctly, had been in a dream, and then, like now, the hands had been together on the point of noon, as the bells tolled a solemn knell.

“You ne’r spoke a truer word, lad,” the woman said crisply. “Now where shall I find young Romeo?”

“I am the youngest by that name, for want of a worse,” Romeo said, stepping forward.

“If you are he, I desire a confidence with you,” the nurse said.

Benvolio laughed at her malapropism. “She will indite him to supper.”

“Romeo are you coming to dinner at your father’s? Let’s away,” Mercutio said.

Romeo waved them off with a distracted look. “I’ll come after.”

Mercutio and Benvolio started off slowly, glancing back at the two with their heads bowed together.

“Do you think he’ll come?” Benvolio asked.

“No,” Mercutio snorted, foul mood returning suddenly. “Come on, or we’ll miss the meal.”

It was sunset.

Romeo had not been seen all day. Mercutio told himself it didn’t bother him, that Romeo’s business was his own, that he didn’t care if the blond Montague had spent the afternoon with the Capulet girl or a whore behind the Black Bull or a mare in the stables. Mercutio shook his head, feeling sick, needing to think about something other than Romeo for a little while at least.

His footsteps carried him out beyond the courtyard of the Prince’s house, into the gardens, and up a shallow rise. From the crest of it, he could see the garden spread out below him like the quiltwork of angels, beyond it the houses of the town, red roof tiles glowing in the last golden light of day. The city looked clean and peaceful. Beyond the rooftops were the mountains, blue and hazy with distance, and the brilliant disk of the sun just resting on their peaks.

Mercutio stretched, looking out over the scene, and thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. Except maybe Romeo. Romeo laughing. Romeo, trying not to smile. Romeo, water dripping from his eyelashes running down his cheeks. Romeo rolling in the grass after their wresting match, face flushed, hair spiked with sweat. Romeo-

The dams burst.

Hundreds of images flooded his head, a thousand days of laughter and companionship, when it was just that, just friendship, and neither wanted any more. It tightened his throat with the joy of the memories. He wouldn’t give it up, he thought fiercely, not for anything. If he could make a deal with the devil and have Romeo as his lover forever, he wouldn’t do it. Not if it meant giving up those memories, the precious record of an untainted friendship.

A man God hath made, himself to mar, he reflected wryly, gazing unseeing over the lush fields and the silent city toward the blazing sunset, now streaking the sky with all its glory. Was that what I was doing, saying all those terrible things to him? Trying to ruin myself? Punish myself perhaps, make him hate me the way he should? Hate me so I would stop loving him? Watch him flinch and die a little inside myself because I know it’s what I deserve?

He’s my best friend, he told himself harshly. I don’t want to hurt him. I would do anything for him. I would die for him.

The last brilliant sliver of the sun sank behind the purple mountains, and chill blue dusk fell over the earth.

It was noon. The wide square was empty, the air still. The light was bright, crisp light, silvery and very pale. It sharpened edges, making contrasts stark. Shadows were deep, and highlights washed out.

The tower clock in the church steeple chimed slowly, each toll ringing hollowly across the tiled roofs and cobbled streets, sounding almost muffled, as if heard through a thick cotton hood. It was hot. So hot it was hard to breath, one could almost ring sweat out of the air like a saturated cloth.

People were indoors, hiding from the heat. Benvolio and Mercutio were alone with a stray cat on the opposite side of the square. “I’m begging you, Mercutio, let’s retire,” Benvolio pleaded. “It’s too hot for sanity and the Capulets are abroad in the streets. If we meet them there’s sure to be a brawl. These hot days may boil a man’s blood to madness.”

Mercutio was sweating through his tunic, but cocked an eyebrow at his friend. “Go in to escape a fight? You are one of those infuriating men who, on entering a tavern, claps his sword upon the table and says, “God grant me no need of thee.” But by the time he’s on his second drink, he’d pull it on the bartender for no reason at all.”

Benvolio rubbed a hand across his glistening brow. “Am I such a fellow?”

“Come, come,” Mercutio said. “You are as hot a man as any in Italy, when the mood takes you.”

The Montague cousin shrugged noncommittally. “What of it? You’re as hot to fight as I, or more so.”

Mercutio shook his head. “If there were two like you, we would shortly have none, for they would surely kill each other. You would fight a man who is cracking nuts, just because you have hazelnut eyes. What other eye but yours would look for a fight like that?”

Benvolio rolled his eyes expansively. “Were I so apt to quarrel as you, my life would not be worth a farthing. We both know, good friend, that it is you who seek the fights, and I who seek to end them.”

Mercutio pretended to consider, and then grinned. “Mayhaps. But you must admit, money is foolish measure of a man’s life.”

Benvolio started to respond, and then his eyes widened, looking over Mercutio’s shoulder. “Here come the Capulets!”

And indeed, swaggering across the square, warping and shimmering in the heat off the cobbles, came a band of young men, wearing the red livery of the Capulets. The leader of the pack broke away and approached, stocky and dark, easily recognized as Tybalt. There was malevolence in his stride and the arrogant tip of his chin, and open distain in his face.

“Good e’en gentlemen,” he said, in a tone that belied the pleasantry. “I’d like a word.”

“Just a word?” Mercutio called, voice ringing off the stucco walls and tile roofs. “Raise your stakes! Make it a word and a blow!”

Tybalt nodded insolently. “You will find me ready enough, sir, if you give me reason.”

“Couldn’t you find a reason without my giving it?” Mercutio asked archly.

“Good Mercutio,” Tybalt began, “You consort with Romeo, do you not?”

“Consort? What do you take us for, minstrels? You would find our music harsh. Draw your sword, by god!”

Benvolio grabbed his friend by the back of his tunic. “We’re in a public place,” he hissed. “Either take this quarrel somewhere private and settle it with cool logic, or else just go away! Out here all eyes are on us.”

“Men’s eyes were meant to look,” Mercutio said. “Let them see. I’ll not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.”

“Peace be with you sir,” said Tybalt, looking over Mercutio’s shoulder. “Here comes my man.”

Mercutio spun to see Romeo strolling toward them. He raised a hand in greeting, looking ridiculously happy, and Mercutio whirled back to face Tybalt. “I’ll be hanged if he’s your man,” he spat.

But Tybalt ignored him, shouldering past and calling out to Romeo. “Romeo, the little love I bear you can afford no better term than this; thou art a villain.”

“Tybalt,” Romeo answered calmly, “The reason I have to love you excuses the rage I should feel at your greeting. Villain, I am not. You do not know me.”

“All this pretty talk will not excuse the injuries you have done me,” Tybalt growled. “Turn and draw!”

“I protest,” Romeo said mildly. “I have never injured thee, in fact I love you more than you can imagine, for you know not the reasons for my love. And with that, good Capulet - a name I treasure as dearly as my own - be satisfied.”

Mercutio was sputtering. “That’s bloody bullshit,” he finally exploded. “Vile, dishonorable submission! None of that!” His rapier sang, high and keen as he drew it from its sheath. “Tybalt, you rat catcher, fight me dammit!”

“What would you have of me?” Tybalt asked, eyes glittering as he turned on Mercutio at last.

“Not but one of your nine lives, King of Cats,” Mercutio jeered, and spat at his feet. “Make haste, before I sheath in your belly.”

The Capulet stiffened. “I am for you sir.” He drew his sword smoothly, aiming it at Mercutio’s breast.

Romeo grabbed at his best friend’s arm. “Mercutio, good Mercutio, my friend, put your sword away.”

Mercutio shook him violently off. His nerves were humming, buzzing with a kind of déjà vu like cicadas in long grass. A sense of inevitability crackled like electricity in the air, so thick he could taste it like the dust. Perhaps the dream was true. But perhaps he could change it.

He did not believe in fate.

The blades flashed in the sunlight, slow as quicksilver, swift as sight. Steel screeched and sang and showered sparks. Steel and sunlight, blinding bright. Mercutio grinned madly.

They circled each other, the only sounds their panting breath and the scrape of their feet on the cobbles. All other noises seemed muffled. The oven-hot air pressed against their ears like wet wool. Around them the circle of watching faces was blurred, unrecognizable. The only thing real was the duel.

Lunge, parry, strike and counterstrike. Metal met metal, parted and met, and screamed like dying stars.

“Stop, stop it, please stop!” Romeo was shouting. “The Prince forbid this, for shame gentlemen! Hold, Tybalt, good Mercutio, stop!”

Mercutio stepped back, disengaging, at the earnest urgency in his voice. He was breathing heavily, sweat dripping off him, grip slick on the leather hilt of his sword. He and Tybalt eyed each other warily, still circling slowly.

“Stop this,” he said more gently, stepping between them.

Mercutio, watching Tybalts eyes, saw them narrow to evil slits, saw his arm flex, the sword being drawn up, glinting in the sunlight, and with all his strength he shoved Romeo aside, twisting in front of him so the sword blade buried itself deep in his gut.

He saw Tybalt’s eyes widen slightly, and then felt a lurch in his belly as Tybalt yanked the sword free. It didn’t hurt, not really, just felt… wrong, in a slightly sickening way.

Mercutio stumbled back, hands clamped over his stomach, feeling hot sticky liquid welling between them. He vaguely heard shouts and saw Tybalt fleeing with his cronies, heard Benvolio’s frantic voice, but it barely registered because Romeo was holding him, supporting him, talking in his ear. “Are alright, are you hurt? Say something!”

Mercutio choked on a laugh. Was he hurt? His hands were slick with his own blood. “A scratch, a scratch.” He hacked again, this time tasting blood in his throat. A lung gone then. “I’m done for,” he added more quietly.

“No! No, courage, man,” Romeo shook his shoulders. “The hurt can’t be much.”

Mercutio grunted. “Not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door, but twill serve. Look for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man! Ha!” He coughed, body wracking, and this time spat scarlet on the cobbles. “A plague on both your houses,” he mumbled, but there was no real rancor in it. Romeo was murmuring in his ear as if to a child, wordless comfort and consolation. His stomach was beginning to burn, a bright, throbbing pain, sharp as sunlight on steel, and liquid gurgled in his lungs on every breath, but it didn’t matter, because Romeo was there, solid and warm, holding him, alive, alive, and that was what mattered, because he had saved him, and Romeo would live and prosper and it would be worth it, worth anything, and as he rested his head on Romeo’s chest, the only thing in the world was the thump of his heartbeat as darkness bled into the daylight.