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Tybalt’s father is not tender by nature. Even now, when he is full of wine and something that might be called good humor were it not for the ever-present banked fury in his eyes, his fingernails bite through the fabric of Tybalt’s doublet, and his hand lies too heavy upon Tybalt’s shoulder.
“Do something with him,” his father orders the whore who stands silent before them. He has picked her out of the five who stand attendance, all barely clad, bedecked like the wanton women they are.
The others watch, expressionless, though Tybalt wonders if they are jealous; after all, they will spend the night with his father. He thinks of his father’s hands, ungentle even upon his mother’s wrist, the dark bruises left there after she had once dared to beg him to leave off fighting the cursed Montagues and see her and Tybalt, who had been six and too young to take up arms against their enemies, to the safety of their house.
“Yes, my lord,” the whore murmurs. Her face is painted, though Tybalt convinces himself that he can see the hint of lines at the corners of her eyes, the creases at the corner of her mouth that debauchery and sin has wrought upon her. Her lips are dark and red, as red as the bloodstained lips of the Montague who had died at Tybalt’s feet the night before, the man choking on pink, frothy blood as Tybalt’s father had wrenched the sword from his chest and kicked him carelessly aside.
Tybalt’s stomach roils. He takes in a breath to steady himself, but instead the perfumes of the brothel choke him. He can taste them upon his tongue, too sweet and heavy. With effort, he keeps his face still when the whore murmurs her assent. He does not react even as she takes his hand in hers and draws him away from the room, revulsion coiling hot and heavy in his belly.
The door closes behind them, cutting off his father’s low commands to the remaining whores, and after they move past his father’s blank-faced guards and turn a corner, they are alone in the hallway. He wrenches his hand from hers, but he can still feel her touch and her soft, silky skin. This is the hand of a whore, he thinks distantly. It has never touched a blade or killed a man.
“My lord,” the whore is saying. He hates her suddenly, with a passion all out of reason, despises her wary eyes -- for even at almost fourteen Tybalt’s dangerous temper is known throughout Verona -- and her fixed, placating smile. “Your father--”
The bitterness is still in his mouth. He hates even more his mind, which taunts him with what she might do to him with those soft hands. His head aches. He presses his hand to his head, willing the thoughts away. He digs in his nails too fiercely, desperate to banish the images. There is a sudden stinging pain; he knows that his hand will come away bloody from his brow even before he looks at the blood beading his fingertips. He has done this before, clawed and torn his own skin without meaning to, and yet the sight of his own blood enrages him further.
He drops his hand to his side and snarls, his fury choking him, “I do not-- I wish for privacy.”
“Yes, my lord,” says the whore quickly. Her eyes are wide and fixed upon his bleeding forehead. She leads him quickly to a room that is empty save for the overwhelming smell of perfume and a few pieces of furniture. Tybalt does not look towards the bed, looks instead at the whore’s hands which flutter like frightened birds as she says, “My lord, your father has said--”
“My father has said,” Tybalt echoes, and does not laugh, for if he begins to laugh, he fears he will never stop. “But my father is not here and I--” Despair and futile rage claws at his stomach, and he fears that he will be sick, or, worse, that another fit will come upon him and he will humiliate himself before this whore. His father will have his way, he knows, but not, he prays, tonight. “But my father is not here. You will tell him that we passed the night together.” He does not look towards the bed, does not gaze again at her soft hands, which still tremble at her sides. His mouth twists unpleasantly and his voice is vicious as he adds, “I am certain you can draw upon your experience if he presses for details.”
“But, my lord,” the whore begins to protest, and then flees at the rasped, warning, “Go.”
Tybalt does not watch her go. He has gripped the dagger at his waist, he finds; he unclenches his fist from around the handle, the joints of his hand aching. His head pounds, a sharp, throbbing pain. He wonders how he will lie to his father, if his father will see through the falsehood.
He raises his hand again to his brow, feels the blood that has already dried. It flakes at the testing press of his fingers. He drops his hand to his side, leans a moment against the doorframe, gathering strength so that he might step inside and close himself away from the soft, terrible sounds he can hear from the adjoining rooms.
“Has all this perfume addled my wits and all these bewitching ladies dazzled my eyes, or do I see a Capulet before me? I would ask what brings thee to this place, my good lord Tybalt, but even my imagination fails to suggest what you might do here other than the obvious.”
Tybalt receives the words like a blow, and shudders all over before he can quell his reaction. He does not have to open his eyes to know who stands before him, to picture the mocking slant of Mercutio’s mouth. He is torn between anger and something very much like relief. Where the duke’s half-mad nephew is, Montagues are sure to follow like the craven lapdogs they are. Should his father discover Montagues are frequenting this same brothel, there will be bloodshed, Capulet and Montague heart-blood staining the stones of Verona for the second time in as many days. Tybalt almost welcomes the prospect, for it will mean the assorted Capulets and Montagues spilling onto the streets to fight, away from the sickeningly sweet perfumes of the brothel.
“Well, dear Tybalt, will you not even greet me?”
There is a false distress in Mercutio’s voice. When Tybalt opens his eyes, it is to catch the other boy in the act of clutching his chest and twisting his features into a look of acute misery. Realizing that Tybalt now looks at him, the affectation drops from Mercutio’s features. Mercutio offers a half-bow, adding with feigned apologetic concern, “But alas, I am new to the etiquette of brothels, having come here in secret and against my beloved uncle’s wishes. You will have to excuse my ignorance, I fear. Should I have pretended not to recognize you and passed you by?”
Tybalt scowls. “You press your luck, Mercutio,” he says. “I am in no mood for your foolishness tonight. Pray, go on your way, or I shall forget you are protected by your most gracious uncle’s favor.”
Mercutio tosses his head back and laughs; the hallway torchlight catches upon his features, casts shadows along the smooth line of his throat. “You are in no mood for my foolishness tonight? Ah, but that implies you sometimes do enjoy my wit dear Tybalt. For that compliment I thank thee.” He bows again with an elaborate flourish that sets Tybalt’s teeth on edge. “And as for my kinsman, he said but yesterday that a few blows to the head might do me some good.”
“Mercutio,” Tybalt warns. Each word from that taunting mouth is the prick of a knife, a hundred small cuts liable to drive him to madness. He remembers his thirteenth birthday, the warm, sharp pain of his father’s dagger breaking the skin of his chest just above his heart, the smothering press of his father’s breath against his face.
Capulets have no use for their hearts, boy, his father had said, his breath soured by wine. You must cut it away and fill that space with more hatred for the Montagues. Do you understand me?
“Tybalt,” counters Mercutio with another laugh. Then he goes motionless, that constant frenzied energy abruptly stilled. His eyes, Tybalt, realizes, are fixed upon Tybalt’s forehead. Puzzlement touches his features, and half-laughingly Mercutio asks, “But how came you by those wounds? Have you offended one of the ladies of the house with your gloomy countenance and she turned from a coquettish kitten to an alleycat?”
“There are no ladies here,” Tybalt begins to say, but the words still on his tongue as Mercutio reaches out and brushes Tybalt’s hair away from his brow. His fingers are warm, his hand roughened and callused by fencing lessons. His touch is obscenely gentle as it traces the scratches Tybalt’s own nails have left.
Something that Tybalt must name as disgust twists hot and urgent in his belly. Before he can remember that Mercutio is the duke’s heir and not to be touched, he has fisted his hand in Mercutio’s collar and borne the other boy into the room, slamming the door shut behind them.
“Do not touch me,” he snarls, and shakes Mercutio roughly until Mercutio’s breath rattles in his throat.
Mercutio’s laughter is breathless and yet still full of mockery. “You say that so fiercely, and with such conviction, and yet here you stand inside a brothel.” Somehow he makes the movement of his eyebrows obscene. “Or did you not come here to be touched? Mayhap--”
Tybalt twists Mercutio’s collar to silence the unbearable flow of words. The other boy gasps, his face flushing, his entire body shuddering and squirming in Tybalt’s grasp. Watching the deepening flush on the other boy’s face, listening to his struggles for air, Tybalt wonders why Mercutio does not go for his dagger. Surely it would be easy enough to press the point of it against Tybalt’s throat or belly until Tybalt must release him or see more of his own blood shed this night.
Instead Mercutio’s hands settle upon Tybalt’s elbows and run along Tybalt’s arms to his shoulders, where they linger, light and strange. Mercutio says, his voice strangled and yet still suggestive enough that color rises to Tybalt’s cheeks, “If thou hadst wished to invite me to thy room, Tybalt, thou needst but to ask.”
Tybalt realizes how close they are then, their faces nearly touching, Mercutio’s ragged breath hot upon his cheek, the touch upon his shoulders one which others might call a caress. They are practically embracing. He shoves Mercutio away, unsettled by his nearness.
Mercutio stumbles backwards, catching himself on the edge of the bed. His hand goes to his throat as he takes in a few short breaths. His face is almost its normal shade once more when he speaks again. There is a rueful edge to his voice. “I truly wonder who has the portion of humor that should have been allotted to you, Tybalt. Perhaps I have your humor as well as my own and that is why I find myself so overflowing with merriment and cannot lend myself to seriousness.”
“Perhaps so.” He wishes that Mercutio had drawn his blade or struck him. His entire body aches to fight Mercutio and bear him across the floor once more, to pin him against the wall and choke more breath from him, to bloody his lips with blows until his mouth is as red as the whore’s or the dying Montague’s. He laughs, harshly. “Yes, perhaps so! It would explain why a jester’s cap suits thee better than a future crown. Hath the duke any other kinsmen to be his heir instead, or shall Verona fall to ruin when thou art duke?” He is skirting close to treason, he knows, but Mercutio’s strange, gentle touch and sweet breath are too fresh to his senses and he cannot watch his words.
Mercutio says nothing more for a moment. His expression is strange, for why should Tybalt’s insult move him to what looks like pity? “Ah, but what makes you think Verona is not already lost, my dear Tybalt?” Before Tybalt can ponder the curious question and discover the trick that must be concealed within it, Mercutio’s mirth returns to him and he tosses his head back again in a careless laugh. “But come, this talk of Verona is dull beyond endurance. Pray tell me how you came by those wounds. Sate my curiosity, and I shall swear not to speak of the tale to anyone.”
“I have no faith in your oaths,” Tybalt snaps before he can think better of it.
Something like anger heats Mercutio’s eyes then. For the first time all evening he looks dangerous, the boy all agrees will be the best swordsman in Verona when he is grown if he does not get himself killed in some foolishness of his own making before he can reach maturity.
“I am false to many things, dear Tybalt,” Mercutio says, and his soft, even voice raises the hair on the back of Tybalt’s neck. “To my lessons, to my responsibilities, to the girl I kissed but two nights hence in my uncle’s orchard, I will gladly confess it. But never, I pray, to my word.”
Tybalt shifts, uncomfortable. Embarrassment is a strange sentiment as it warms his face; he finds he does not care for it. He is aware that he has overstepped, for Mercutio speaks the truth. The other boy is flighty and foolish beyond endurance, but it has never been said of him that he breaks his oaths. Tybalt clears his throat. The apology is harsh and strange on his tongue, and he resents every syllable. “You are right. I...spoke ill and falsely.”
Some of the anger cools, and Mercutio’s familiar insufferable smile turns up the corners of his mouth. “Ah, well, thou art forgiven for the insult,” he says lightly. He raises an eyebrow. “Although I would ask a boon from you as recompense.”
Tybalt’s jaw tightens. He sees too late the trap Mercutio has set for him, made possible by his careless words. He can see no way out. “Very well,” he says through gritted teeth, already knowing what the boon will be.
“Tell me how you came by your scratches.”
“I…” Tybalt’s mouth is dry. He wishes for something to drink, even wine. He wets his lips with his tongue, watches how Mercutio’s eyes fix upon his mouth, awaiting the story. “It is not an exciting tale. My head hurt, and I gripped it too forcefully.”
Mercutio’s smile twists; Tybalt knows he is recalling all the whispered rumors of Tybalt’s fits, though Tybalt has, thank what little is good in the world, not yet had a fit in front of Mercutio and the Montague curs he dallies with.
“I see that I ought to have saved my boon for something more worthy,” Mercutio says after a moment. “I had hoped for some tale of debauchery.”
Tybalt thinks of the whore, her shocked look. His own lips twist.
Mercutio catches the grimace. “Or is there more to the tale?”
No, Tybalt wants to say, but he is bound to his own promise as surely as Mercutio. “There was a whore with me and I was…angry.”
“Angry?” Mercutio almost laughs at that. “Did she not satisfy thee, then? Oh, but that is nothing to lose your temper over, beautiful Tybalt! There are women enough in this house that you might find at least one to your liking.” He leers.
The memory springs, unbidden, of the whore’s pale, fluttering hands, the way her clothes concealed nothing, of the fear in her voice, how all the whores standing before his father had seemed to have the same emotionless face. Tybalt swallows down bile. “Dost thou truly think I am here because I wish to be? Thou knowst me not at all then. My father ordered--” He stops. His head aches again, a stabbing pain this time. He raises his hand to his head once more. The ground lurches beneath his feet.
“Ah, careful, careful,” Mercutio murmurs, and then his hand is back upon Tybalt’s brow, knocking aside Tybalt’s shaking hand and then brushing light fingers where Tybalt’s head hurts most. “We cannot have you fall into a fit here. I should be forced to call for aid, and then my little adventure would be discovered. I have no wish to tell my uncle of how I came to be in a brothel when he expressly forbade it.”
If he had any breath to speak, Tybalt would retort that Mercutio’s plight is none of his concern, but all of his breath has escaped him. He can only stand there dumbly as Mercutio’s hand sweeps across his brow.
At last, Mercutio’s hand stills, fingertips resting lightly upon Tybalt’s jaw. “Better, I think,” he murmurs, half a question. His hand drops away, and cool air replaces the warmth.
Tybalt can breathe again, although his throat is still tight. The pain is not entirely gone, but most of the storm in his head has been crowded out by sheer bewilderment. He feels lightheaded still, the ground yet unsteady. He wishes that sitting down upon the bed would not be seen as a weakness, that he could touch his jaw without betraying something to Mercutio.
“There,” he says, He attempts to sound brusque. “I have kept my promise and answered the question. Now go to your-- your business and I will--”
“You truly intend to hide away in this room when there are women to be had,” Mercutio says. It is not a question, though there is an incredulous note to his voice. He shakes his head and sighs. “Ah, beautiful Tybalt, what is there to do in life except take pleasure as it comes?”
Tybalt sneers, but he is still dizzy and off-balance; he cannot find his usual rage. Instead he feels only weary and worn thin. “You may take your pleasure as you will, but I find no pleasure in these women who have bedded a hundred men and will bed a hundred more before they are done.”
Mercutio says nothing to that. Instead he seems to study Tybalt’s face for a moment and come to a decision. There is something almost fey in his expression now, but muted, all but concealed beneath his pensive look. He steps forward once more, ignores Tybalt’s warning snarl.
Mercutio’s mouth brushes against his, lightly at first, almost cautious. Then the kiss deepens, Mercutio's tongue tracing the line of Tybalt's lower lip in the instant before Mercutio half-skips back, holding his hands up as though to ward off a blow or another fist at his collar. He needn’t have bothered, for Tybalt feels turned to stone, his thoughts sluggish with astonishment.
“There, lovely Tybalt,” says Mercutio. The words are said quickly, as though he expects Tybalt to fly into another rage or collapse in a fit before him, and he laughs at his own effrontery. “I have done thee a service.”
Tybalt can taste Mercutio upon his lips, the spices of whatever wine he has drunk this evening burning his mouth. It is hard to banish the taste, harder still to convince his lips to shape words, hardest of all to gather enough breath to make his demand.
“Get out.”
“It was kindly meant!” Mercutio says and sounds almost as though he has convinced himself he speaks the truth. He smiles, and Tybalt does not bother to look for the mock earnestness Mercutio has instilled in the look. Mercutio begins to sidle around Tybalt towards the door, his hands shielding his throat. “I do not know what your father has ordered you to do here, but now you may tell him you have been kissed and not tell him a falsehood.”
“Get out,” Tybalt says. He can move again, he finds, rage welling up and sweeping away his shock. He starts towards Mercutio, who retreats towards the door, watching him with a mixture of wariness and curious interest.
Mercutio has his hand upon the handle when Tybalt shoves him against the door, earning a startled sound from Mercutio’s mouth. “Your actions belie your words,” Mercutio says, twisting his lips into something like a smile. “How shall I obey your demand and get out if you keep--”
“It was kindly meant, you say, and yet it seems your, your charity has limits,” Tybalt says. He scarcely recognizes his own voice, thickened by rage and something else; the revulsion aches low in his belly and has set his veins aflame. “You offer me a kiss but no more, when we both know what my father expects of me tonight. How shall I answer him when he presses for details?”
For a moment, Tybalt feels victorious, for he has never seen Mercutio’s face like this before, slack with surprise, his mouth half-open, all cruel merriment chased from his features. Mercutio recovers from his astonishment quickly enough. He offers Tybalt a smile from beneath lowered lashes that should seem absurdly coquettish and yet warms Tybalt’s blood further. “Shall I offer thee more than a kiss, then?”
“No, I don’t--” Tybalt snarls, and knows the half-voiced sentence for a lie even before Mercutio’s hand drops between Tybalt’s legs to touch his hard prick. He does not know when the revulsion turned to arousal without his notice, only that it has. A sound escapes Tybalt’s throat that is not quite rage, though he wishes it were.
“I have not as much experience with this manner of blade as others,” Mercutio murmurs, running his thumb along the length of Tybalt’s prick, his hand hot even through the hose, “but I am a quick study, I am told.”
Tybalt snarls and thrusts against Mercutio’s hand. His own hands bury themselves in Mercutio’s hair so that he can drag him closer and bite at that cursed mouth. There is a roaring in his ears, loud enough that it almost drowns out the yells of his father’s guards, “Montagues! To arms, Capulets!”
Mercutio breaks away, gasping. There are spots of color high in his cheeks, and his eyes are dark. There is something almost of childish frustration in the slant of his reddened lips as he frowns and listens to the sounds of clanging steel.
Then he kisses Tybalt once more, a hard, fast kiss that feels like a blow, knocking Tybalt’s breath from him. “Damn your feud,” Mercutio mutters against his mouth. “You foolish Capulets and Montagues will see Verona turned to Carthage.” He pushes Tybalt away, enough that he can open the door and slip out into the hallway, presumably to rescue whatever hapless Montague helped him slip into the brothel unnoticed by any of the duke’s men upon the streets, as swift and silent as a cat.
Tybalt stands there for a moment, his prick still hot between his legs, his mouth stinging from the force of Mercutio’s last kiss. Then he hears his father’s roar of rage, and sense returns to him. He drops his hand to the dagger at his side, the metal of the handle cold against his fingers.
He pushes all thoughts aside of Mercutio and his infectious madness, and races to his father’s aid.