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“Mercutio, stop that.”
His finger remained atop the crusted skin, nail scratching at the drying scab.
“You can never leave things alone, can you?”
Almost as if to prove his uncle's point, he kept his head down and continued picking at the spot on his knee. Would he receive two lectures now, one for scratching at the scab, and another for his horseplay outside when he'd received it?
He only glanced up to his brother beside him, who had his hands folded on his lap, back stiff and straight as he seemed to brace for what was to come next. Well, besides the lectures, Mercutio knew what would happen: His uncle would chastise him for dragging Valentine into his nonsense, and remind Valentine that he should have known better. Because God forbid Mercutio try to get the both of them some air during another suffocating banquet, if only for a brief adventure into the surrounding wood.
So what if Mercutio tore his silk garments and scratched his knee? Valentine remained unscathed, and even now, exemplified what was expected of the both of them, what Mercutio had rejected for so long.
He continued picking at his scab.
Eventually, it opened once more, faint red trickling down to his shin.
That scab faded after a while, yet in a way it would always remain. Every wrong step, every vulgar word from his mouth, and it opened a little wider, red seeping through as his family slowly but surely deemed him a lost cause. He dishonored his status and sullied his silk, the red weaving into the fabric and forever marking him a prodigal son.
Not Valentine, though.
No, he was much better than that. He was who Mercutio would never be, who he was supposed to be.
So on the rare occasion Valentine slipped—forgot his etiquette, dozed off during his intensive studies—Mercutio would tumble. If Valentine mistakenly broke a vase, Mercutio would down and shatter a wine bottle. Because if his life was worth nothing—reduced to a messy waste of a gaping wound—then Valentine's might as well be respectable to the same extent.
A scapegoat, or even a sacrificial lamb, but that did not matter as long as Valentine’s coat remained clean.