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Tybalt hadn’t seen the world in months. Locked away for the crime of being born. He ached. A deep, unending kind of ache, one that he knew all too well.
Loneliness filled him. It had been years since he’d even been near someone. Since his parents passed. Since.. well since his youth spent with Mercutio. Since Juliet had been there to fill the hole in his heart, torn away from him by her father in favor of etiquette training and dance lessons. Kept away from each other by the lie that he would corrupt her.
“You’ll never see her again,” his uncle sworn. Tybalt had tried his best to fight it, to make it untrue. Yet his uncle had been correct. He’s fought and struggled for even a glimpse of her. And now he was locked away. For good. He was just a stay cat, locked in the basement for yowling too loud, and eventually forgotten.
At least he’d gotten the maid who brought his food to pity him, despite the fear his uncle had instilled in the staff. The girl was younger than Juliet, and much more closed off. It’d taken months, and finally she had agreed to deliver a single letter to his cousin.
Which meant Tybalt had nothing left to do. He had done what he needed to before his death. His last connection to the world was severed, the last person who loved him was well and truly out of reach.
Tybalt stared at the glass shard in his hand and felt nothing. He used to think he would go down clawing, scratching, hissing, full of anger and spite. Tybalt was hallow, and nothing more.
He held the glass to his throat and prayed to a god who had never heard him before that this time, Tybalt would be spared from the pain.
——
There was shouting. Blood, of course. And Juliet’s voice. But Tybalt was dead. So it didn’t matter.
——
Tybalt stirred and found himself in a white room, in a bed with unfamiliar cotton sheets. His neck hurt. Strange. He must have slept funny. Juliet was at his side, fast asleep in a chair, her head resting in her fold arms on his bed. Why? She…
She was a lot taller all of a sudden. From the glimpse of her face he could tell she had lost some baby fat in her cheeks. It was like she’d ages five years since yesterday.
Yesterday? What had happened yesterday? He.. he couldn’t remember. It was all blank. He reached up to touch his neck and found bandages and pain, and long hair and slender fingers that felt alien. It was as if he too, had grown up a little more.
“What the hell?!?”
——
Tybalt’s mind was still reeling hours later. Juliet and her old nurse had been just as baffled at first at his confusion as he was, but had filled him in on the major things he had missed. The five years he had forgotten.
Well.. not all of it. Juliet was cagey about what had happened to him, about why he was there. About what Tybalt himself had done in those five missing years. She’d let slip she was the one to find him and only looked dismayed, before telling him that her father would not visit. That didn’t surprise Tybalt of course, but she was so adamant that he know his uncle was far away, as if she feared what would happen if he did decide to visit.
It was so strange. The world nagged at him as every cell in his body told him he was forgetting something important. There was this sadness in his chest, a distant ache, the kind that lingers after a dream far after it slips from memory.
But Tybalt himself didn’t feel sad. He just felt.. lost. So he just stared at the ceiling in his mostly dark hospital room, searching for a North star in on a pitch black night, a sailor stranded and alone in the cold.
“My, my, my, Kitty. I must say, a white collar looks good on you,” Mercutio said, pushing open the door without a care in the world. Tybalt’s gaze lazily drifting towards the man. The tonics and medicines and potions and pain and confusion had all but sapped his energy away. Turning hurt his injured neck even more and he winced.
“Aw, your injuries giving you trouble?” The question felt a little condescending, but there was a tightness about Mercutio’s expression, genuine worry leaking into his voice.
“Yes,” Tybalt admitted, his mind racing. What had he and Mercutio become in five year’s time? Who was the man who stood before him, now lean and tall and all muscle and charm. Had they ever regained what they’d lost when they were young? Were they… had Tybalt ever.. ?
He wish he knew.
——
“Admitting your pain? Sounds like they’ve got you on the good stuff, darling,” Mercutio said, watching, waiting for the man to glare and bite back, the man just blinked up at him, and even in the dim light, Mercutio was pretty sure he was blushing. Honest to God blushing.
Mercutio just grinned. He wondered how far he could push the exhausted man before he snapped. Mercutio always loved a challenge.
“Yes, well. I’ve been told it’s a nasty wound,” the Capulet responded, hand to his throat as though lost in thought. Then he blinked. “This wasn’t you?”
“No it was not,” he said with a surprised laugh. He’d had heard the rumor, and this all but confirmed it. Tybalt, it seemed, had forgotten some things. He pulled up a chair, resting his elbows on the bed and propping his head in his hands.
“Oh. Right. You wouldn’t,” Tybalt said, looking away. Still, he didn’t snap. Didn’t even lean away or beat Mercutio with a pillow. Just let him get closer. “Do you-“
“Hm?” Mercutio asked as Tybalt cut himself off. “Oh, your injury? I wasn’t even there, Kitten,” he said, once again trying to pull a rise from the man, a frown furrowing his brow.
“I assumed you would be,” Tybalt mumbled, looking a little hurt and offended. It was like Tybalt was talking to a friend. To someone completely different… ah. It clicked.
“You’re acting strange… I’d heard you’d forgotten some things but, well I assumed it was just a little, not..”
“I know who you are, Mercutio. I remember that much. I just.. I don’t know what we are right now.”
Mercutio searched Tybalt’s gaze, expecting a trick, a glint of jest in his eye, something. He saw honesty, open and plain.
“Is that why you’re acting so friendly? How much do you remember?”
“You set the tone, I made some assumptions. You do keep calling me.. uh” Tybalt trailed off with an awkward shrug. “And.. very little. I remember our fight, years ago. But.. well a lot could have changed,” there was a tiny hesitation, then he added quietly, “did it?”
He felt a small smile on his lips as he hummed, leaning down toward Tybalt. His breath caught and Mercutio’s smile grew.
“We are greatest enemies,” he said softly, voice low. His mouth now hovered next to Tybalt’s ear. “I hate to tell you we are the worst rivals, and fight often.”
Tybalt’s breath stuttered and he leaned towards Mercutio. Well that was new. He could work with that. Mercutio grinned wickedly. He’s hoped to press Tybalt’s buttons, but, well, if Tybalt, even with that fight of theirs from so long ago suddenly fresh again, wanted.. whatever this thing was between them…
“Tell me, King of Cats, do you still wish there is an ‘we’ do you still want-“ Mercutio didn’t get to finish. Strong arms wrapped around him. Distantly he registered that they were weaker than they used to be, thinner too.
Then Tybalt is pulling Mercutio into him, and the man’s almost pulled of his chair. Mercutio chuckled, but Tybalt just clung to him, like a life raft in a stormy sea. Mercutio’s smile dropped slightly, yet after a moment’s hesitation he scooted onto the hospital bed and wrapped his arms around Tybalt.
“Sorry,” Tybalt whispered. “We can go back to whoever we were before soon. Just- I think- I don’t think I’ve had this in a very very long time,” the Capulet said, his voice tight, breathing a little shaky as he fought a sob.
“It’s alright. I don’t mind not being enemies,” Mercutio admitted. Deep down however he knew it wouldn’t last. That someday Tybalt would remember their years of hatred. But for now, he let a hurting man rest.