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Tybalt has an urgency to him that Mercutio wants from Romeo. He said he was bored, when he grabbed Mercutio by the strings of his shirt and pulled him to the alleyway off the market. Mercutio knows what it is to be bored. It’s an all consuming itch, worse than anything. He doesn’t let himself stop for a second to feel it, keeps hurling himself through the air in a dance or a fight, drawing his friends close and away. Romeo probably wouldn’t stay close for too long anyhow.
There’s a line, a break, a hitch, like the one in Tybalt’s breath when Mercutio bites at his shoulder. Mercutio never knows where the line is, that’s the matter of it. He can feel the indulgence turn to sympathy only after the indulgence is gone. Like falling asleep in a sunny patch of grass and waking to a cold and stormy sky.
Tybalt's fingers dig into his skin. His ragged nails scratch him sometimes, an angry red line like Mercutio has misjudged the temper of one of the kitchen cats again. When Romeo touches Mercutio it is softer, steadying, always approaching and edging away from the line Mercutio cannot find. Perhaps he is this careful and calming with the girls he chases- temperamental, flighty things. Perhaps that is why they sigh over him.
Tybalt’s hands are cold and his mouth is hot, so hot it always startles Mercutio. Romeo’s hands are always warm and usually a bit sweaty when they catch Mercutio to pull him back from a fight or a vision.
It’s not that Mercutio wants Romeo to be rough with him, the way Tybalt is. That wouldn’t be Romeo. But Romeo makes him feel too indulged, sometimes, talked down to, an unruly child.
Tybalt never condescends, but nothing will come of him and Tybalt, they both know. Montagues and Capulets aside, they’re too alike. A dalliance with Tybalt, something fleeting and sharp and real like a cobblestone cradled in a palm. The opposite of celestial. They had refrained from fighting in the streets, once they started meeting in alleys and behind pillars and under bridges. No one noticed- there were always enough other boys in the fights. Once they found themselves by the river on a moonless night, so dark they didn’t fear anyone happening upon them, and Mercutio let himself pretend for a moment. It felt strange and sore, like rubbing his tongue over a tooth knocked out. Like pressing a fingernail into the raw skin where a scab had just been.
He and Romeo used to pick at each other's scabs, when they were knobby kneed children. Benvolio would watch in happy disgust. Mercutio never quite got the knack of not peeling too far, always missed the border between the new pink skin and the places where it had not grown back over. He’d rub at the wound with his thumb, leaving streaks of red on Romeo’s brown legs. Romeo worked carefully, gingerly at Mercutio’s scabs- only reopening one, in all the years they kept the habit, one flash of blood on Mercutio’s knuckle. Romeo put Mercutio’s hand to his mouth as quickly and naturally as if it were his own, then dropped it with a glance at Benvolio. But the bleeding had already stopped.
A dalliance with Tybalt, like the ones Romeo is accused of. A fickle boy, they call him, as if all the boys on the streets of Verona aren’t just as fickle. Romeo’s trouble, Mercutio thinks, is he always loves so hard, believes so clearly, makes himself sick when they leave him or deny him, then months later tells Mercutio and Benvolio where they sit on the roof of the Montague house that it all feels false to him, now. He’s chasing a girl named Rosaline, dizzy over her hair and the way her skirt moves, laying for days unmoving while Benvolio and Mercutio sit bored at the end of his bed playing cards, sighing deeply when ever the two of hearts comes up, which makes Benvolio giggle into his hand. Mercutio doubts he would ever want someone who had taken a vow, but he can see the familiar appeal in wanting what you cannot have.
Benvolio gets between some servants and Tybalt joins the fray. He and Tybalt's agreement to avoid one another in the streets was not spoken, he could not ask for it to be extended to his two compatriots, but Tybalt hadn’t fought them himself before now- perhaps he did not know Benvolio, with the new moustache Benvolio had been so carefully nursing? He cannot ask. When next they meet the air is unseasonably cold, Tybalt's hands send him into unpleasant shivers and his mouth is sparse comfort, and clumsiness and that ever present urgency bangs Mercutio’s neck against the cobblestones, hard, causing him to yelp and push Tybalt off of him. He doesn’t think he will look for him again. He lets the itch fester.
Mercutio gets an invitation to the Capulet ball- a formality, an afterthought in favor of the ever diplomatic Valentine, who still lives in their uncle’s house, but he wants to do something impulsive with someone better, and he thinks it will be good for Romeo. He refuses to be the one who always needs looking after.
Mercutio and Romeo practiced kissing, once, as boys, when Benvolio had broken his leg and wasn’t there to talk them out of anything. Mercutio had been trying not to think about how he was the first to climb the tree, how Benvolio hated to be left out as much as he loved to protest. Romeo saw his eyes unfocus and grabbed his face carefully but confidently. When they pulled apart, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and went to stand by the window.
“I was worried I wouldn’t be any good at it. I want it to be good for her, if I get to kiss Gwen.” His girl of the month.
Mercutio was still laying on the floor, blinking in surprise. It was rare that anything happened too quickly for him.
They’d practice dancing, too, but always with Benvolio, humming half-remembered tunes and making up obscene versions of lyrics. Mercutio loves dancing, loves the fast musicians Capulet has hired for the evening, even when the glorious shambles of the crowd organizes itself into pairs and he finds himself with a girl in his arms. No one here seems to be Romeo’s type, he doesn’t think, and Romeo is still having fun, laughing long and delighted as he pulls Mercutio down from the Capulets’ beautiful garden trellis. If he can’t always distract himself, at least he can distract Romeo. He can see him across the crowd, with a mousy girl in a white dress. Probably enjoying the song more than the girl.
Benvolio is standing by the remains of the banquet table, looking longingly into the private courtyard garden- forbidden to the party guests lest drunken feet crush Lady Capulet's favorite roses. He needs someone to cajole him into getting what he wants. And so they spend a pleasant hour chasing each other around the garden, and only crush one of the roses, and when they come back Romeo is nowhere to be seen, and Mercutio wonders if he underestimated the plain girl in her simple white dress.
Mercutio hates the way the Capulet’s nurse said Looking for Romeo, so he stays in earshot when she whispers urgently after finding him. The words “to be married” make Mercutio freeze. They run up and down his body and still his hands where they normally play with the strings on his sleeve and his legs where they normally bounce. He would take even boredom over this. Romeo is delighted, leaping with energy the way Mercutio usually does, like he has taken it from him while Mercutio stands still. He looks almost regretful when he sees Mercutio standing there. An afterthought, but a sad one. Does he know? Mercutio cannot ask. He gets a kiss on his forehead for his silence- a consolation prize.
For all this, Mercutio is still all hot shining anger when Tybalt insults Romeo in the streets. He does not like his foods to touch. The duel is exhilarating, at first. The finally urgent pull of Romeo against his arm, the way Tybalt’s face presses against him in challenge in an echo of the way their mouths found each other in the alley that first day. But in the months they have avoided one another in skirmishes, Tybalt has become a better swordsman. There’s something strange about him, too, the urgency turned to desperation, to fury. Mercutio thinks his chances would be better without Romeo’s soothing arm.
The knife is the worst kind of surprise, the one you half expected in the back of your mind but never dared fear consciously. Mercutio doesn’t want to slow down. He wants to put it off, keep everyone laughing and never cross the line that makes them pity him. Whatever waits for him, he’s sure, won’t be half as fast and clear as anything in Verona.
It’s Romeo’s fault; he hates it, but it is. Mercutio shouldn’t be caught up in this fight, he should have stayed put when his uncle told him too, no matter how much the stiff clothes scratched his skin and how long he had to stand stone still on ceremony. Fighting was the cost of staying with Romeo and Benvolio, and seeing Tybalt. Dying is the cost of staying with Romeo and Benvolio, and seeing Tybalt. A plague on both their houses.
Sometimes, when he and Romeo joke with each other, or when Romeo calms him, he looks at Mercutio like there’s nothing else in the world. Mercutio started and lost a careful count of how many times Romeo has touched him without being touched first. There’s something in his eyes, sometimes, when they’re standing close, unless Mercutio is imagining it, there’s something in his eyes as Romeo looks down at him and smoothes his hair as Mercutio’s vision blurs and as Mercutio grabs Romeo’s collar and pulls himself upwards.