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The runners for the Green Palio of Verona were shivering and cursing as they waited for the full party to be assembled - it was an early Easter, and the first Sunday of lent fell in February, with no sun to have mercy on their bare skin. Mercutio was having the time of his life with it, winking at Tybalt as he hopped and rubbed himself in a way that seemed to throw as much as possible of his intimate parts in his face, chirping “You have a queer little snake that perks up with the cold instead of basking in the sun, my dear kitten” when he accidentally looked at him.
In truth, he had no interest in looking at him on purpose - his bare flesh was exactly as new and exciting to him as the discoloring walls of his own bedchamber, and he was here to represent the honor of his family, not to indulge the bratty little whore. His eyes were fixed instead on the Montague standing by Mercutio’s side, who was chatting with his page and holding himself in a blue cloak that wrapped around his shoulders and hid his nudity, the way other men of inferior families and no particular conception of honor were. It strengthened Tybalt’s resolve to stand proudly naked however long the damn wait would be, in spite of the biting cold and of Mercutio’s maddening little laughs, showing how different the temper of his blood was from that of his enemies.
It was insulting enough that this was the Montague chosen to race against him in the first place. Tybalt might not be a Capulet by name, but he was closer kin to them than most, and the only young man old enough to fight within the main branch of the family, the closest they had to a leader and heir - and yet he was to race not against little Romeo, their precious babied heir, not against the spare Michele, who had won tourneys in Mantua and Milan, not against Bonifacio, who was himself a remote cousin but had been in real battles in Germany and brought trophies to prove it, but Benvolio, the bastard whelp of a lecherous fifth son who had at least had the decency to run into a sword early enough instead of coming long overdue for it as the rest of his villain brothers. There wouldn’t even be any honor in defeating him.
At last, his agony was ended, the cowbell was rung, the remaining garments were thrown off and the youths scattered through the countryside. Tybalt darted past the lot of them, until his legs burned and his feet stung from slamming bare on the rocky ground, but he didn’t mind it. The rush warmed from his bones to the root of his hair, and when he slowed a little to breathe he felt Benvolio and Mercutio’s wanton laughs lick at his back like flames, so he stopped doing it.
“You can’t blame him for not wanting his ass in your reach, ‘Cutio.” He heard the Montague boy titter, Mercutio’s answer lost in the wind. He growled, but didn’t give them the satisfaction of turning around. He could keep some semblance of dignity, if it was not quite an attainable goal in his whole life he would at least try it when he was being so closely compared with a Montague in the eyes of the whole city, and competing for his family’s glory
His enemy must have been thinking something similar too, for once they reached the city again he started to try to shush Mercutio’s endless stream of prattle. Of course a Montague can’t handle him, he found himself thinking, and immediately focused on the pain on his feet again.
They were close enough to the ending line that he could see the green drape fluttering on the column where it had been laid, in the midst of the crowd cheering in the square. He gritted his teeth and prepared for the final stretch, floating away on the sound of happy cheers for only a split second. He was almost a definite winner at this point, and he refused to be brought down.
“No, you will not!” The Montague boy said, and he was close enough he felt he could turn around, frowning as he saw Mercutio run along him, his hand on his bare shoulder, whispering in his ear.
He didn’t see what happened then; his breath was knocked out of him, something slamming against his back and throwing him on the cobblestones. He cursed as the impact made him roll over on the cobblestones, unwanted naked limbs tangling with his. He landed on his back, Mercutio thrown haphazardly over him, pressing on his chest. He was laughing, his ugly distorted face inches from Tybalt’s, the sound ringing in his ears so shrill he thought he would go deaf. The crowd was laughing too, but he only faintly heard that, his eyes focused on his uncle’s frown and little Juliet hiding her face against her father’s shoulder in embarrassment.
“I know this is the prize you were truly dreaming of, my kitten,” Mercutio snickered in his ear.
Benvolio was standing by the column, the green victory draped thrown over his shoulders, and looked at the tangle of Mercutio and Tybalt with reproachful eyes and crossed arms, shaking his head, but there was a smirk trembling to come out at the freckled corner of his mouth and everyone kept laughing
He spat in Mercutio’s face, so the humiliation would not leak out his eyes. Mercutio kissed his forehead.
***
Tybalt sat alone in a corner of the tavern, staring down his cup of ale, which seemed to grow with every revolting sip he forced down his throat. He would need far more than one cup to forget his sorrows at all, but his head was already pounding, his stomach upside down from the bitter taste and he kept getting distracted by the shouts of his Capulet fellows, if they could be called so. He could hear Valenzio and Martino singing some bawdy song from where he stood, their cups knocking as they toasted - a group of half drunk servants were throwing dice in the opposite corner, Petruchio smacking the tavern maid every time she passed by him. Reveling over his humiliation, shameless and indifferent.
He took a long swig and threw his cup against the wall, shaking with disgust. False friends, all false, he thought as he shut down the innkeeper's protests with a side glance and a hand on the hilt of his rapier. They would respect him enough and care passably of whether he lived or died if they were in a fight, but it was stupid to expect more, and they were in no mood to fight now.
Truces had always been confusing to Tybalt - he had tried to swallow his pride and ask only to be met with mockery enough times to be resigned he would never quite understand when it was time to fight and when to stay put.
Still, even accepting no one really cared he had lost, he couldn't understand how everyone was so calm, in a mood to party and somehow feeling safe, when the place was swarming with Montagues so thickly there weren't enough chairs for the whole pack. The bastard Montague had been wandering all night with the green flag draped over his shoulders and an always full cup in his hand until Mercutio spread his legs on his chair and yelled for the winner to come take what was his. Benvolio had giggled and said he could not possibly be worthy of claiming royal blood as his throne, but he had obeyed and now he was sitting sideways in his lap, cheeks flushed pink as Mercutio's long curls tickled him when he whispered something in his ear - Tybalt scratched his neck, willing the phantom sensation away.
“Let me at least go to the privy, you shall not die of missing me,” he heard the boy giggle through the haze of his simmering rage. He snickered into his palm, half cheered by the thought of how soon the little bastard would find out how little difference it made to Mercutio whether someone who loved him with all himself was by his side or not, but he was distracted by the tight, lecherous knot of Mercutio’s arms around his chest, jumping and tightening like a squid’s as the Montague perfunctorily tried to struggle free.
It pounded at his temples, fierce and metallic and deafening like bells rung for the dead, and when the bastard finally went outside he stole after him in long strides, his heart stuck halfway down his throat. He made no effort to walk stealthily at all, but Benvolio still didn’t notice and he could feel Mercutio snickering and whispering kitty paws, lazily tracing the curve of his toes when they curled in the heat of the moment - he blinked, trying to erase him from his mind.
He half-wanted to let him strip down and catch him as naked as he had been humiliated in the public square, but he couldn’t. He barely managed to wait for him to unlace his britches before he bared his rapier against his back, a delicious jolt going down his bones when he gasped and stiffened.
“Turn around,” he whispered in the darkness. “By the rules of this city, the winner of the race has to parade his prize around the city and give it up to those who try to steal it, if they can’t defend it.”
The boy turned around, looking at him with narrowed eyes - light brown, honey-sweetish, a washed out mellower ghost of Tybalt’s black eyes, just how Mercutio would like them. He clenched his fist. Slowly, painstakingly, without averting his eyes, as if he was trying not to spook a rabid dog, the boy shrugged the green flag off and draped it over Tybalt’s outstretched arm.
“Will you not fight for it? Have you no honor?” Is this who I lost the race to, who I lost everything to? he adds in his head, kicking the tavern wall in frustration.
“I don’t have anything to fight with. Is it honor to have so little faith in your fellow men that you must take a blade to go to the privy?”
The insolence felt unbecoming on those innocent puppy eyes and soft ringlets, he could feel the dark stain of Mercutio’s lips on his, twisting every word out of his mouth into his own cheap snark. He pushed the bastard Montague against the wall, and when he stumbled he crouched over him, pressing his foot against his tense thigh.
“What are you doing?” He said warily, his voice oddly flat. Tybalt was aware he was close to sitting on his lap and of how close their faces were, but it was too late to do much about that. He tipped his sword against his collarbone, holding his breath to focus.
“You do not belong here. You are not like the rest of your kin, I can see that, you have no wish to prove yourself against me, you are unfit for war. You are a bastard boy who belongs flirting at the laundry well and dancing in the tavern and such you’ll be until you die, even if your uncle wants to pretend otherwise.”
The corner of his lips quirked up. “Aye, this is quite wise of you. I wish anyone else thought the same.”
He sounded too calm, Tybalt felt the need to bite that smile off his face and go kiss Mercutio with his blood on his lips. “You don’t belong with Mercutio either, but you’re too blind to see that. He plays around with you, acts all sweet and lighthearted and like playing with your hair and sucking your fingers is his greatest aim in this world, but that’s not what he is. He’s all chaos and fury and he doesn’t like easy victories when he can see someone bleed himself dry to fight for him instead. You won’t satisfy him for long.”
“I have never such an hypocrite to promise long to anyone, at least not in that sense.” Mercutio’s voice rose behind him.
He turned around, steeling himself not to wince when Mercutio’s eyes struck him like knives pinning him to the bottom of the alley. He stood straight, armed crossed, his head tilted a bit in confusion as if the scene before him was the queerest nonsense he had ever been involved with. It made him want to cover the distance between them and put his hands around his neck. He had been perfectly civil and honorable when they were together and before they met, a praise-worthy youth who only lifted his sword for the glory of his family. It was Mercutio who had turned him into a feral rabid dog. “Come to fetch your favorite toy back, have you?”
“Hello, Mercutio,” the bastard mumbled behind his back. Mercutio shook his head.
“After all this time you always have some awful surprise to me, my kitten.”
He bit his lip, forcing himself not to look down. He used to struggle to stop looking at Mercutio’s beautiful silvergreen eyes, once. “No one has invited you here.”
“No? But my ears are positively buzzing with you hissing my name.” He put his hand on his shoulder, his other one on Tybalt’s sword hand. He pushed him away, only for Mercutio to snatch the rapier from his fingers, shoving him back into the sheath. His eyebrows rose in mischief, in malice.
He grabbed his hand, tugging at him so he’d have to face his Montague plaything. “You don’t like me telling people how you really are, do you? You don’t want him to know how easily you traded Capulet for Montague and how easily you could do it again just for the pleasure of flaunting your childish rebellion.”
Mercutio laughed hoarsely. “Oh, would I do it again? I could probably trade Montague and Capulet back and forth a few times more indeed, and do not deny my attention to lesser families too, the way no one seems to get enough of me, but I don’t know if that’s quite a charitable venture, seeing how broken even a bit of good sport with me has left you.”
He stuck out his tongue and poked at Tybalt’s stiffening manhood, making him wince, but not cross his legs in appropriate shame. This was all Mercutio’s fault, and it was only right for him to see the consequences, scandalous or not. He shoved him away, but Mercutio went down instead of back, kneeling before him.
“Is this necessary, Mercutio?” The Montague asked, worrying at his lip as he circled around them, looking at Tybalt as if he was just about to slam him against the wall and strangle him.
“Strange a wise boy like you would ask that. People do a great deal of things that are not necessary and indeed no one asked them to, and yet here we are.”
He lazily sneaked his hand up Tybalt’s undershirt, his smooth fingertips ghosting over his chest.
“It has never been a great undertaking for me to touch you and please you, sweet Tybalt. You’re the one who drove me away.”
“How? You’re the one who left like a cowardly dog,” he spat back, as Mercutio played with the laces of his breeches.
“Indeed, you drove me away like a disobedient mule because you wanted of me more than I could give, and what I had never promised you. It was you or the Montagues, you said, my own manly soul free to associate with whomever she pleases or your pretty cock, and then there were no kisses for poor Mercutio.”
He shivered as Mercutio dug his fingertips in his thighs and knelt between his legs, his lips parting against the side of his balls with a treacherous softness that didn’t belong to either of them, as if he was nibbling on a peach.
“Good kitten,” he mumbled, tickling him, his tongue barely warm against his skin.
He was struck at how much he missed him watching him from above, kneeling, tense, shoulder blades spread like the wings of a fallen angel and hair falling chaotically over his face. Even when they had loved each other Mercutio was insolent and unwilling to do anything he was told, but in bed, lying under him, he was dreamy and pliant, the only thing Tybalt had ever called truly his. His eyes flitted closed for a moment, riding the wave of pleasure that struck him as he moved to the tip of his manhood, but he opened them again, fixing them in the eyes of the bastard Montague. He leaned against the wall with his hands behind his back, like a schoolboy, lips pressed together and slightly bashful eyes. A small, lazy red flower bloomed over his shirt where he’d pricked him.
He wondered if he could feel half the pain, the confused rage he had felt the first time he had battled a stray band of Montagues and seen Mercutio’s laughing eyes taunt him from the wrong side of the street. Maybe he did not. Maybe he was fully indifferent, maybe all men who dallied in such things were, maybe he was the one there was something wrong with.
His hands dug into Mercutio’s curls, his scratching the soft skin of his temples as he pulled him closer. He twitched a bit and sneaked a cross look under his lashes, but took it without gagging, stretching back so he looked like a wild animal stabbed on a spear.
He saw his own release course through Mercutio before he felt it, arching his back and licking his lips against him, then it came to him so suddenly his knees gave out as the fire shot down his calf.
Mercutio pressed his hot, sticky lips against his as soon as their faces were at a level, selfish, turning the painful tightening of his muscles and the stinging on his skin to near unbearable. Tybalt couldn’t help but melt in, digging his fingers hard into Mercutio’s hard, scooting closer, their limbs sensually entangled and a breath away from leaning their foreheads together like sentimental scared children.
Then Mercutio sat in his lap, turned away from him and outstretched his hand to the Montague boy. “Your turn now, Volio, come here.”
Benvolio giggled nervously, running a hand through his hair, and Tybalt rose abruptly. “What game are you playing now?”
Mercutio rose with a wild jerk and cupped Tybalt’s cheek, stopping him in his path. “What, sweet prince, will you not let another have his turn? We are having such good fun here, and I don’t feel quite ready to let you go.”
“I will not share you with a Montague like a piece of meat. I’ve had enough of humoring you.”
Mercutio shrugged, his eyes oddly melancholy. “As you wish, darling. I thought you might like it, I thought missing the feeling of your body on mine was driving you insane. but they do always tell me I overestimate my importance.”
Tybalt bit his lip bloody. Mercutio’s cold hand was painful against his face, and somehow it made the rest of his body feel as seering by contrast in the chilly night air as it had when he embraced him in the warmth of his chamber, their shared heat trapped in the quilts. It was a curse, an illness. Other men may make up for a lost love with the warmth of other touches, but no one else’s touch would ever feel like Mercutio’s wretched dead hands to him.
He fell back on the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut, his lips moving wordlessly, for he had no words to express his surrender. Mercutio smiled like a child, the corners of his lips digging deep dimples onto his cheeks and squeezing his eyes shut, and fell into his arms again.
Tybalt held him tight as Mercutio pulled down the bastard’s green hose, and let himself float away in the sweet humiliation of liking what he saw almost as much as what he felt.