open: the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow boy's butt shaft

[bymyheelies]

For those that care to spend time with Mercutio; they may note that today he is conspicuously hard to find. He is still reeling from the recent news of Romeo's fate at the end of their story, and not entirely sure how to proceed with it. Ideally, at home, he would find some way to take his mind off of pressing matters: spend time with his friends (friend, now, singular) or find someone entertaining to harass about the town and make merry. If he was in a particularly snappish mood he would invariably end up picking a fight with Capulets, one in particular.

That is not the case today. Someone attuned to the general sounds of the mansion might hear a steady sort of thunking noise coming from an out-of-the-way bar. It is there that Mercutio can be found, various bottles of alcohol open at his side. He has clearly been there some time by the looks of it, and is currently engrossed in throwing a small selection of daggers at the wall. Despite his intoxication, he is doing a reasonably good job at it; but judging from the stormy look on his face, he does not entirely wish to be bothered.

Comments

[wickedwit]

"You know just how to pique my interest. I love little better than a mystery." With an ironic smirk to bely the tone of a passerby concerned¹, he says, "Mercutio. What seems to be the matter? Has that wall mortally offended thee?"

¹ This is, in fact, a double irony. He is concerned, and passing by.

[bymyheelies]

He shrugs, idly picking up a dagger to twirl in his hands. “I would much rather be doing some other form of fighting, but there is no one to duel.” At least not in the way he’d like to duel, sharp teasing words and swords alike.

[wickedwit]

"No one at all? And here I thought the mansion was filled to the brim with bored swordsmen who've nothing to fight. You should've been here for the zombies." He pushes himself away from the doorway, striding into the room. "May I try?"

[bymyheelies]

He waves his free hand lazily, as if to say either ‘do what you like’ or ‘I don’t care.’ It could be both, in all honesty. “Tch. ‘Twould not be the same.” There is a certain thrill he is seeking, the excitement of a good fight or doing something wildly dangerous in an attempt to make himself forget about events as they stand at home. However, he is well aware a majority of the people here will not indulge him in that. “Perhaps I might try thy alchemy next.”

[wickedwit]

“Oh, you want a truly bad idea. Inebriation and explosives.” Claudius raises both eyebrows and, in that moment, decides it’s not as though he’s Mercutio’s father. “Why not? Put down the knife, for a moment, and I’ll walk you to my workshop.”

[bymyheelies]

"Excellent." There's a ghost of his usual smile on his face, faint mischief and the promise of chaos, but still somewhat shadowed. He sheathes the dagger and sets it at his hip, cocking an eyebrow at Claudius. "I knew I liked thee for a reason, my lord." ....Multiple reasons, but this is certainly one of them.

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs, meeting Mercutio's eye sidelong as he leads them to the forbidden garden that is alchemy. (It's hardly an exaggeration. When Claudius was young, he feared any alchemical discovery could be the doorway to witchcraft and damning his immortal soul, before he began to court damnation on purpose by studying poisons. Any explosive combination of compounds felt unholy. Man was not meant to have this power, or at least none of mankind's terrified princelings who weren't ready to face the damage they could do.) "Oh? What reason is that?"

[bymyheelies]

"Thou'rt interesting." At least Claudius' presence is somewhat making him forget his bad mood, judging by the not-very-veiled look he's sending Claudius' way. Look, he'll take distractions of any sort at this point in time, whether or not it is ill-advised. If it is, he doesn't particularly care. "And thou wilt indulge me, from time to time."

[wickedwit]

“Yes, well, I find indulging men’s desires far more interesting than denying them. Unless,” Claudius allows, “it’s a matter of tension and release. Tension is terribly interesting. ‘Tis why thou so likest a fight, is’t not?”

[bymyheelies]

He shrugs. "'Tis interesting, ay, but I find it most entertaining with one person in specific. He is terribly easy to needle."

[wickedwit]

"Tension, like I said. History builds a certain tension, too. One of your friends in Verona?"

[bymyheelies]

He snorts. "I would not call him that. He is -- was a Capulet, sworn enemy of the house of Montague -- to which my friends belonged. He slew me."

[wickedwit]

"Ah," Claudius says, as lightly as one can be when it comes to the topic of youths killing each other. "The boy who fences by the book. I didn't realize his unspired swordsmanship had been fatal." That's a lie. Claudius guessed it, easily enough -- but it had been a sad thought, and those floated away easily under the influence of the tincture he'd taken.

[bymyheelies]

"Ay, well -- I had changed clothes by then." He draws in on himself a little. His death isn't his favorite topic of conversation, of course. "But I am told Romeo slew him not long after."

[wickedwit]

"So thy friend took revenge for thee," Claudius says. He says it as a statement of fact, rather than with any approbation, or condemnation. It's the way these duels tend to go, without a settlement. A death for a death for another death and so on, ad infinitum.

[bymyheelies]

"Ay. Though I expect revenge was not necessary, as -- well, my cousin had outlawed fighting in the streets anyhow." There wasn't much he could have done about that, though. He doesn't expect his father, at least, had many complaints about the death of his chaotic second son.

[wickedwit]

Claudius rolls his eyes. "Laws don't stop fighting in the streets. Besides, revenge is personal. When the state takes justice for a friend's death, it doesn't feel quite the same way." He frowns, however, as he puts together the pieces Mercutio is setting out for him. "I suppose that law must've posed some problems for thy friend Romeo."

[bymyheelies]

"Ah, I suppose. I did not get the whole of the tale." Dionysus had only seen fit to tell him the more pertinent parts -- that is, Tybalt dead, Romeo killed him -- and now Romeo is dead for love of Juliet.

[wickedwit]

"You got enough of it, I gather."

[bymyheelies]

"Ay." He purses his lips a bit. "Romeo took his own life. I know not how, aside from it was for love of his lady."

[wickedwit]

Ah. He's putting together a few more of the pieces. Laws won't stop feuding in the streets, because justice is never so viscerally satisfying as personal retribution for a personal harm -- Claudius knows because so much of his politicking lay in working around or with people's worse natures. Keeping a young man who continued a feud without punishing him around would be politically disastrous, but any public punishment would still seem to be choosing sides, giving the families more to argue and murder each other over. Even moreso, when the most recent violence involved the prince's own kin. In the prince's place, Claudius is sure he'd quietly send that young man somewhere else, until the incident was forgotten. A mercy, unless that young man had a desperate reason to stay.

"I see," he says, simply and swiftly summing up his thoughts. He pauses before the door to his workshop, opening it up to the familiar smells of hanging herbs and bubbling distillations, of old books and scrap metal. "No wonder you're in the mood for the duel. There's no one you can settle this particular debt with -- and even if you did, it wouldn't bring Romeo back. Or Tybalt. Is that why you miss him?"

[bymyheelies]

It does smell oddly comforting; a bit like Friar Laurence’s cell. He shrugs again, short and sharp, and somewhat pointedly looks away. “The only thing I miss is how easy he was to beat.”

[wickedwit]

"You miss how easy the young man who fatally wounded you was to beat?" Claudius leans against one of the workshop's many long tables, looking Mercutio over. From the sound of it -- and from Mercutio's earlier, idle brag that he had Tybalt well in hand before Romeo came between them -- that fatal wounding may've been a miscalculation on both sides, with tragic consequences unfolding from it. But Tybalt's relative skill isn't the precise contention, so Claudius waves the question away without answer. "That must have been the exception rather than the rule, I suppose. And a certain righteous impulse to establish who should've won could explain why you so want to see him again ... but you don't seem to take much comfort in knowing you were avenged. You didn't squabble so often because you truly wanted each other dead, did you? He was easy to needle. You could get his attention. And there's an almost erotic tension to attentions expressed through crossed swords."

[bymyheelies]

"Everything about it was foolish," Mercutio replies, hopping unsteadily up on the nearest table to lounge on it, kicking his heels. "I am glad I was avenged, of course, but little good it does me here; and ay, Romeo got justice, for whatever comfort it gave him." He shifts a bit, suddenly feeling like a bug pinned down for inspection.

"...Ay. You've the right of it," he says after a moment, carefully looking anywhere but at Claudius. It's useless to lie about it here, he knows well enough that Claudius will uncover it sooner or later. And why should it even matter? Tybalt may never arrive, or Romeo, for that matter. There is no one to disapprove here.

[wickedwit]

A rather mature response, in Claudius's opinion. Older men that Mercutio (named Shen Yuan) would sputter and deny their affections for much longer. It makes him rather proud, an inexplicable but fond feeling. "I'm often right. Now," he says briskly, "what canst thou tell me about chemical reactions?"