|
Post by Tybalt on Aug 28, 2009 8:02:33 GMT -5
Tybalt stepped swiftly forward and took Mercutio by the lapel, shoving him back against the wall.
"Never," he said in a low, hoarse voice, teeth gritting, mouth a moment from Mercutio's, perhaps, "never go around giving Meg cheap liquor and gaudy hairties ever again, or I shall see you regret it."
He let off abruptly, and then, perhaps unexpectedly, punched Mercutio in the stomach, appreciating the way he slumped. If Mercutio could tangle his fingers in Tybalt's hair, tangle him in the sheets, and make him arch, then why shouldn't Tybalt have some power, at least...
He left feeling bitter, unwell, and unsatisfied.
|
|
|
Post by Mercutio on Aug 28, 2009 8:18:41 GMT -5
A few minutes later, and Mercutio was still slumped against the wall. He didn't want to straighten, held an arm tight against his stomach as if it'd make the pain ebb. The only sound in the alleyway was his labored breathing.
He'd never have put it together had Tybalt not so graciously told him the cause of this beating. Meg seemed so incongruous with them that Mercutio hardly thought of her as being Tybalt's; he barely thought of her at all. It seemed forever ago that he'd given her those things. Oh, but- his lip curled- he would be thinking of her now. Thinking of her, and buying her presents, and waiting until that damned Capulet came 'round again when he was sober. Mercutio didn't need his gang to make Tybalt pay for this.
The dizzying streetlights danced at the mouth of the alley, and Mercutio slid down the wall until he was sitting on the filthy ground. He pressed his bleeding face- split lip, throbbing nose- against his sleeve and swore.
|
|
Miranda
- Ingenious Pilot -
All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, a dream within a dream.%\1\%
Posts: 221
|
Post by Miranda on Aug 28, 2009 11:05:36 GMT -5
And a girl named Miranda peered her blond head in, hair spilling off of the shoulder of her white dress, and gazed compassionately and concernedly down on the scene. This was a man, Miranda knew unfortunately too well, who under other circumstances would have her keeping this side of the alley while she spoke to hiim, and fighting the undercurrent of nausea beneath her stays. But she knew what it was to be bleeding in the dark in an alleyway.
She thought she might have been less impatient and furious about it.
Still, this couldn't change anything, and she swept towards him and knelt as though she'd just melted into reality from the air around them, lifting a miraculously-produced handkerchief to his bleeding face and dabbing at it, her fingertips cool and rose-water-scented where they touched his fair skin.
|
|
|
Post by Mercutio on Aug 28, 2009 11:16:27 GMT -5
Mercutio flinched and swore again, this time out of surprise as Miranda knelt beside him; he'd not seen her approach at all, and it seemed exactly as though she'd melted out of thin air to him. He was embarrassed that she'd seen him, too, and he pushed her hand away and shot to his feet with his back against the dirty brick as though to escape from her kindness. A swell of nausea thanked him for this action. Viciously, "Get out of here, lady, it's no place for your healing hands." His voice was thick, throat still sore, but he could talk now and that was all Mercutio required.
|
|
Miranda
- Ingenious Pilot -
All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, a dream within a dream.%\1\%
Posts: 221
|
Post by Miranda on Aug 28, 2009 11:21:32 GMT -5
Miranda looked around as though giving it some thought, and then shook her head. Her hair seemed to move in a different time and space that was a few seconds behind, and it seemed as though she was struggling against it to try and exist as fully as possible in this particular time.
"No, it is exactly the right place," she said, smoothing his hair down and lifting the handkerchief again. "You've been fighting," she said, and whether it was a statement or whether she just happened to be lucky and chastise him, it couldn't be certain.
|
|
|
Post by Mercutio on Aug 28, 2009 11:37:12 GMT -5
Mercutio ducked his head away from her hand and knocked aside her handkerchief for the second time, annoyed by her mild tone and gentle touch. "You are not my nurse," he said sullenly, "And I'm not your child, more luck to you! Leave me be!"
|
|
Miranda
- Ingenious Pilot -
All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, a dream within a dream.%\1\%
Posts: 221
|
Post by Miranda on Aug 28, 2009 11:41:32 GMT -5
"I am a nurse," said Miranda placidly. "It will sting less if you don't jerk about like a child." She reached for him again. He was very tall, but Miranda was, too, from most perspectives. She reached for his chin, but he was struggling so very frustratingly that she had to put an arm around him, fingers on the back of his neck, to get him remotely still.
It was curious how little it bothered her, with him in a position she'd associated herself with. Had he been anywhere else, even bleeding, she might not have been able to do it.
|
|
|
Post by Mercutio on Aug 28, 2009 11:46:46 GMT -5
He subsided reluctantly, eyes darting away as she tended to him. Mercutio was not used to anyone taking care of him, save himself. Still, her fingers were very cool on his face, and more gentle than his own could have been.
Another swell of nausea hit him, almost leisurely in its rising. Mercutio held very still until it passed and if this was how he felt now, when he was drunk, then he really didn't want to be sober. He might find out he felt worse.
|
|
Miranda
- Ingenious Pilot -
All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, a dream within a dream.%\1\%
Posts: 221
|
Post by Miranda on Aug 28, 2009 11:49:54 GMT -5
"Your name is..." she began like a query, sounding as though she knew but had absent-mindedly forgotten. (Even Miranda didn't know what the case was. Probably the former, of course, for varying reasons, but there was always the miniscule chance of a miracle...) She brushed hair off his forehead; there was a cut above his eyebrow, parallel to it, and it would not have been pleasant for his hair to dry in the scab.
|
|
|
Post by Mercutio on Aug 28, 2009 11:55:11 GMT -5
After a moment of hesitation, Mercutio tilted his head down so that she could reach it better. His name, though, he did not want to tell her; wasn't enough that she'd found him bleeding and humiliated in the first place? "Romeo," he said briefly, the first name on the tip of his tongue; Romeo would have appreciated him using his name for mischief, although Mercutio was less certain about using it for this. "Yours, eager nurse?"
|
|
Miranda
- Ingenious Pilot -
All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, a dream within a dream.%\1\%
Posts: 221
|
Post by Miranda on Aug 28, 2009 11:58:37 GMT -5
"Mmm," said Miranda absently with a slight frown; if she knew he was lying, or intuited it, she brushed it off. "You do not look like a Romeo. My name is Miranda, not Juliet. The Tempest. You were close," she amended. She peered at the cuts.
"It does not need stitching. But it should be cleaned, and bandaged. Is it too much to ask..."
|
|
|
Post by Mercutio on Aug 28, 2009 12:01:16 GMT -5
Mercutio drew in his breath, confused, befuddled. He looked at her intently as she spoke, so absently as if it were of no importance. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. And then, rudely, "What? You want to come home with me?"
He did not care that she'd caught him out in his lie. No, more that she spoke the name Juliet so easily, told him he did not look like a Romeo (and he didn't, of course, for he wasn't, and what a thing it would be to look like one!), as if she was of Verona and knew them both. She couldn't, could she? There was something about Miranda- had he ever seen her before, Mercutio would have known.
|
|
Miranda
- Ingenious Pilot -
All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, a dream within a dream.%\1\%
Posts: 221
|
Post by Miranda on Aug 28, 2009 12:03:48 GMT -5
"Of course," she said, lifting her eyebrows in mild surprise. "What I need for your wounds I won't find here." She gestured with a sweep of the arm to the street around them.
|
|
|
Post by Mercutio on Aug 28, 2009 12:08:09 GMT -5
Mercutio raised his own eyebrows back (although it stung somewhat to do so). "Fine. I'll be your maimed, lame escort, and no ruffian will touch you."
But he wondered- and was only waiting 'til they walked to ask again- did she know Romeo, and Juliet?
|
|
Miranda
- Ingenious Pilot -
All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, a dream within a dream.%\1\%
Posts: 221
|
Post by Miranda on Aug 28, 2009 12:11:10 GMT -5
Miranda took his hand and elegantly, gracefully, and swiftly - startlingly so, as though it were a martial art movement that was bound to take him off guard, despite how gentle she actually was - pulled his arm about her shoulders.
"Why would any ruffian touch me," she said placidly, one hand on his and the other resting on his waist. He was bruised... all, let's see, his body would be sore in several places and he would be limping, wouldn't he? She thought so.
|
|