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Post by Mercutio on Sept 22, 2009 11:29:40 GMT -5
Mercutio stared. He stopped, too, his anticipation running headlong into sudden befuddlement. "I deserve it." What was Tybalt playing at? If he thought this- this- no. Mercutio could not even place the concept of self-pity and Tybalt together in the same thought.
It was then that he caught a whiff of it on the the other man- alcohol. Mercutio's lips stretched in a disbelieving grin. Drunk. What was he thinking? "Ohhh, I see." Mercutio's voice was very low. "Some pretty turning of the tables, isn't it. You'll give me no satisfaction for my temper like this. And isn't it perfect, isn't it poetic, that you are the one..." He trailed off, then sheathed the sword in one impatient gesture and approached, shoving Tybalt away from his door so that he could get in. "Get thee gone, Tybalt. I don't want to see you tonight."
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 22, 2009 11:41:11 GMT -5
But drunk though he might have been, he was still Tybalt, he was still quick, and though he lurched and stumbled he threw out an arm to collide with Mercutio's door, even though the crack alone could have made him wince, and managed to get into the doorway before it closed.
"I have to see you," Tybalt managed to get out, flinching and looked surprised and horrified at his own words. For a moment they did not really seem to have come from himself; he wondered whose voice it could have been. But just one moment later and he realized his own lips had moved, that that voice was his own; whose else's could it have been? And then, despite this horror, he found himself doing it again, and worse. "Mercutio. I'll do - anything."
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 22, 2009 14:27:48 GMT -5
It was dark in Mercutio's room, cool and damp because he'd left the windows open. Their respective figures were only visible against the faint glow of streetlights below and the crack of light from the hallway leaking in through the door. Maybe that would make it easier for Tybalt, that he wouldn't see more than the dim suggestion of disgust on Mercutio's face as the redhead whirled on him, or that Mercutio couldn't see the desperation on his.
It didn't really matter, either of their expressions, for in the next moment Mercutio had slammed him against the wall. "Anything but to spare an unarmed man, hmmm, Tybalt?" he hissed, a hand fisted in Tybalt's shirtfront. The other hand took him by the chin, a bruising grip on either side of his jaw. "What is this, some lovesick prattle? You see me, don't you? Look well. It might be the last thing you spy!"
Something about this, the stripe of gold light on the wall from the cracked door, or the two of them against a wall amidst dim evening light, reminded Mercutio of the first time they'd done this. The thought of the abandoned room, that ball, flashed briefly through his mind; he shook it away impatiently.
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 22, 2009 16:42:17 GMT -5
Mercutio was so light, so fair, like a flame except that he could not been seen so well in this darkness, this obscurity; perhaps he was more like the white wax candle waiting for a flame to be touched to him to set him alight. But he was already burning, spitting at him, nearly. Tybalt flinched at the pain; but he'd done that to Mercutio in the alleyway, and other men had done it before, many men who weren't Mercutio. There was nothing new here. Nothing strange or unusual. He knew this routine. He recognized the pointlessness, the fury, the weariness, the hour in particular.
The words tumbling out of his mouth were a bit unexpected. He himself barely heard them, as though anything that happened happening in the dark did not matter and could be stomached where in light it would have made them shrivel and burn like grotesque things from childhood nightmares - funny to think they'd grow into those things that had frightened them most.
His fingers tangled in Mercutio's hair. His hands shook just a little, and he was nearly grateful for being shoved into a wall most callously - at least he would not lose his balance.
"Shut me up then - make me keep quiet - let me - "
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 22, 2009 18:40:12 GMT -5
Mercutio jerked back and away, wanting Tybalt's trembling hands out of his hair. It was too distracting, too intimate, too infuriating. Tybalt's hands weren't the only ones shaking, although Mercutio's shook for much different reasons. This mindless rage was too unsteady- he longed to let fly at Tybalt with fist and feet, to have him on the ground in moments and curled up on his own pain. But even that wouldn't be enough. And the other man's words only brought that first night back to mind again, like some twisted mimicry of it, as Mercutio knew well that Tybalt had only kissed him to shut him up. Mercutio deliberately pushed it aside again. It was not that there was anything that unsettling to the memory, only that it was... distracting.
He considered, hands twisted into white-knuckled fists at his sides. Then, very slowly, Mercutio calmed.
Lowly, he spoke. "Anything, Tybalt?" It was hardly a question so much as a heavily suggestive command. Show me what anything means.
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 22, 2009 18:59:06 GMT -5
Tybalt's hands slid from his hair and his fingers touched his face, blindly. It wasn't stroking. They came in contact, not like fingers at all, not as though there was any feeling in them, but as though he were holding out an instrument and it was butting against his cheek - nothing more. Then they slipped to his lapel as though Tybalt were holding himself up.
And then, breathing ragged, he stumbled again, although there was something it that spoke more of exhaustion - and when had Tybalt last slept, it should be asked - than of drunkenness, his form was too perfect, and still holding on he fell to his knees.
His eyes didn't leave Mercutio's for more than a moment of hideous self-doubt, conscious of his degradation with or without sobriety. Something flickered in his eyes, a twist of pain. It was obvious.
"Yes," he said, like a thirsting man. He jerked suddenly, released Mercutio with both hands, one moving to press against his side as though he'd spasmed there. Then both hands dropped to the floor again and he hastily moved to scramble back up to his feet, hands pulling at the wall as though it were sideways rather than vertical and the only thing keeping him up, the only thing in the world he cared about. He wasn't wearing his gloves.
He almost sounded angry, and definitely sounded desperate, when he managed to catch himself out of his breathlessness and said, "Yes, anything, whatever you say - oh god," and he turned his face to the side as though he'd been hit, looking sideways and at the floor, a grimace in place.
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 22, 2009 21:50:25 GMT -5
Tybalt was making him uneasy. Mercutio was trying to feel solely contempt, and oh, he had plenty of that, but no man could watch the Prince of Cats scuttle about as though he'd been disemboweled when no one had even touched him and remain unaffected. It spooked him, too. Mercutio didn't want to hear this stuff any more than Tybalt wanted to say it.
"For God's sake, Tybalt, even I can't hit a man this pathetic," he said, trying not to mean it. Just because Tybalt was drunk, it meant nothing, he didn't know how not to be intense even when he was completely sloshed, Mercutio wasn't about to let himself be distracted by this- and when Mercutio stepped forward again, it was at least as much to draw Tybalt's attention as it was to just make him stop. "Convince me, then." And he laughed, because, well, despite this strangeness Mercutio still had his spite, and despite this strangeness nothing could make him forget this grudge. It wouldn't be so bad once he knew he was the one causing Tybalt such turmoil.
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 23, 2009 7:56:47 GMT -5
Tybalt's eyes flickered towards Mercutio's from beneath his heavy eyelids at the sound of his voice, of his laughter. It made his stomach turn over. How could any man stand it, any woman, for that matter? And yet the fool seduced with his tongue, his language, his voice. He'd heard him cajole many a maid before, Montague or Capulet or otherwise, he never cared. And how often he'd been taunted, in and out of a bedroom, a bar, an alley.
He could gather himself up and lean against this wall with his side to Mercutio, hollow, his words echoing as though more of himself bounded back off the roof of his mouth and rang throughout an empty shell of a man's body than did get out in his voice, or he could abandon himself to it, this humiliation, do something that begged Mercutio for chastisement and connection all at once.
Mercutio would be cruel... but maybe he would...
Tybalt had to have been really drunk in order to do this, reaching out for him suddenly, his shoulder, moving suddenly to seize his arms and jerk him closer as though about to kiss him. "- Tell me what to do, then. Whatever you want. I'll do it, anything, I'll show you - "
He was a bit unsteady on his feet, but that was largely abandon and a strange sense of disconnect between body and the will that usually directed it with no room for error.
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 23, 2009 12:44:31 GMT -5
"Oh, I don't know," Mercutio said, his eyes glittering in the dim light. He let Tybalt draw him closer; he seemed amused, and he was. Uneasy still, but only a little, for he was starting to see the advantage Tybalt had given him. And it wasn't such a bad thing to hear the Prince of Cats beg. Mercutio only had to think of it that way to make the whole situation seem so much sweeter. "I think you ought to take the initiative."
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 23, 2009 13:55:59 GMT -5
Tybalt's stomach turned. He had only to think of the alien thought - what proves it, what proves how far you're willing to go, what's the worst and most degrading thing you can do - for voices in the back of his mind to whisper the answers, whip-fast and just as striking.
He flushed. His skin felt burning to him, feverish, as he pushed away damp strands of hair that had fallen over his cheekbone. But no, now that it had occurred to him he couldn't not do it. Better to act on it than to think on it, better to behave like he did when his reflexes told him to lunge, to thrust, to block - and so he did, knowing the reaction would coil up in him and then snap moments after the sick action had been completed.
Face briefly twisting in a grimace, he dropped down as though the command had been issued from Mercutio rather than his own sickening mind and kissed the toe of Mercutio's boot. When he lifted up the back of his shaking hand to brush gravel from his lip, he remained hunched over, and thought, unbidden, of kicking drunken Mercutio in the stomach while Mercutio'd been similarly down.
It would have been a nice reaction, he thought almost wistfully, a punishment to blind him to what had been done on his own; but that was precisely why Mercutio wasn't likely to do it.
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 23, 2009 14:26:52 GMT -5
Damn this man, that he kept throwing Mercutio off guard. Even in the streets, in front of his gang, had Tybalt done this it would have been more appropriate. Mercutio would have been delighted then- what a train of events must have occurred to trap him into it! Ah, to see the angry clench of his jaw as he did so! But now, Tybalt was silent and devoid of the proper responses, and to look down at his bowed head when it was only the two of them alone in a darkened bedroom felt somehow...wrong.
"O hell," Mercutio said viciously, and reached down to yank Tybalt up by a bicep. "Wrong initiative, you dead-eyed dolt." He slammed Tybalt back into the wall again, just as jarring as before but paired with the bony press of his hips and his breath on the side of Tybalt's face as he spoke. "I don't mind kneeling, but you had your mouth on the wrong part, Tybalt. Don't tell me you came here to kiss my boot."
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 23, 2009 15:32:50 GMT -5
Tybalt turned his head and caught Mercutio's mouth, hands lifting to touch his face as he kissed him. His head felt groggy, and he felt behind at every turn, but, heart pounding, as though really all they'd been doing was drunken duelling, if Mercutio was not going to turn him through hoops but merely give in... that was all he wanted, then. Release, if not from the fixation, then from the pressing need that had gone too long unignored.
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 23, 2009 18:49:55 GMT -5
Not particularly interested in kissing him, Mercutio turned his face to the side. He smirked as he did so, tauntingly, as though inviting Tybalt to keep up, to go after what he wanted, even as Mercutio angled his hips and ground hard against the other man. Tybalt was so much more yielding like this. It was easier to coax his legs apart, to press him against the wall, to actually use the scant advantage Mercutio's height gave him. It made the redhead wonder if the opposite was also true- if so, whether Tybalt had ever noticed- if in the future Mercutio needed to take care how much he drank before he met the Capulet. Well, of course. He didn't want to be left in an alley again.
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 23, 2009 19:15:31 GMT -5
Tybalt cried out in a sort of muffled way, turning his head again to capture Mercutio's mouth again, hand lifting to turn his face towards his.
Not just to kiss him, no, but to smother the words he was saying against the other man's mouth - more pleading, more speaking his name. As for yielding, coaxing was hardly necessary. There was nothing really wanton in Tybalt's behavior - no matter how he perceived himself, he wasn't quite capable of that - but the desperation was all over him. The sooner they could do this... Well, the sooner they'd be done.
Not that he quite wanted it done. He wanted to be doing it. That was the truest part of it, the worst, wasn't it.
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 23, 2009 19:43:40 GMT -5
Worse for him, then, when Mercutio decided to answer, to sing-song his name in merry imitation of Tybalt's more desperate moans or to croon something lowly before being cut off. Tight against one another, there was no room for anything else, so it was along the back of Tybalt's leg that Mercutio slid his hands, up and along and... over- groping through clothes- for Mercutio didn't want things to progress so far as clothes being undone. No, he just wanted Tybalt to be aching for him, burning for him, and it was turning out that it would be much harder for him to give this up than he'd thought. Tybalt speaking Mercutio's name, the tensing of his muscles under Mercutio's hand, the hair falling into his face, all of this sweet, uncharacteristic abandon... it was unexpectedly appealing. Extremely appealing. Oh, this would be difficult.
Mercutio kissed him hard then broke away again, his ginger head ducking into the crook of Tybalt's neck. He pressed his mouth to the long line of Tybalt's throat, following the smooth curve to his shoulder, and tested his teeth against the taut skin. He wanted to hear Tybalt moan his name again.
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