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Post by Tybalt on Sept 23, 2009 19:54:06 GMT -5
It was sick. It was wrong. But then, it always was. Tybalt did not enjoy that, no matter what he might have feared about himself, wondering what kept driving him back. The tension, the sense of his intestines wrapping themselves in a knot as though around a foreign object in his gut, no, he did not like that.
At the same time, there was something - it wasn't tenderness - that had never been there before. Perhaps it was giving himself over like this, waiting for Mercutio to shove, to hurt. And yet, as he was doing this, Mercutio hadn't shoved him away. And Tybalt couldn't help but wonder, possibly even hope, drunkenly, that maybe he didn't intend to, that he was giving in, and that it wouldn't be until the morning sun shone on their skin, burning them with shame, that he'd feel the sting.
He threw his head back with a raw, undignified gasp at the press of Mercuto's teeth. "Yes - please - " He swallowed. "Mercutio - "
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 23, 2009 20:06:17 GMT -5
Ohhh, that was what he'd been waiting for. It made him shudder, just a little, even as he lifted his head to kiss Tybalt again, abandoning his attention on other, lower places as one hand came up to twist in Tybalt's collar and the other took the man by a hard grip on the chin. He would have bruises tomorrow, from Mercutio's fingers on his face- and it was then that Mercutio bit his lower lip. Much harder than on the neck, hard enough to spurt blood that ran down from their mouths and over both their chins, and then Mercutio drew back and punched him. The nose, the stomach, the side of the jaw, as quick and as merciless as Tybalt had ever been with him.
The wall was there to catch him, or, failing that, the floor.
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 23, 2009 20:23:17 GMT -5
Tybalt knew the taste of blood; he'd bit his lip, or his tongue, before, numerous times, and it wasn't that hard to associate the taste or sensation with Mercutio. But beneath him, against him, pressed against the wall, he merely cried out sharply, muffled such that it was almost more a moan of pain, his fingers gripping him more tightly only in reaction, not in a flare of anger.
And then Mercutio struck him, not particularly surprising. Tybalt took it like a prince, or like a prince's whipping boy, doubling over at the punch to the gut and catching himself sharply with his knees and one hand, coughing as he did. He could see something dark on the floor. It was blood. From his nose, or from his mouth; and probably both.
But even when the coughing had subsided, he didn't get up. He merely looked up at him with an expression of mixed despair and resignation, as though something had shut down behind his eyes.
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 23, 2009 20:44:03 GMT -5
Mercutio didn't like Tybalt looking at him like that, so he kicked him. It didn't really make him feel any better, so he did it again. Eventually, he figured, he'd find something that felt right. He wanted more blood than that on his floor, he wanted more... something. Something. Tybalt was really disappointing him.
With attempted lightness, "Don't watch me with those distraught and deadened eyes. Hadn't we already established the concept of turn-around and fair play?"
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 24, 2009 7:42:14 GMT -5
His hand slid across the floor, his face now merely inches from it, and holding himself up was hard. He spat onto the floor, moved his hips back over his heels as though trying to ease away the pain. It wasn't working. He tried to force down the nausea - he didn't want to vomit, mostly because he didn't want to get it on himself.
He didn't look up at Mercutio again, not quite, but his head barely turned to the side as though to address his shoe if he couldn't speak directly to him. His voice was soft, a little hoarse, a bit of a wheeze. "Yes," he said sharply, although that might have just been that he had to force the word out in one breath. "I'm not - stopping you, am I?"
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 24, 2009 10:51:35 GMT -5
What words! Like Tybalt was allowing Mercutio to hurt him, like he knew something Mercutio didn't, and worse still was any ring of self-pity or self-contempt- the wrong emotion, worse than desperation or need, because even those could be twisted to his liking. Mercutio wanted to be more than just a tool with which Tybalt hurt himself, he wanted anger, he wanted a reaction- God, what trash. It made Mercutio's teeth hurt until he realized he was clenching them.
"Quite," he said, and kicked the downed Capulet once more. He didn't wait until Tybalt had recovered from the blow to wind a fist into the back of Tybalt's shirt and drag him to the door. There was so much more he could do to this man- step on a hand, crush some fingers, carve a few mementos in him with the knife Mercutio had laying on the dresser. He hadn't broken anything yet, although this was more incidental than something he'd refrained from doing on purpose. Instead all he did was begin to briskly drag Tybalt down the hallway like an over-large bag of grain or a particularly heavy sandbag, dropping him at the head of the stairs. This late at night, there was no one around to see him, but Mercutio didn't want any trouble from the landlady that would result from an unattractively beaten man outside his door. After all, who knew when Tybalt would be able to walk?
Mercutio knelt beside him, noting the bruises and the cuts revealed by the light- and yes, Tybalt would have the prettiest face tomorrow morning, complete with fingertip bruises and his swelling, tender lip. "When Meg asks you where you got this..." he commented, smiling as he pressed his thumb into the corner of Tybalt's mouth. "What will you tell her?" He laughed, very faintly, but the corners of his mouth twisted sharply down immediately afterward, like a grimace, or a snarl. He still had Tybalt's blood on his chin. "Perhaps that you tried to kiss a goose? Some mangy street dog? Ah, no, maybe a rat, and it bit you to remind you that it had teeth too."
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 24, 2009 11:50:45 GMT -5
The mention of Meg was the only thing to bring about a snarl, but it was more like the ghost of one. The noise Tybalt made could have almost been a laugh. "Are you mad?" he asked, harshly, as though it would have been a bark had he been less breathless - or perhaps not. Who could know. "As though I'd let her see me like this."
There was no accusation in the words as he spoke to Mercutio, however - nothing to imply that like this was going to be repaid. Indeed, it was almost intimate, if by intimate one means that it suggested Mercutio belonged to a world that needed to be separate from Meg's, perhaps one that was closer to Tybalt than Meg was if Meg was not allowed to know about this.
Tybalt had come, maybe, to be forgiven - if Mercutio had not reacted like this and allowed the Capulet into his bed, that would have been as close to forgiveness as perhaps Mercutio was capable of - and maybe to apologize - if letting Mercutio do this to him was getting even, then perhaps that was something like an apology, which was not a thing Tybalt had much experience with even though remorse was like a bride to him - and maybe he'd gotten what he'd come for.
The worst part was knowing that that was not entirely true. He'd be back, eventually. It burned more than the bruising along his ribs did.
((what this totally needs is a follow-up with Lady Capulet and shirtless!Tybalt the next day.))
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Post by Mercutio on Sept 24, 2009 15:28:23 GMT -5
Mercutio snorted, irritation twisting in him like a knife. "What a shame." There went his dearest wish. "Hmmm- " He twisted a hand in Tybalt's hair to make sure the man was listening to him. "Maybe I will tell her at work tomorrow." Then Mercutio dropped him and stood.
He wondered if Tybalt was still aching for him, or if the beating had relieved him of any amorous tendencies. Mercutio had not been relieved of his, certainly, but then, his intentions and Tybalt's had been very different all evening. "Enjoy your night, Tybalt," he said as an afterthought, and swooped down to kiss the Capulet on a swollen cheek. Then he walked back to his room, one arm raising to scrub at his chin. He was still seething a little, tiny tremors running through his arms when he clenched a fist, the need to do more, to break more, to fill up some empty part of him that hadn't been revenged, but more than that, the unease had returned. Mercutio still couldn't shake the feeling that he hadn't done a single thing Tybalt hadn't expected.
(( Oh, definitely. ))
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Post by Tybalt on Sept 24, 2009 16:42:36 GMT -5
The sensation of having his head forced back and upwards hurt only because of soreness - from being kicked, from having been unable to sleep for two weeks, from being tense and exhausted - but it would not have been comfortable in any case. He was barely able to grimace further, as he was grimacing already, but beneath the blood Mercutio would know, as he had to know, that the thought of Mercutio being anywhere near Meg - touching her or talking to her - was like a puncture wound.
Even his misery, though, he knew that Mercutio hadn't gotten anything he'd wanted out of this meeting, either; leaving on that note as he did was proof enough. Meg was an unsatisfactory topic of conversation for both of them, or so he imagined. She couldn't be anything else. She wasn't to do with them - the hot nights in Verona, the alley fights.... Alone on the floor he grimaced, curling up more tightly. Oh, no. He'd brought her into that, now, hadn't he. Mercutio's gifts had not done that. But his reaction to them had. It was his fault. He'd not seen it before, and ahhhh - he saw it now.
He lay there without a groan, though he thought of hitting his head against the floor for a moment.
Tybalt's desire had ebbed away, physically, long since, but there did not seem to be something physical in the greater part of it remaining. Nothing had been concluded. The only comfort was to know that even Mercutio would balk at mentioning a large number of details from this encounter at their next, no matter what he did bring up. That Mercutio too had a theshold was almost a comfort.
And then it reminded him he too was human, and he grimaced, lifting his head only slightly, like a dog that has been kicked contemplating slinking into the corner.
It was another twenty minutes before he moved to leave. He vomited outside - beneath Mercutio's window, amusingly, though it hadn't been intentional. It didn't make him feel any better.
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