Teach Me How To…

Summary: Tybalt wants to learn how to write, his parents didn’t want to teach him and now his uncle doesn’t have time for him. Maybe a cousin of the royal family can help? Tybalt/Mercutio

AN: Hi dear reader! Some people already told me the videos in the last chapter are not working (sob). I saw a big part of the link was cut off, thank you very much FFnet… If you want the videos, just ask. There, and now: chapter!

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Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap...

Mercutio was tapping his fingers on the desk. He looked at the door, stopping the tapping for some seconds and then continued.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap...

Tybalt was late. Very late. Normally the Capulet would arrive in the office precisely on time, no second too late or too early. It was almost scary. But Mercutio was waiting for almost half an hour now and there was still no sign of him. He had sat down on the couch, on the chair, had looked out of the window, stepped through the room countless times, looked into the hall… Just to do something while waiting. Now he was sitting at the desk again, tapping his fingers on the piece of furniture impatiently.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap... SLAM!

The brown haired slammed his fist onto the desk and stood up. Here he was: waiting for Tybalt, for nothing, while Mercutio could have easily left the house hours ago to see Benvolio and Romeo. Tybalt took almost half his day in seizure and now he just didn’t bother showing up. How did he dare to call him rude? With loud steps he walked to the door; he was going to look for him. And if he would find him, the Capulet would regret it.

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“Look Tybalt!”

Tybalt and Juliet were taking a break at Verona’s square. They had walked through almost whole Verona, just talking, Juliet clenching her arm in Tybalt’s. The young girl was looking into one of the little fountains now, the reflection of the sun casting a light on her already shinning face. Tybalt turned his head and looked down into the fountain.

“I see nothing.”

“You are not looking closely enough.”

He turned his whole body, bowing down closer to the water. Juliet pointed at the water. “Look here and here.”

Tybalt was searching for something on the bottom, but still he couldn’t see anything that would have possibly claimed Juliet’s attention.

“Our reflections!”

She looked at the surface fascinated, first looking at her own reflection in the water and then at Tybalt’s. The young man looked down at his reflection as well. His face looked almost ghostly white underneath the raven black hair. You could tell they were relatives. Juliet had the same dark brown eyes, but they were warm and full of life. They both had an attractive, perfect looking face, which were common in the Capulet family. She looked happy, so terribly happy for something so little: Tybalt just couldn’t understand that. He had to think of Mercutio and how he almost always seemed to have the time of his life. If Juliet’s case was a riddle, then Mercutio’s was a mystery of life.

“Are mirrors made of water?” Juliet asked, still staring at the water.

“No, they are made of glass, a special kind of it so you can not see through it.”

Slowly she touched the water with her finger, creating wrinkles that disturbed the water’s peace. Their reflections moved for a while and then stood still again. He was glad he had decided to spend the day with Juliet, it was obvious how she was enjoying her day off, away from all the worries she had at home.

“Ahah!”

Tybalt’s head shot up, immediately recognizing the yell as one of Mercutio. Juliet looked up surprised, watching how Mercutio made his way towards them. Tybalt stood up and placed himself in front of his niece, functioning as a wall between Mercutio and Juliet..

“Well, well!” Mercutio said, stopping a step away from the Capulets. “Are we having a daytrip?”

“Tybalt…” Juliet said softly, hearing the threatening undertone in the royal’s voice. She didn’t want to see her cousin fight, certainly not after the wonderful time they had.

Mercutio’s eyes found the little figure behind Tybalt. The older Capulet pushed Juliet further behind him, not taking his eyes off Mercutio.

“Mercutio…”

“Oh yes, that is my name! Good you have remembered that!” His voice was loud, he was almost yelling. Tybalt could feel Juliet grabbing his sleeve. “Tell me another thing: can you not remember two things at a time?”

“Mercutio!” Tybalt hissed. His hissing had a far more greater impact than Mercutio’s yelling. “Do you want everyone to hear? I will first bring her home and then we will talk on.”

“Oh, we will have a talk all right.”

“Whatever you want, just wait here.”

Mercutio let out a sharp, loud laugh. “Wait? I have not done anything else this day, I am sick of waiting.”

“Then you follow us from a distance, but I swear that if you touch her, that your friends will have to scratch piece after piece of you from the streets.” His hand searched for Juliet’s behind his back. Not turning around he pulled her up, immediately feeling Juliet’s free hand grasping his wrist as she pushed herself against her older cousin. Tybalt pushed her forward gently, his gaze still resting on Mercutio.

He kept doing that till he was ten steps separated from the brown haired. Mercutio started to follow them, keeping the ten steps between them. His eyes rested on Juliet, who was still holding Tybalt closely, sometimes turning her head to look at Mercutio. It was awkward to see someone act so close with the Capulet. He couldn’t remember one single time where someone acted like that towards Tybalt and where the black haired had actually allowed it.

The thought that the girl could possibly be his girlfriend, woke up a feeling inside of Mercutio that he did not know. It bordered close to almost jealousy. He found this feeling even more awkward than the sight before him. As Mercutio took a more studying look at Juliet, he saw she looked a lot like Tybalt. Realizing they were probably family, made the unknown feeling disappear. If he hadn’t been so angry at the moment, then maybe Mercutio had tried to find the source or the reason of this feeling.

They arrived at the Capulet’s mansion, the ten steps still remained between the duo and their follower. Tybalt turned around, facing Mercutio and bowed down, whispering something into Juliet’s ear. Mercutio could not hear what it was about, but he knew it was about him for Juliet took a quick look at him again. Then she turned back to her cousin and pinched his hands softly before running inside. She didn’t look back and closed the door with a slam. The slam seemed to echo for a while before the usual street sounds of talking people and such came back

Without spending one more look at Mercutio, Tybalt turned around and started to walk away from the brown haired. This, of course, made Mercutio furious. He almost ran after the Capulet, unsheathing his rapier while doing this. Tybalt turned around just in time to grab the royal’s wrist. The rapier became useless in the iron grip, missing it’s target.

“You pitiful creation! Have you no pride…?” Mercutio blurted out in rage, not even noticing Tybalt was pulling him into the shadows of an alley next to the Capulet mansion. “Speak or I will rip your mouth open till you can not do anything else but talk! Speak I say!”

Tybalt pulled the rapier out of Mercutio’s hand and pushed him against the shoulder. “Silence, you imbecile!”

The sudden thud against the wall made Mercutio snap out of his wave of cursing. He blinked confused, as if he didn’t knew what he was doing there. His eyes scanned the surroundings quickly and then rested on Tybalt, who was still holding the rapier in his hand. Mercutio felt terribly threatened, noticing he was unarmed and with Tybalt standing in front of him.

Mercutio thought he was going be attacked and so charged towards the Capulet. Now it was Tybalt who didn’t knew what was happening. Mercutio’s rapier fell on the ground as the person in question pushed Tybalt to the other side of the alley, his fists hitting the Capulet everywhere he could blindly. Tybalt held his arms before his face in protection and kicked Mercutio right on the knee.

The brown haired fell forward into Tybalt’s arms, who gave Mercutio another kick in the stomach, finally making him stop to gasp for air. He clenched his fingers into the Capulet’s chest so he wouldn’t fall down, coughing and trying to breathe in air loudly. The royal’s shoulders shook violently.

Tybalt held them in order to make it stop. “Calm down you fool! Have you not got enough attention already? Try to breath more slowly or it will not work!”

“You filthy…” Mercutio managed to say before almost coughing his lungs out again.

Tybalt tilted Mercutio on his feet, making it much easier for Mercutio to breathe in the air. He could feel the royal’s nails pressing into his chest as he was holding on to him fiercely. Mercutio’s eyes were full of tears from coughing so hard and finally it stopped after a while. His breathing was still irregular and he had the feeling he couldn’t stand on his feet anymore. A filthy look was passed on to Tybalt, who didn’t looked all to pleased himself.

“Are you really that stupid?”

Mercutio opened his mouth to say something but was silenced by Tybalt. “No! Hush! I did not expect you to be smart, but I thought you had at least the brains to know the chance of someone seeing us talk in the streets? People do not go from hatred to a nice talk in one day, I can tell you. That is why we are here, so we can talk without bringing us into suspicion.”

The Capulet’s words slowly entered Mercutio’s head. He understood now, but there was no way he would admit his mistake and apologize to him in some way whatsoever. “You… took my rapier…” He blamed him instead.

“Because you almost slammed it on top of my head, you clown! People with your attitude would be better of without any weapons.”

Mercutio’s breathing slowed back down at it’s normal tempo, but he still had the feeling that he couldn’t stand because of the pain in his knee. He looked at his own hands who were still upon Tybalt’s chest and noticed the Capulet’s hands holding his shoulders. The brown haired raised his head to look at Tybalt, who’s ice cold glare was staring back at him piercingly. The feeling that he couldn’t stand anymore only grew by this and seemed to have nothing to do with the pain anymore. Mercutio found himself not able to stop looking at his own reflection in Tybalt’s eyes: he looked so differently then when he would look into a normal mirror.

Tybalt had followed Mercutio’s gaze and now he had the same problem as the smaller man he was holding: Mercutio’s blue eyes reflected Tybalt’s image in a strange way. He wasn’t the dark Capulet in those eyes but someone else, someone less dark, the dark colours almost fading away because of the bright blue surrounding he saw himself standing in. The tears in the royal’s eyes from coughing looked like crystals, as if wanting to reward Tybalt for some unknown reason.

His hands were itching to push Mercutio away, but his muscles didn’t cooperate as he remained holding Mercutio. Now he understood why Juliet had been so fascinated by her reflection in the water. Had she seen herself differently, just like Tybalt who almost couldn’t recognize himself? But water was something dead, while the source of his reflection was alive. He could feel the other man’s warmth; the same kind of comforting warmth that he had felt and missed when Juliet had embraced him a day back. The fact that he seemed to have lost control of his doings, made something tumble inside of Tybalt. The Capulet remembered how he had blamed Mercutio for pulling his head back while he was taking care of the wound on his face. And now he found the same matter almost suffocating him.

Mercutio had felt Tybalt’s heartbeat speeding up underneath his hands, but he almost dared to bet that his own heartbeat was much the same. Slowly one of his hands trailed up to the Capulet’s neck. He would push him away now, so he could escape from this hypnosis. It had to stop, just one push and it would be over. But Mercutio didn’t push Tybalt away, instead of that he let his thumb stroke the Capulet’s cheek, so softly that it could have been the wind. Tybalt dug his fingers into Mercutio’s shoulders when he felt the thumb ending at the corner of his mouth. As if wanted to say something, Mercutio’s lips parted a bit and a shaking breath left him.

Tybalt pulled the royal closer to him while he had mend to push him away. He felt dizzy, like all possible emotions were fighting a war inside of him. One of his hands made it’s way up to Mercutio’s hair, stroking it carefully and then finally tangling his fingers into it, the soft hair brushing his hand. Tybalt moved in closer, feeling Mercutio’s breathing on his lips. He looked into his eyes and could still see the deformed vision of himself, together with Mercutio’s own reflection that came back from Tybalt’s eyes.

Their lips touched each other briefly, making Tybalt’s fingers tightened the grip on Mercutio’s hair. The hairs on the Capulet’s neck rose as a shiver ran across his spine. The little distance was crossed, their lips finally meeting each other properly. Mercutio closed his eyes, a mix of cold and heat flowing trough his whole body. Tybalt turned around, taking Mercutio with him and pushing the smaller man against the wall with his hips. The kiss deepened, faint breathing sometimes escaping from the two youngsters.

“T-Tybalt…” Mercutio muttered against the Capulet’s lips as he opened his eyes again.

His voice made Tybalt pull back slowly, looking at the dazed Mercutio. He stared at him for a while, letting the sight before him enter his head. And then Tybalt did what he had wanted to do earlier: he pushed himself away from the brown haired carefully. Mercutio’s hands fell next to his hips like two useless tools as they were separated from Tybalt’s chest. He looked at his feet, for once not daring to look at the Capulet in fear of what he would see.

They continued standing there, Tybalt at one side of the alley and Mercutio at the other. Tybalt was first to leave, this time with no Mercutio running after him to stop in. He stayed behind, leaning against the wall and listening to Tybalt’s fading footsteps. And then there was silence.

Silence and Mercutio.

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FINALLY! What a relief... my god! The first one who says I rushed things will get some serious spanking, honestly, it’s freaking chapter seven. Holy number seven, we thank you! So happy that the critical moment has passed… It was darn hard!

I seriously hope you like it…