( Romeo & Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, Line 1 – Romeo )

"He jests at scars that never felt a wound"

Romeo believes Mercutio to be little more than a joker. A charming gentleman, he knows, and handsome enough for the ladies of Verona, but still a joker. Still only looking to raise a laugh, to lighten the mood.

That's one of the main reasons that Romeo likes having Mercutio around, if he's honest. Mercutio's the bright sunlight to Romeo's storm clouds (even Romeo doesn't like it to rain all the time). He likes a little sunshine sometimes, a small joke or a sexual pun.

Romeo doesn't know that it's his own innate knack for attracting trouble that keeps Mercutio around. He doesn't know that Romeo's habit for attracting Tybalt and his anger and his sword is mostly why Mercutio stays. Mercutio stays to see that face again, to see that body moving in a swordsman's dance again. To see a lean back curve without a hot palm to arc away from, to see fair hair made damp like it was last night. Romeo doesn't know that for Mercutio, Tybalt is the allure, and not him.

And he doesn't know anything of Mercutio's heart, either. He knows he has one, yes – why else would he get the rash fifteen-year-old out of trouble so often? – but when he sees Mercutio flirting shamelessly with Verona's girls, when he sees him leave with no afterthought…it's hard for him to reconcile the ideas of Mercutio and true love. Romeo's sure that he's the one who's truly in love – he's sure that Mercutio has never had anyone like Juliet, never had anyone to make you smile quietly at the mere thought of them, make the blood sing in your veins when they're near, make your heart stutter when their breath by your ear makes you shiver.

Romeo has no idea that Mercutio's been experiencing that soft smile and that blood song and that heart stutter for far longer than he has. He has no idea that the long, long stares that Tybalt and Mercutio share in the streets don't say keep out of my way or I'll fucking kill you but keep out of my way so that I don't fuck you here and now because – well, it's unthinkable, isn't it? He has no idea that Prince of Cats would ever be whispered against Tybalt's mouth amidst a tangle of hot bed sheets because he only ever sees it used for mockery, for raising a blush on Tybalt's fair cheeks.

He certainly has no idea how well acquainted Mercutio is with Tybalt's alla stoccata, Tybalt's rapier thrust.

And so Romeo bemoans his forbidden love for Juliet. He believes that he's all alone in his pain. He justifies his angst with the thoughts that Mercutio's experiences in love amount to those of a doorpost and that his friend will never understand. He rails silently against the fact that he can never truly be with Juliet because she is the daughter of a hated enemy. He tells Mercutio how hard his love is, how little anyone knows of it.

Mercutio merely rolls his eyes and throws lyrical poetry in Romeo's direction when the boy starts talking like this. Romeo's never thought that perhaps Mercutio's playboy nature is a painfully maintained façade to cover a forbidden sexuality. He's never considered that perhaps Mercutio has a love that's twice as forbidden as his own. After all, Tybalt's his friend's sworn enemy, and Tybalt's a man.

So Romeo wails to himself in his head and hopes that perhaps some curses will bring him a little relief, like a cool cloth when you're feverish.

Mercutio could tell him that curses don't do anything. He's tried it. He's stood on the sea shore in a storm and he's screamed at the ocean until his clothes were drenched and his throat raw and he knows that it doesn't work. He knows that whatever the poets say, rain doesn't wash away your emotions. The only thing the rain washed away for Mercutio that day was the present, cleansing it from his body like a layer of dirt until all he could think of was the day that he and Tybalt had kissed in the pouring rain in a dark alley. The way Tybalt's blonde hair had stuck in curls to his neck. The way his white shirt had turned translucent, the way he'd kissed the pearls of water from Mercutio's eyelashes and nose and lips.

He knows that Romeo wants nothing more than to be with Juliet, and that he's wishing on every star he sees that it'll come true. He wants to tell him that it'll never work, because when do feuds ever end? Bloodshed's never enough. Everyone's proved that before and everyone'll prove it again and the sooner Romeo learns this, the better, in Mercutio's opinion.

But Mercutio knows that if Romeo truly wants nothing more than Juliet, it'll happen. He knows that no amounts of threats or pain or lies will ever stop him and Tybalt, so why would it stop Juliet and Romeo? He knows that if they want it enough, they'll do it because he and Tybalt have already done it. Mercutio wanted Tybalt and Tybalt wanted Mercutio and now Mercutio knows that the only place he can be free and true and Mercutio is in Tybalt's arms – a place he should never have been acquainted with in the first place.

And so he goes back. Night after night, Mercutio goes back. Midnight after midnight passes with the two of them tracing sweaty, sticky patterns onto each others' skin. Dawn after dawn passes with Mercutio trying to slip away so he's not caught and Tybalt pulling him back down for a last kiss. Day after day, he walks with Romeo through the streets of Verona and grits his teeth against the pain and bites his cheek to stop thinking about what Tybalt did to give him that pain.

And when he sees Tybalt on those walks, with Romeo, with Benvolio, they both bow and start their performances anew. Tybalt doesn't always manage it – it's usually when he sees a red mark on Mercutio's tanned collarbone or throat that the other had forgotten about, and a possessive smirk flits across his lips like a swallow in a summer sky. Mercutio doesn't always manage it – it's usually when he sees Tybalt's lips parting or eyes widening as Mercutio's shirt hitches (unintentionally, of course), and he flicks his tongue across his bottom lip. Slowly.

And Romeo's blindness is their salvation.