Ignorance is Bliss, a Mercutio/Tybalt story
MERCUTIO
"They remember his loud laughs, his blinding smiles, his sharp wits, his cunning swordplay, his abandon in drunken brawls. They think he was never sad or lonely, ever cheerful, foolish, the prince of an adoring court."
"Romeo could have told them that sometimes he was afraid, on the edge of a panic attack, losing himself in dark thoughts."
"Benvolio could have told them all about the nights he slipped into his friend's bedroom because he did not want to - could not - sleep alone, tormented by the monsters lurking in the deepest recesses of his mind."
"Sweet, pious Rosaline could have told them all about their long conversations on faith and sin, redemption and love."
"Valentine knows all about the darkness in his brother's heart."
TYBALT
"To the people of Verona, Tybalt was a spectral shadow. He was a sword drawn out in the streets, a sneer so condescending and cold his opponents would shiver and tremble, and words drenched in acid that cut to the bone."
"They never saw that every time he fought, nobody was hurt. Every time he drove the Montagues away, he also led the enraged Capulets back to safe streets. They did not understand that he was a keeper of peace and balance, that his violence kept everyone else under control."
"They did not understand that he loved peace and tranquillity. No one knew of his love for poetry, or his extensive knowledge of literature and history."
"Sometimes, Juliet could see below the surface, she could reach out to the real Tybalt. She knew how to make him laugh, and she knew which books to ask and leave for him."
"Sometimes Rosaline took her place, and Tybalt and she discussed History and literature at length, though always behind closed doors and shut windows. Those were their secrets, and nobody could ever learn of them. All the city could ever know was the fighter, the dark shadow stalking its streets."
TYBALT AND MERCUTIO
"Because the thought of Tybalt loving Mercutio with all his heart, and Mercutio loving Tybalt above anything else, is so alien, so unlike anything the good people of Verona has ever known, that it could never be fully comprehended - even more so in light of the events that shook the city and painted its streets red."
"There is someone else who could have told them that behind the smiles and the laughter, the puns and the innuendos, laid a deeply ingrained melancholy, a fear and a self-hatred the kind of which they could not even begin to fathom."
"Where Mercutio was day, Tybalt was night. Where Mercutio was light and heat, Tybalt was darkness and cold."
"No one knew Mercutio better than Tybalt knew him, no one understood Tybalt better than Mercutio understood him. In the eye of the people, the association of the red-haired buffoon who would spend all his time in taverns always surrounded by the Montagues, with the infamous Prince of Cats, shunned heir of the proud Capulet family, the fighter blinded by anger and hatred, was completely unfathomable. If the people of Verona knew just how much they relied on each other, how they would run to the other after a bad day, how they could fight and insult each other during the day and murmur promises and endearments into each other's skin at night, then they would grieve a little less for Juliet and her Romeo and a little more for Tybalt and Mercutio."
Read the rest of the story on AO3 here.
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