milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Yo. Mercutio is sitting crosslegged by the fireplace, staring into the fire. One hand is tossing and catching a dagger - he doesn't seem to even be looking at it.

He's humming very quietly, a Veronan children's song.

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There are advantages to not being able to breathe or blink, although his eyelids twitch with the instinctual urges to do so.

He stares. At the dagger.

"Oh, my, where did the time go? Has it past as well for as it has for me...?" He asks, flipping his hand out for the dagger.

"It has passed slowly."

He grins, and snatches the dagger out of reach.

"Say please."

"Slowly. I understand. Not only what the word slowly means. But the state of mind. To be slow. As if moving through smoke and darkness so thick as to be molasses, or perhaps, clotting blood. Cold. So, very cold. And heart-grippingly slow."

He pauses, if only to flick his fingers at the dagger again.

"But. That's passed now. So. You will need to forgive me if I say fuck off to saying

please

Mercutio nods. "I remember."

He knows why it's been so long, now.

"How did'st thou die?"

He raises a hand up. His eyebrows tense and begin to beetle together until he realizes that the facial expression is not needed at all. His facial features smooth over. His eyes empty. And he recalls.

"...Meaningless." Despite himself, he frowns. Deeply. Voice thick. "An accident. Don't ask me anything more about it. Because there will be no answers."

"Sounds like mine."

He shrugs.

"Although mine at least had some meaning. It was written, you see. It was necessary to advance Romeo's story."

He proffers the dagger.

"Here, have something shiny."

He laughs. A cracked and disjointed sound like broken glass crunching underfoot. "Written. I know all about that as well. There is just a little unfinished business pertaining to such that I will complete as soon I am able to."

Accepting the dagger with harsh and cold hands, he tests the edge of it against the meat of his thumb. And finding it to his satisfaction, he slides it up his sleeve without so much as a word. "You were a secondary character, Mercutio."

"I know. Hence my death being to advance my friend's story. Perhaps I did not make my feelings on this matter clear."

The bitterness has seeped into his voice.

"And I did rather want that dagger back, actually."

But he doesn't sound too worried.

His lips twitch. "No, I don't think that you have clarified yourself enough." Laughing again, in fractured staccato bursts until his cheeks flush and the expression touches his eyes, "It is a source of endless amusement to me."

And a beat.

"I don't see any dagger or knife. Sorry, dreadfully sorry."

Mercutio's lips twitch too.

"Well, how can I be angry when my dear dead friend laughs?"

He flops onto his back.

"I will regain what is mine. In a moment."

He's not overly perturbed by the idea of an armed Patrick. In fact, he's rather interested by the concept.

"What was the purpose of thy death, then? Surely th'art a main character in thy story?"

". . .It wasn't a story. It was slander."

His jaw is tight.

"There was no purpose to my life. Why should there have been purpose in my death?"

"There is a story, then? Hmmmm."

He smiles wide.

"I shall see if Lady Bar has a copy."

"I was in the midst of searching for Mr. Ellis before my unfortunate end. I needed to speak to him concerning what he had written. Fiction or not. It was my good name that he was dragging through the weeds."

"Imagine. Calling me an American Psycho." He runs his tongue over his teeth, "Thus. Unfinished business."

"...I think that is a rather apt title, frankly."

He eyes Patrick.

"I can see nothing factually wrong with it, at least."

". . .I didn't do any of those things."

"I don't know what he wrote."

He smiles.

"What are the vicious slanders?"

"No."

Patrick would rather not speak about it. Because he would get angry. Getting angry wouldn't help at all because he does not have his usual means of expressing it-- not anymore-- being sans pulse and breath. Instead he forces himself to be blank and dead, muttering.

"It was all lies."

"At least the title was true."

He grins.

"I find it interesting, your state of non-aliveness."

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