Sword Crossed Lovers

Men's Talk and Forgotten Love

Benvolio ceases the dancing as he turns to hear a familiar voice. His eyes light up and he dashes from Mercutio's arms and embraces Romeo. "Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!" he cheers, turning back at Mercutio's face.
"He looks skinny, like a dried herring," Mercutio exclaims drunkenly, nearly falling over as he too embraces the young Montague. "O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he ready for Petrarch's poetry. In it, compared to Romeo's girl, Laura was a kitchen slave. Marry, she had a better love to berhyme her- Dido shabbily dressed, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero sluts and harlots, Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose."

The Escalus' eyes flare as he presses a kiss on his friend's lips. "Signior Romeo, bonjour! There's a French salutation for your French slop." He pulls away and playfully punches Romeo's shoulder. "You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night."
"Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?" Romeo gushes, shaking off the impulse to blush.
"The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?" giggles Mercutio, pouring his mate a drink as the rest of the tavern gets on with their lives.

"Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as mine may strain courtesy," he replies, taking a greedy sip from his drink, only to sputter and cough as the booze his the back of his throat with an unexpected tendency. He casts his eyes on Mercutio as if to inquire why he drinks so strongly as such an early hour. Mercutio ignores such a question that his eyes give him.
"That's as much as to say your business contained a flexing of the buttox, am I right happy fellow?" winks Mercutio, slapping the Montague's ass with no little of a second thought.
"What, ho! Mercutio! 'To curtsy?'" gasps Romeo, leaping up from his seat at Mercutio's slap. Benvolio pulls up beside him and swigs the last of his drink down.

"Thou hast most kindly hit it," smirks Mercutio, winking at Benvolio who returns the gesture.
"A most courteous exposition," promptly states Romeo, sliding his glass a little out of reach.
"Nay, I am the pink of courtesy, for my talents far exceed the actions of the latter."
"The pink flower, Mercutio? Thou hast plucked them from the gardens!?!" gasps Romeo, surprised that is friend had admitted to ever sleeping with a woman. He had seen the Escalus lord amongst the opposite form but never knew him to bed one as he would so lovingly a man. Perhaps he had lay with a woman, but this Romeo had always wondered about. Mercutio seemed more comfortable around them, always kissing them and putting his arms around their bodies. To Romeo though, it never seemed in the way he might do the same to a woman. Mercutio's actions always seemed chaste, friendly, family-like.

Mercutio takes Romeo's hand and kisses the top of it in a mocking way. "Right," he grins like a school-boy.
"Why, then my pump is well flowered if yours is, brother."
"Sure wit, follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump right down to the skin of it, only this jest may remain. We know the truth, Romeo, that your bouquet is barren of these pink flowers," teases Mercutio, jabbing him in the ribs with his hand, almost knocking Romeo into Benvolio on the other side of him.
"O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness of my grand pump.  One should not joke on these matters, Mercutio," scolds Romeo sarcastically, thrusting his hips forwards at the word 'pump'.