Author's Note:

Who isn't familiar with Shakespeare, much less the very celebrated Tragedie of Twoe Loverf we now know as Romeo and Juliet? I read the play as a report for my First Year. Needless to say, Mercutio became my favorite character. He really was, honestly, one of the most interesting characters there, even overshadowing the title characters. I started writing this in my First Year (still am in my First Year :P) because I was exploring non-canon couples, and this was my most favored among those I found (including some Yaoi…).

Mercutio/Rosaline? It's very plausible. I even asked my English teacher about it, and she confirmed they might've been each other's type. Mercutio, of a roughly rebellious sort, and Rosaline being the heart-stealing celibate. And it's rather unique.

As I say, enough of my babbling. Let's get this show on the road.

Neither Mercutio nor Rosaline belong to me, they belong to the Bard himself.

--

Prologue Poetry

Fights and frays and bloodshed pass

My sullen? Salty? Sultry? Lass…

Come death and discord! How thou may!

Yet you stole my heart that fateful day

Must duty be so strong as this?

That I can't steal a paltry kiss?

--

These Capulets may be the most wretched race of rat-catching idiots I ever had the misery to identify, thought Mercutio, but they know how to throw a decent celebration.

He surfed through the welling, waving crowd, and spotted Benvolio drowning within it, conversing with a young girl. The three had entered the party together; now they were hopelessly separated amongst the throng of people.

Finally Mercutio caught up with his friend, and excused him from the young woman. Benvolio, at first his eyes horrified behind his simple-red domino mask, breathed a sigh of relief upon recognizing his friend's long-nosed disguise.

"What?" Benvolio demanded, having been pulled so abruptly from his already open conversation.

"I can't find Romeo," panicked Mercutio.

"So? He can take care of himself," Benvolio replied. "He'll turn up."

Mercutio opened his mouth, but Benvolio wrenched himself free to soon for him to say anything else. The eldest of the three took one last look around the vicinity with no effect of finding the middle Romeo, before subsiding into the multitude wearily.

He sighed, and turned – and, in a coincidence, spotted someone familiar heading out the doors to the veranda.

Although she faced her back to him, she was recognizably slender, around Romeo's height, of his age. Her dark russet hair was bundled into a blue-green and silver headdress that matched her blue-green and silver costume.

Mercutio couldn't help but strain his eyes further, even step closer to have a look. Then she turned her pale neck, and he froze in his tracks.

Rosaline was masked by a silver butterfly that only covered the upper part of her face, but her captivating olive eyes betrayed her identity and glimmered through distinctively. She smiled her charming, blushing beam. She disappeared, the night enveloping her perfect figure as the doors slowly shut behind her.