August 7, 1902
Seventh Hill Farm, West Veronaville
“Place looks nice,” muttered Romeo as he entered the small bonus room at the base of the tower. “You know, for all we talked about fixing this place up… I never really thought either of us would go through with it.”
He was acknowledged with nothing more than a grunt. Romeo sighed; he hadn’t been expecting much of a response, but was it so unreasonable to hope for a glance, at least? His brother’s eyes hadn’t even left his shoes. “Mercutio? You did a great job–Mother would’ve loved this, her childhood home in its former glory.”
Finally, Mercutio’s brown eyes flickered, but their lifelessness deemed the victory bittersweet. “Sit down for a minute.”
Not in any position to argue, Romeo did as he was told. “Yes?”
His brother tapped his foot and sighed. “You want to know why I didn’t just buy a new place, Romeo?”
Romeo shook his head. He’d been wondering about this since he’d first heard of Mercutio’s decision to move back to Veronaville. As far as he knew, money wasn’t an issue, and it wasn’t as if there weren’t any other available places near the rest of the family. He might have saved himself quite a bit of work–up until recently, the place had been a rotting pigsty. “Why not?”
Mercutio attempted to flick a lock of hair out of his eyes, only to have it fall right back; he didn’t seem to even notice his own failure. “God, this is going to sound stupid, but… you know, I thought maybe if I could fix this place, I could fix myself too.”
An interesting notion–overly romanticized and rather irrational, perhaps, but interesting. Of course, Romeo was too sensitive to say such things aloud. This was Mercutio–deep, philosophical, and anything but literal. “I… see.”
“You don’t,” Mercutio stated, blunt as he might have said two and two were four, “but that’s fine. I don’t expect you to understand; frankly, I hope you never have to.”
He wasn’t sure whether to feel appreciative or insulted; for the sake of his wounded brother, he decided to try for the former. “Anyway, this fixing yourself you’re talking about… do you think it’s working?”
Mercutio sniffed. It was the closest thing Romeo had heard to a laugh from him since his return.
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