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When we think of losing the ones we love, we’re taught to think of darkness, to think of rain. It’s rare for grief to cross one’s mind when it is sweltering; when the air presses down as if it seeks to suffocate and the world wavers in a humid haze. When nothing seems important but dulling the sun’s glare and life gives way to lethargy.
Benvolio absently wiped the sweat from his brow, thinking somewhere in the back of his mind that this stifling day was a more appropriate parallel to what he was feeling now than even the most tempestuous night. He felt Mercutio’s absence all around him as if it were something physical, squeezing his skull and thickening the air, tunnelling his vision so that it was all he could see. Like dehydration, like heat stroke.
“Valentine.”
Benvolio lifted his head at the sudden outburst from Prince Escalus, Mercutio’s uncle. The older man was pushing his hands through his hair, which had turned thoroughly gray since he’d been put in charge of Verona and its feud-fueled politics. He let out a gusty sigh before continuing, almost to himself:
"Christ, I’ll have to tell Valentine."
The name took Benvolio back again to those last, blood-soaked moments. He heard Mercutio again, felt him weakly clutching at his shirt. Watched the eternal smile slide at last from his face as he asked Benvolio to look after Romeo. To look after himself. Then the tightening of Mercutio’s grip, the realization dawning in his eyes, the guilt as he’d remembered the name that Escalus was remembering now.
“Valentine,” he’d gasped. Benvolio’s stomach had dropped.
“He’ll be all right,” he’d promised, his voice rough. He’d threaded his fingers through Mercutio’s sweaty hair in what he’d hoped was a comforting way. He’d forced himself to smile past the ache constricting his chest. “I’ll make sure that he’s all right.”
Mercutio had looked like he’d wanted to say more before seeming to realize that he no longer had the time. Rather than spend his last seconds trying to force his voice past his lips, he’d pulled Benvolio into one last kiss.
“I’ll tell him,” Benvolio said when the memory released him, never turning his eyes toward the prince. Even so, he could feel the Escalus’ uneasy gaze.
“It’s very kind of you to offer,” he said, weighing each word. “But I feel that such a responsibility should rest —”
“I’ll tell him,” Benvolio said again. “I promised that I would take care of him. It was…” His jaw tightened around a nauseating wave of grief. “It was the last thing I said to... to Mercutio. I should be the one to tell Valentine. I should be there when it hits.”
Benvolio finally looked up, expecting to find the prince looking disgruntled or offended, but, to his surprise, he looked neither. Instead he looked endlessly weary, which, somehow, was much worse.
“All right,” he said, waving Benvolio away with one hand. “Go, then. Better to get it over quickly.”
A shock of grief jolted through Benvolio when he finally found Escalus’ youngest nephew sprawled beneath a sycamore with a book lying forgotten on his chest. His resemblance to his older brother was such that for an agonizing flash all Benvolio could see was Mercutio sprawled in the dust and blood, his blood. Making his last pun, kissing his last kiss.
Benvolio stopped, forced himself to breathe in through his nose, forced himself to mark what separated Valentine from Mercutio: he was Mercutio drawn in calmer shades, soft where his brother had been sharp. His cheekbones were not quite so prominent, his limbs not quite so long. His hair was a dirtier blond, and it curled a bit, while Mercutio’s had been bright and smooth as silk. And Benvolio knew that when he interrupted the boy’s nap he would open eyes that were a much more faded shade of green than the ones that had locked onto Benvolio’s hazel ones time and time again.
He exhaled and closed the distance between himself and the sycamore, kneeling beside Valentine and placing a hand on his shoulder.
Valentine pulled in a long breath through his nose before blinking blearily up at Benvolio with those faded green eyes, his eyebrows pulling together as his brain tried to catch up with the rest of his senses.
“A plague on this heat,” he croaked, pulling himself into a sitting position and rubbing his eyes. “Can’t get five pages read without waking up three hours later in a pool of my own sweat.”
He turned to grin at Benvolio, but upon getting a good look at him the grin fled from his face, leaving a trace of neither joy nor the fatigue that had hung about him a moment ago.
“God’s eyes, what happened? Are you all right? I’ll — I’ll fetch a surgeon, don’t move —!”
Benvolio opened his mouth to say something incredulous, but then he looked down at himself and realized that he hadn’t changed his clothes since the brawl; they were dark with blood. He released a shaky sigh. At least this way he wouldn’t need to think of some roundabout way of bringing it up. He grabbed Valentine’s arm before he could sprint off.
“Wait.” He could feel heavy, humid grief settling in his lungs, filling up his throat. He swallowed past it, pressing his lips together. He wanted so badly to let himself fall, to break, but this had to be done first. He’d promised.
“It’s not mine,” he said, his voice deceptively level. “It’s not my blood.”
“Then whose?” Valentine relaxed, but only a little. “There was another fight, wasn’t there? Have you killed someone? Do you need somewhere to hide —?”
Benvolio watched it dawn on the younger boy, watched him realize what was missing. He watched those faded green eyes widen slightly before Valentine caught himself and swallowed the panic that had risen in his throat.
“Where’s Mercutio?” If not for the way Valentine’s voice broke over his brother’s name his tone might have passed for casual.
Everything in Benvolio wanted to stall, to lie, but the last dregs of his rationality reminded him that the longer he put this off, the worse it would be. For both of them. He gritted his teeth through another sickening, dizzying wave of grief.
“He’s dead, Valentine,” he said, voice flat. “Mercutio is dead.”
The air left Valentine’s lungs in a whoosh, as if he’d been holding it. Maybe he had. After that his breathing was shallow; his eyes searched Benvolio’s as if looking for a lie.
“H-how?” he asked. “Who?”
“Tybalt,” Benvolio said, an emotion creeping into his voice for the first time: bitterness. “Tybalt killed him. Then Romeo killed Tybalt and was exiled by your uncle.”
“No.” He pushed his hands into his hair, his fingers pressing into his scalp like claws. He breathed in shuddering gasps. He’d been robbed of his brother. He’d been deprived of revenge. In seconds his world had been emptied; nothing remained but looted buildings and broken glass. “No,” he said, over and over. “No. No no no.”
“I’m sorry,” Benvolio murmured, knowing what empty words they were but unable to think of anything else to say. He placed a hand on Valentine’s shoulder and felt him tense beneath it. “I’m sorry… for what my family has done to yours.”
“Go away,” Valentine whispered.
Benvolio hesitated, unsure whether it was wise to leave the boy alone like this, when he could feel the rage and the grief trembling in his muscles. The knot in his stomach pulled tighter at the thought of Escalus having to bury two nephews rather than one.
“GO AWAY!” The scream ripped itself from Valentine’s throat. He wrenched Benvolio’s hand from his shoulder and gave him a hard shove, tears finally sliding down those not-quite-as-sharp-as-his cheekbones, chest finally hitching with sobs. Benvolio read in his eyes the accusations that he was now crying too hard to say aloud: This wasn’t his fight. He wouldn’t have even been there if not for you. Your fault. And of course he was right; from the moment Mercutio had fallen Benvolio had known that his blood was on their hands, the Montagues just as much as the Capulets. He thought he might vomit. He had been stupid to come here.
“I’m sorry, I’ll —” He stood, and the world wobbled perilously. He squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. “I’ll go. I’m sorry.”
He walked on the shaky stalks his legs had become until he could no longer hear Valentine’s ragged sobs. Only then did he allow himself to collapse, to hold his head in his hands and let his own tears fall.
“Mercutio,” he whispered, over and over, but the name fell empty from his lips now, hollowed by the absence of an answer.