Work Text:
A cool sea breeze carried the smell of saltwater and boardwalk food to the balcony of Benvolio’s room. The familiar crash and rumble of the ocean’s waves kept him company in the night. He was distantly aware of the neon carnival lights along the other end of the beach; he paid them no mind. He simply stared out at the empty beach, bathed in the grey light of the full moon. He always wondered if the tides were really worse at night, or if it was simply the inability to see them that made them so dangerous. He believed that the ocean acted more rash at night. The sea simply missed the moon so much, that he couldn’t help but jump to reach his love in the safety of the night. He wondered if the moon felt the same.
He hugged his worn hoodie tighter to his body. It didn’t do much to shield him from the chill in the night air, but it helped him feel less alone in this shitty hotel. He hated how alone he was without Mercutio. He tried to picture Mercutio’s face, his voice, his anything , without it breaking him in some familiar way.
It had been months. It still didn’t feel right to be in this hotel room alone. It still didn’t feel right to be wearing Mercutio’s hoodie without Mercutio there to tease him for it. It wasn’t right that Mercutio wasn’t drunkenly singing on this balcony, serenading the seagulls as they flew past, doing anything to get a quick laugh or a pleased smile. It wasn’t right that there was no one to walk the boardwalk with anymore, no one to buy greasy, shitty food with, and no one to complain about tourists and vacationers with. There was no one to keep him sane when the weight of what their lives were built and broke the fragile peace between him and his uncle. Nobody could help him up from the floor where he crashed and burned every night, alone.
God, you’ve really hit rock fuckin’ bottom, haven’t you? A broke college drop-out living out of his uncle’s hotel. A smart kid, a kid with potential, as everybody likes to remind you. You’ve got nothing and no one and you still sit here, every night, on this balcony, waiting for him to come down and tell you that he never really left. That you just imagined it. No one. Nothing.
He liked to remember a time where he felt whole, or at least like half of a whole. He liked to remember those carnival lights dancing across Mercutio’s face, eating cotton candy until they both got sick and laughing until they couldn’t stand. He liked to remember the first time Mercutio gave him his hoodie, wrapping it around Benvolio’s shaking shoulders, an unspoken action that screamed I love you in the gentlest way Benvolio has ever known. He liked it when Mercutio would pull him in for a reluctant dance at some house party neither of them would remember the next morning.
He liked it when Mercutio screamed, when he laughed, when he smiled that lopsided smile that sent the world into orbit every day. He liked it when Mercutio cried, when he glared, when he shot daggers with his eyes and his words at a target he never quite hit. He liked it now, because it was gone. He liked everything that he didn’t think of before. His hands, his hair, his back, his shoulders, his wit, his mannerisms. His everything. Every beautiful thing seemed to be buried alongside him, in that soulless crypt that Benvolio never visited. He was never able to bring himself to see in person the stone walls that held his heart like a prisoner.
He imagined what it would be like if Mercutio was still here. Mercutio would burst in, and drag him along with the whirlwind of his mind. Mercutio would play with hair and fix everything with a single kind word and gentle glance. He’d grin like the devil at a sinner and kiss him until the sky turned over. He’d put on a song that Benvolio can’t listen to anymore and dance like a court jester without an audience.
And Benvolio would laugh. He’d laugh again. He’d do it again, and again, and again, the way one eats after a long drive without any food. He’d laugh like he never forgot how to.
He’d laugh like he never saw the blood on the blade of Tybalt’s knife, like he never held Mercutio as he drew his final breath, like he ever saw Mercutio in a body bag or a coffin, like he never had to describe to Mercutio’s uncle the way his nephew had tried to cling onto life, but had been reckless and naive and hadn’t expected to die before he was ever really a man, like he hadn’t seen the days and weeks and months eat away at his community, like the tourists and vacationers they once rolled their eyes at feigned sympathy to make themselves feel apart of it. Those same travelers didn’t recognize him now. They’d forgotten. They were only here to drink in the sand and get their kids out of the house. They didn’t care. They never did.
Benvolio wondered if anybody cared. He wondered if his uncle could pull himself out of his own grief and see Benvolio’s, or if Benvolio and everything he felt was just another burden that his uncle had to carry.
The tip of his nose and ends of his ears were cold and wet, his breath beginning to fog. He could only stay out here for a few minutes longer. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want another useless day to pass and leave him alone. Still, he shut the door behind him. He went through the cycle of living. He did it for Mercutio. He did everything for Mercutio.