Chapter Text
Benvolio usually tried his best to steer clear of the Capulets, especially the more fiery and warlike of them. He wasn't invested in the feud between that family and his, he did not relish injury or death, and what's more, he was not a particularly good swordsman.
These were the reasons he told his family—and, occasionally, jeering Capulets—to explain why he refused to fight. But there was one more reason he avoided fighting at all costs: he was deathly afraid of meeting his soulmate.
Scrawled on his arm in dull gray text were the words, "What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?"
Benvolio wasn't stupid. He knew that these were fighting words, and feared the soulmate that might be his exact opposite in all the worst ways, including—if the fighting words were to be spoken in Verona—having the opposite name. He feared what the city might do to them if they were ever discovered. Given their foretold first words, he feared what his soulmate might do to him.
So out of both a sense of duty to peace and a perverted sense of self-preservation, Benvolio kept the peace as best he could, and more often than not ran when he couldn't.
When he encountered men of the Capulet and Montague houses moments from bloodshed in the half-abandoned, sword-wrecked marketplace, it was only natural for him to try to break it up.
"Part, fools!" he cried, "Put up your swords! You know not what you do!"
Of course, no one listened to him. The fools only listened to swords, so his sword he drew. He beat down the weapons of two dueling men who were perilously close to a woman cowering under her market stall. The resonating clang of metal drew the attention of the others, and their swords fell to their sides. Benvolio felt the weight of all of their eyes.
Before he could speak, someone gasped behind him. Benvolio turned around to look, fearing the worst. Had someone been injured or killed, even while a plea for peace fell from his lips?
No. When he turned around, he did not see death, but instead Death. A broad-shouldered, curly-haired young man dressed in Capulet reds and accompanied by a cluster of men in various shades of bloodthirst sauntered across the piazza towards him. The same gasping voice hissed to its neighbor, "Tybalt!" and then, with a note of despair, "Capulet's kinsman!"
Benvolio did not need this explanation. He'd spent the larger part of his years studiously avoiding the most warlike of Capulets, knowing that if they met he would not escape a fight, much less win against the man. But now he was trapped.
His mind buzzed with adrenaline as Tybalt approached. The rushing in his ears was so loud that he almost couldn't hear Tybalt laughing at the scene before him, and almost didn't catch the first words pronounced in that deep voice.
"What?" he drawled, his voice thick with mockery. "Art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?" With an amused look back at his fellow Capulets, he drew his sword and leveled it at Benvolio's chest. "Turn thee, Benvolio. Look upon thy death."
Given that Verona's best fighter was holding a sword mere inches from Benvolio's heart in front of a crowd whose lives may very well have hinged on Benvolio's next words, Benvolio's mind understandably (but frustratingly) went blank.
"I do but keep the peace," he managed, keeping his eyes trained on the metal hovering before him. "Put up your sword, or manage it to part these men with me."
Only when he lifted his gaze to meet Tybalt's did the importance of his words sink in. A tingling feeling on his left forearm only confirmed his worst fears: Tybalt Capulet, fiercest fighter in Verona, Lord Capulet's closest male descendant, and the man who was currently about ten seconds from murdering him and half the men around him, was supposed to be his soulmate.
Benvolio was pretty sure he was going to have a heart attack about it.
Evidently, Tybalt had drawn the same conclusions much, much faster than Benvolio had, and was much, much angrier about it. "What, drawn and talk of peace!" Fury seeped into his voice where laughter had been. " Peace! " he spat at Benvolio's feet.
In one swift movement, he lowered his sword, grabbed Benvolio's collar, and wrenched him up until their faces were only a hair's breadth apart. "I hate the word," he growled, hot breath making Benvolio wince, "as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. "
He shoved Benvolio back again, sending him sprawling onto the dusty street. The men behind Benvolio made no move to help him up, all too tense, all eyes trained on what Tybalt might do next.
Though Benvolio was sure Tybalt's next action would be to spear his sword between Benvolio's fifth and six ribs and was in fact about a third of the way through his final Hail Mary, Tybalt only said, with all the fire he contained packed into one cold, biting sentence, "Have at thee, coward."
A cheer went up from the Capulets behind him as they rushed forward, and a returning cry resounded from the Montagues lining the street. In the calamity, Benvolio managed to scramble to his feet before Tybalt fought his way towards him, sword first.
If Benvolio had been a better fighter, or if Tybalt had been less fierce in his attacks, or if there hadn't been that wild look in Tybalt's cold blue eyes that suggested a man well past the point of reason, Benvolio might have tried for diplomacy. Instead, he fought for his life. He could do nothing but parry or dodge the onslaught of attacks, if that. He didn't even have the breath left to call for help from an ally or beg for mercy from his soulmate.
The arrival of the Prince was nothing short of a godsend.
He scrambled away from Tybalt in the surge of the crowd fighting to escape the path of the Prince and his cavalry's horses. He pressed himself against the wall of a building near a crowd of blue- and green-clad men. He was too fraught to catch the Prince's words as he scolded Lord Capulet and Lord Montague—when had his uncle arrived?—but the tone was enough to carry his message. As the fighters dissolved the fray and reformed into their respective families, Benvolio couldn't help but keep his eyes on Tybalt. He glowered at a group of Capulets that came over to speak to him, he glowered at his uncle who clapped a hand on his shoulder, and he glowered at the Prince as he and his guard retreated on horseback. He didn't once look over towards the Montagues.
Thank God, Benvolio thought. Since Tybalt wanted nothing to do with him, Benvolio could go back to avoiding the Capulets, and this time he didn't even have to worry about meeting his soulmate out of nowhere. He couldn't bring himself to be crushed; he'd spent years preparing himself for the worst-case scenario. Instead, he just felt kind of empty.
He came back to himself when his aunt touched his elbow, mentioned Romeo. With a sigh, he promised her, "I'll know his grievance, or be much denied."
His aunt and uncle departed, and he stood aside to wait for Romeo. Maybe focusing on Romeo's attempts to find a soulmate would distract him from his own failure of a first meeting.