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His aunt’s face is ashen and haunted, her eyes far away, the pain and misery that had filled them for the last few days having faded into a melancholy sort of acceptance. The doctors do not know what ails her, although they whisper among themselves that she is dying, but are too wary to say so to Lord Montague without having established a cause. Benvolio thinks he knows, although it feels too romantic and impractical to say. The sort of thing Romeo might say.
That is the essence of it, in truth. Romeo is gone, and it has drained the life out of her in much the way it has drained the will out of Benvolio.
He does not sleep and eats only out of habit. He kneels by his aunt’s bed to attend her, allowing her feverish whispers and pleas for her son to wash over him. He attends his uncle as always, but finds quickly that this is not the sort of grief he can help soothe. Benvolio wonders, silently, if his uncle blames him for being the one still here, still living a seemingly undisrupted life, while Romeo has been condemned to exile.
In truth, Benvolio blames himself.
If he had not taken them all to that party. If he had not allowed Mercutio to do as he pleased per usual. If he had only known the right things to do and say—
But it is too late for that. Too late for regret, too late for repentance.
Romeo is gone. Romeo is—
Somewhere out there, alone. Does he still dream of Rosaline? (Unlikely.) Does he mourn Mercutio? (More likely. Benvolio hopes he is a more diligent friend about it than he himself has been.) Benvolio has been caught on an endless real of remembering.
They had been boys together, as close as brothers, though only cousins by blood. Then, they had been adolescents and young men – Romeo blooming as sweet as a maid into love, Benvolio sharpening into a poor imitation of a dagger. Mercutio had always been better at that – slicing through enemies and Romeo’s moods alike. Unable to be either poet or sword, he dedicated himself to being their protector. But that had failed as well.
His aunt is fading. His uncle has gone up to sit with her. Benvolio will not interrupt them.
He goes outside instead, through the Montague garden, the moon shimmering against the stone paths, reminding him of all the nights they’d come home drunk together, Romeo’s arm slung over Benvolio’s shoulder, the warmth of his body painfully sweet, seeping through Benvolio’s shirt. Mercutio would sing loudly behind them until Benvolio would turn and cheerfully shout at him to go home and sleep it off already to varying results. Leave him alone, Ben, he can still hear Romeo whisper against his neck, his breath moist and hot like a July evening.
It had been but boyhood to Romeo. Friendship, brotherhood, freedom. Love had been something else to him.
To Benvolio it had been more than love. It is still more than love.
We all know what that is, he can imagine Mercutio laughing, almost sees him perched up in one of the apple trees.
“No,” Benvolio chides him softly, though there’s only the wind to hear him now. “It’s not that.” Romeo is too pure for that.
Though surely not too pure for a kiss, Mercutio’s ghost in Benvolio’s imagination taunts. Surely, you could have given him a kiss.
He could have. But he’d been scared. Even if he were to reunite with Romeo now, he would be scared.
Mercutio jumps from the apple tree, over the garden wall, laughing.
It’s only the wind, if Benvolio is to be honest. Yet, something draws him beyond the gate, out into the street. He follows the shadows writhing along the cobblestones as they come alive to his feverish imagination, an imagination he never thought he had. The wind whistles through the trees and cracks in the houses and it sounds too much like Mercutio, calling him and Romeo to sneak out for a nighttime revel, not to follow.
The church springs up before him, dark and silent. He can glimpse candles through the windows. Ought I to pray? For what? For Romeo? For salvation? Forgiveness?
Benvolio puts a hand on the gate. It creeks lazily under his touch.
Someone hisses his name from the bushes. It makes Benvolio jump, and he whirls, half-expecting to see Mercutio, grinning and cackling, always laughing at him. Always laughing at the both of them for never seeing the things directly before their eyes.
It’s only Balthasar. The boy is disheveled and pale, frightened like he’s seen a ghost rise from the graveyard beyond the church. “You must come,” he pleads, grabbing onto Benvolio’s sleave. “M’lord!”
“What’s happened?”
Benvolio follows him, only half-understanding the convoluted story Romeo’s manservant trues to tell him. Not quite following why they are going to the Capulet crypts. The crypts are silent, a shrine and home of the dead. He only knows, from the story, that he is to find Romeo here. Why here?
It doesn’t matter.
Benvolio follows the snaking passages down into the gloom, to where the dead sleep, where there is nothing of life or hope. He may as well be passing into hell. It wouldn’t matter, not if he could find Romeo here, drag him back out into the light. Why here?
He finds him, kneeling over some Capulet girl – there’s always a girl – clutching a glass vial to his chest, tears staining his cheeks.
“Romeo?” Romeo jerks up, tries to get to his feet but stumbles, off-balance, eyes unfocused. What have you done? Benvolio catches him, presses their chests together. “What is this?”
Romeo shakes his head, hiccups an answer Benvolio cannot understand. The girl Romeo had been crying over is still. Dead, she must be dead. Is she the Capulets’ heir? The one they mourned that morning?
“Why are you here?” He grabs Romeo hand, wrestles the vial away from him, doesn’t deign to think on what it is. (He’ll be ill if does.)
“Don’t,” Romeo pleads, but the glass shatters under their feet before he can get the words out. “Oh, Ben, why. It was my only, last hope.” He buries his face against Benvolio’s shoulder, sobbing now.
“You fool,” Benvolio mumbles into his hair, holding him tightly. “This is not a way anywhere.”
“I can’t live without her.”
He’d heard that one before, although this is far more drastic than Benvolio has ever seen him go before. “You’ll have to try, because I’m not fucking leaving you alone again.”
Romeo gives a small, broken laugh against his shoulder. “If you were anyone else—”
“But I’m not.”
“How did you even find me?”
Benvolio bites his lip. Mercutio. “Pure luck.” He presses a kiss against Romeo’s temple. It’s not the one he wants to give him, but he’ll make do for now. He always has.
Romeo’s face is still pressed into his shoulder when movement catches Benvolio’s attention. He looks up.
The girl – the one Romeo had been crying over – is awake.