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Leaning on the balcony’s railing, Benvolio sighs and watches Verona’s finest glitter and flitter about the ballroom below. He never thought he’d see the day Montague blue and Capulet red would mingle in celebration. And peacefully, all things considered.
It’s a lovely day for a wedding. Or so everyone says.
Outside, the streets of Verona are alight with festivities celebrating the union of the city’s two great houses. Juliet had been beautiful when she walked down the aisle and Romeo had cried. Beside the groom, Benvolio had had to elbow Mercutio into staying quiet and, beside the bride, Tybalt had stared daggers at them the entire time. But the hatchet had, it seemed, been well and truly buried inside the cathedral.
The engagement had impressed Prince Escalus enough for him to provide his ballroom to the reception or perhaps he simply worried what kind of fight might break out if it was left to the two families to decide who would host. Benvolio doesn’t know himself which is closer to the truth, but he suspects it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. For him, it is convenient. From a childhood of scrabbling through its windows and scraping his knees in its courtyards, he knows his way around the prince’s estate. So, he also knows where to hide as the evening draws on.
This way, Mercutio had whispered when the three of them were children and meant to be asleep, but of course he and Romeo had followed anyway. Over here, and through here, and the servants never check here. The prince’s ward knew every hidden passage, every secret corner, and he’d taught them to Valentine and later to Benvolio and Romeo. And now, here is Benvolio, a decade later, using that same knowledge to escape his cousin’s wedding.
And that is how Mercutio finds him, as he always does.
Benvolio senses him coming before he speaks, his presence pulling at the edges of Benvolio’s awareness like a magnet. He’s dressed in his finest clothes, Escalus whites and golds for once instead of his illegitimate Montague blues. He’s cradling a glass of wine in one hand, fingers cupping it more like it’s meant to be gestured with than be drunk, but Benvolio knows better than to think Mercutio hasn’t been drinking. When their eyes meet, Mercutio’s crinkle in amusement.
“Why, Benvolio, you look about as dreary as my cousin,” Mercutio says, throwing an arm over Benvolio’s shoulders and leaning on him heavily. He has a habit of draping himself on things more often than standing beside them.
“Not as dreary as that, I should hope,” Benvolio replies. He’d caught sight of Count Paris earlier in the evening, before he’d escaped to his perch up on the balcony away from the noise. The man had looked grief-stricken as he watched the newlyweds dance.
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Mercutio says, sipping his wine. “He’s plenty eligible. Women falling at his feet and all that. I’m much more curious about what has you up here, sighing on the balcony.”
Benvolio thinks. Dreary isn’t the right word for it. He isn’t melancholy either. He’s happy, for his cousin, for the family, for the city. Wistful doesn’t fit either though it feels closer.
“You know I’ve never been one for parties,” Benvolio says vaguely, knowing full well it won’t deter Mercutio.
It doesn’t. When Benvolio glances over, Mercutio's dark, glittering eyes are trained on him. There is no haze of drunkenness or fog of madness to his gaze. It is generally impossible to make Mercutio pay attention to something he does not want to pay attention to. It is equally difficult to get him to focus on something other than the thing currently capturing his focus. There will be no deterring him until he receives an answer that satisfies him.
“Have you ever thought about marriage?” Benvolio asks.
Mercutio laughs, sharp and bright, and knocks back the rest of his wine. “Only insofar as how I shall continue to avoid it,” he says.
The answer makes Benvolio smile. Mercutio should, by rights, be quite the eligible bachelor himself. Eldest son, nephew to the Prince and heir to his deceased father’s fortune, Mercutio has instead very much lived up to his word. Half the city’s suitable families surely think him mad.
Down below, Romeo twirls his new bride. Juliet giggles, long hair flowing through the air as they spin, and Romeo smiles at her like she hung the moon and the stars. Up on the balcony, shoulder to shoulder as they watch the celebration, he and Mercutio dance closer and closer to the thing they have never said out loud.
“Let my cousin stay dreary, I say,” Mercutio continues. “So long as he is not married, my uncle may not pay as much attention to my lack of nuptials.”
“And your family line?” Benvolio asks.
“I’ll leave that to Valentine,” he says with a frown. “Though he is too young to know yet if that is what his heart wants.” He turns his cup in his fingers, watching the way the light glints off it. “I don’t care if my line ends with us.”
“Perhaps for the better,” Benvolio says to keep from thinking of how close Mercutio came to his end this summer. “I don’t think Verona is prepared to be home to more than one of you.”
That makes Mercutio’s frown disappear as he laughs and Benvolio smiles.
“And what of you, Benvolio?” Mercutio says, turning the conversation to him. “You must have thoughts to be up here thinking when you could be dancing.”
Benvolio takes a breath. Mercutio is watching him closely. He chooses his words carefully. “I can’t imagine myself in Romeo’s place at the altar. But I suppose I could manage it.” Before Mercutio can take it the wrong way, he continues: “There must be women in similar predicaments to ourselves, who can’t marry the ones they love. I could marry such a woman, I think, and we would live as friends. Our families would be satisfied and she could love her lady and I could love my lord.” He slides his hand along the railing to bump against Mercutio’s until their fingers overlap.
Benvolio waits for Mercutio’s judgement. It comes in the form of Mercutio turning his hand to entwine their fingers together.
“You have given it a lot of thought, I see,” Mercutio says, voice unusually soft.
Benvolio squeezes his hand and chuckles. “I have had to. My family has spoken of nothing but weddings for weeks. Every aunt I have has asked me which women have caught my eye.” Mercutio scoffs. “Mostly to tease Romeo. He’s chosen the most controversial bride in town. I can’t hope to beat him there.”
This makes a mischievous glint appear in Mercutio’s eye and years of trying to keep him out of trouble make Benvolio react before Mercutio even says anything.
“Mercutio–”
Mercutio cackles. “Oh, but you could compete. Think of it! Marrying the Prince’s nephew.” He smirks at Benvolio and steps away from the railing to dramatically bow to him. “I am of proper rank. Should I offer to pay your dowry?” He raises Benvolio’s hands to his lips in a kiss. “Assure your uncle that I will provide for you until our dying day?” He’s clearly having fun and winding himself up. Benvolio interrupts the monologue before it can begin.
“I would marry you,” Benvolio says, simple, serious and matter-of-fact.
For all his jokes, this seems to catch Mercutio off guard.
“Does that really surprise you?” Benvolio asks. “If not for the laws of God and man, I have no doubts: I would marry you.” And he finds that the words ring true. He recognizes now the feeling that has dogged him all day that he can not name. His love for Mercutio will never be celebrated like Romeo’s for Juliet.
Mercutio stares at him for a moment in wide-eyed wonder before his expression shutters and one of his moods descends upon him. “What do I care for such a god? What do I care for the laws of men consumed by hatred for their fellow man?”
“Bold words for a man who just yesterday bemoaned that we can no longer quarrel with Tybalt in the streets.”
“That is different,” Mercutio says with a sniff of disdain. “I do not hate Tybalt as my fellow man. I hate Tybalt because he is an ass. And an ass, my dear, is not a man.” This makes Benvolio chuckle and roll his eyes, which he suspects may have been the point.
Mercutio continues, “Tybalt could sleep with a hundred men, women and anyone in between and my opinion of him would not change. That is irrelevant to the fact that that opinion is simply already so low as to be thoroughly buried deep in the ground.”
Benvolio shakes his head at that, but he smiles. They’ve tread lightly over the subject of Tybalt since his knife nearly stole everything precious from them, but it feels good to joke and tease once more. Benvolio casts his eyes down to the ballroom below in search of the man in question. He finds him brooding by the refreshments and wonders how long it’ll be before the Capulets announce an engagement for him as well.
“Well, then,” Mercutio is saying and it draws Benvolio’s attention back to his partner. “Let us do it right here, right now then.”
Benvolio blinks at him. “What on earth are you talking about now?”
“Why, our marriage of course, my dearest Montague,” Mercutio says, grinning in that way of his that makes anything seem possible. “After all, it’s a lovely day for a wedding.”
“So they say,” says Benvolio, a habit born of a repetitious day. He shakes himself and looks Mercutio over. “Should I bother to ask if you’re serious?”
“Of course not.”
“I expected as much.”
Mercutio abandons his wine glass on the balcony rail and raises himself to his full height for the first time all evening. His eyes twinkle as he asks, “Do you, Benvolio, take Mercutio to be your unlawfully wedded husband?”
“You’re crazy,” Benvolio replies, a laugh on his tongue, his heart in his throat.
“I am,” Mercutio answers easily, but his expression is sober. “Do you?”
“I do,” Benvolio says and the words come easily because they are true. Because he’d already decided long ago that he would stay by Mercutio’s side for as long as he could, his whole life if Fortune would allow it. Because, while Mercutio is not an easy person, loving Mercutio comes to him as easy as breathing.
Mercutio extends a hand to him and Benvolio takes both. He twines their hands together between them, just as Romeo and Juliet had in the cathedral earlier that day. When he looks back up at Mercutio, his eyes are small universes, entire galaxies trapped in just one person. Benvolio lowers his eyes as he speaks the words.
“And do you, Mercutio, take Benvolio as your unlawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.” Mercutio answers. The assurance in his voice makes Benvolio look back up. It is perhaps the most serious Benvolio has ever seen him in all their years together.
“I now pronounce us married,” Mercutio says. He smiles. “You may now kiss the groom.”
“Mercutio,” Benvolio says, aiming for reprimand but landing on breathlessness, “we can’t. Anyone could see us.”
Mercutio’s smile curls at the edges into a grin. He steps forward; Benvolio steps back. Mercutio walks him back until they’re pressed against the wall.
“This way. Right here,” Mercutio breathes, their faces so close together that Benvolio feels the words more than he hears them. He can’t look away from his eyes. “No one can see us here.”
They stand there for a moment, Benvolio’s back pressed to the wall. Their breaths mingle as they look at each other. Mercutio’s grin softens into the smile he only gives Benvolio, affectionate and beautiful and too soft for the rest of Verona. Benvolio raises a hand to gently cup his cheek. This beautiful, ridiculous man who leans into his touch.
“I do,” Benvolio says and closes the distance between them.