Work Text:
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.
– Benvolio, Act III.
Mercutio is the worst person possible to go to a ball with, Benvolio has learned over time. He will flirt with all the women, drink more wine than could ever be socially decent, and get into a fight with every man in the place. And then, when the carnage is at its height, he will turn around with his smug charming grin, and all will be forgiven.
The worst part is that, when it is all finally over, it is always Benvolio’s task to get him home. Mercutio is a danger to himself and to everyone around him, and Romeo is never any use. He is a sweet, caring man and Benvolio is proud to call him his cousin; but Romeo is governed entirely by his instincts and his heart. He is likely to fall in love with anyone or anything if the wind blows in the right direction or the moon waxes a certain way. He is incessantly given to pining, leaning against walls and philosophising with the wine stained on his lips, and never inclined to help Mercutio return home safely.
Tonight, they’ve been stupid enough to go to a Capulet ball. The feud between their families is as hot and bloody as it’s ever been and Benvolio is certain that Tybalt recognised them. But Romeo is ripping himself to shreds over Rosaline in the way he always does, and taking him somewhere she would be guaranteed to be has at least spared Benvolio and Mercutio an afternoon of their friend’s complaints. Now they stumble their way home through empty, dark streets, their thick black cloaks and tight masks concealing their identities though there’s no longer any need for pretence.
“That,” Mercutio says, laughter bubbling out of his mouth, “That was a good night.”
The man is weaving over the road in his attempts to walk in a straight line, hunched over in an entirely undignified way. Benvolio is certainly not sober but he is at least capable of walking and talking at the same time; something Mercutio seems to have forgotten how to do, as he nearly walks into a nearby wall. It’s only Benvolio’s quick-thinking that prevents him from falling over.
“Perhaps we should have waited for Romeo,” Benvolio murmurs, closing tight fingers around Mercutio’s upper arm in a futile attempt to stop them both getting injured on the walk back to Mercutio’s house.
“Oh, let him drown out his sorrows between Rosaline’s thighs,” Mercutio sniggers, stumbling so badly he nearly takes Benvolio over with him. Benvolio quickly lets go, because although he doesn’t want to see Mercutio hurt, he doesn’t want to have his nose broken either. “Maybe he’ll be acting like a person again tomorrow.”
Benvolio would not make a bet on it, but he does not mention this. Instead, he tips his head back to look at the silver stars and the vivid moon, listening to Mercutio crashing along a little ahead of him.
“I danced with so many women tonight,” Mercutio boasts proudly after a moment, pulling Benvolio’s attention back to more earthly matters.
“And broke many hearts, I’ve no doubt,” Benvolio laughs. “They will all look for you tomorrow, and then what will you do?”
Mercutio waves a hand airily – or at least he tries to. The gesture is so large it nearly tips him over and he accidentally hits Benvolio hard on the arm.
“I didn’t tell them my name,” he explains loftily. “That would have been foolish. No, I told them my name was Nemo.”
Nemo; Latin for no one. Mercutio does so love riddles and disguises.
“And I suppose you were proud of that,” Benvolio says, his affectionate smile hidden by the dark.
“Silly girls will drive themselves mad looking for Master Nemo,” Mercutio sniggers, swirling himself into an elaborate bow before getting tangled in his cloak and falling to the floor.
Benvolio carefully crouches down beside him.
“Has Master Nemo sufficiently humiliated himself yet?” he enquires lightly.
In the meagre light, Mercutio’s eyes glitter through the eyeholes of his mask. He makes no attempt to get to his feet.
“You should be more fun,” he informs him quietly.
Mercutio enjoys himself too much; he seems to have twice as much life as anyone else. Or perhaps he’s just working through his store of life twice as fast as everyone else does. He has no sense of self-preservation because he’s just not interested; it falls to Benvolio to worry about him. Although Benvolio worries about everyone; it is not a great stretch of emotion to be concerned about Mercutio.
Benvolio pushes himself back upright again, and offers a hand to Mercutio. The other man takes it, eventually getting back on his feet. He sways, and Benvolio tightly grips his friend, hands curled just above Mercutio’s elbows. Mercutio’s teeth shine in the moonlight when he laughs.
“My mother has never minded what I do,” he says in a vague, detached voice, “My father has never cared about me. So why do you, Benvolio?”
The way he drags out Benvolio’s name sounds cold and mocking; for Mercutio is perhaps crueller than anyone. His tongue is sharp as a blade and his wit hurts.
“Someone has to,” Benvolio replies shortly, letting go and stepping away. Mercutio almost falls straight forwards onto his face again, but manages to keep himself upright. Benvolio is impressed, but does not mention it. Mercutio cackles again, his crazed laugh making Benvolio bite his teeth together. He turns away and determinedly starts walking again. Mercutio staggers after him, footsteps loud and erratic on the ground.
“You are angry,” he observes blankly. “You are never angry.”
“I am not angry,” Benvolio murmurs. “I am tired, and I have drunk too much, and I want to get some sleep.”
“You are angry with me,” Mercutio continues. Benvolio ignores him. “Benvoooolio,” Mercutio sings, drawing out the o sound for too long until it sounds almost obscene. “Are you jealous?” he continues, still cheerful. “I’m sure women would have danced with you if you had asked.”
Benvolio stops abruptly and turns around. “I danced with women,” he replies, and his voice is closed and hard and he does not sound like himself. “I did not dance with all the women, but then I am not you.”
Mercutio has this habit of soaking up all attention from everyone until there is none left, but Benvolio came to terms with that long ago. Mercutio's problem is that he wants to be everyone’s best friend, favourite lover and worst enemy. All at the same time. Mercutio does not like anything that is not an extreme.
“So why are you angry?” Mercutio asks, catching up with him. His face is hidden in shadows, the dark mask tied over the upper part of his face blending him in perfectly with the dark.
“I am not angry,” Benvolio repeats, and walks off again.
“You are a terrible liar,” Mercutio tells him, and his laughter is too full of sharp edges. “Don’t be angry with me, Benvolio.”
He’s still drawing out Benvolio’s name as though he enjoys saying it; a long, smooth line of sound.
Benvolio contemplates saying I am not angry with you but it would be a lie, and he cannot tell Mercutio why he is angry with him because he is honestly not sure. It is not a discussion to have on a hot summer night in a street with his horrifically drunk friend. It is not something he ever wants to think about.
“You have to forgive me,” Mercutio informs him, following as best he can. “You’re Benvolio, you do not get angry with people and you spend all your time worrying about me. You cannot change that now.”
“Go home,” Benvolio murmurs, quiet but sharp.
With a strange, crumpled noise, Mercutio throws himself to his knees in front of Benvolio. He sways alarmingly, and it is possible that he has drunk so much wine that he has no idea what he is actually doing right now. Benvolio rather hopes that that is the case.
“What do you want?” Mercutio asks, voice smooth and soft and it’s a tone Benvolio has heard from him a hundred times but never directed at him. “I could be your whore,” he offers, grinning that frustrating and beautiful grin up at Benvolio; the moonlight catches and emphasises the way it curls and oozes wild charm.
Benvolio has stopped having any comprehension at all of what is happening here. He is starting to feel crazy and confused, as though Mercutio’s ways of thinking are spreading thickly through the warm air. His expression of complete and utter bewilderment must show to a certain degree, in spite of the dark and the mask, because Mercutio’s smile widens even more.
“You are already a whore,” Benvolio points out weakly, but it comes out almost affectionately. Certainly not the rebuke he actually meant it to be.
“But I could be yours.”
Benvolio is glad of the fact is face is hidden; he feels his cheeks flush hard.
“I do not want you to be my whore,” he manages, and attempts to walk away. Mercutio clings onto his cloak, fisting his hands in the black material.
“I could give you my undying love,” he suggests. He’s mimicking Romeo; the words and the intonation match Benvolio’s cousin’s perfectly. Benvolio feels another sharp flare of fury somewhere deep inside him; Mercutio is one of the only people who can make him angry, though of course he will deny it until his dying breath.
“I do not think I want anyone’s undying love,” he manages, and tries to take another step. His cloak tears from his shoulders. “What exactly do you think you are doing?” he asks.
Mercutio is staring down at the ripped black material in his arms. Then he looks up at Benvolio, catching his lower lip between his teeth. Benvolio sighs, and reaches down to help pull Mercutio up to his feet. The other man feels like a puppet in his arms, swaying back and forth unsteadily.
“You have drunk too much,” Benvolio tells him quietly. “You have behaved appallingly tonight. I am seriously considering leaving you here.”
Mercutio sighs. “I do not know where we are,” he admits softly.
It is the responsibility of other people to worry about fine details such as location, because Mercutio has no interest in simple facts about life. His sole focus is enjoyment, never about the effects of it.
“If you do not talk, I will take you home,” Benvolio whispers. He makes to let go of Mercutio – surely the man can walk unaided – but a grin breaks out over Mercutio’s face. He can never stay chastised for long. He sweeps the wide length of his black cloak so that it encompasses Benvolio as well, the two of them pressed together and wrapped in material.
“What-” Benvolio begins, but Mercutio’s hand touches his face. It is impossible to see under here, one of Mercutio’s fingers presses his cheek and another rubs his nose, but two fingers manage to push Benvolio’s lips together.
“This is not happening,” Mercutio whispers, low and warm. His breath touches Benvolio’s face, and the smell of alcohol is almost overwhelming. “We are shadows on the floor.”
A joke they had, hours ago, picking out masks and cloaks. The Capulets will never know we were there. We will be as shadows and nothing more.
“We were never here,” Mercutio tells him, wicked and quiet. “So how can this be happening?”
That must make sense in the crazed and tangled expanses of Mercutio’s mind, but Benvolio has drunk only a quarter of what his friend has and he had more sense to begin with. He reaches out under the cloak, fingers brushing the rough covering of Mercutio’s mask, then slipping down his face. Then there is the unmistakable smoothness of lips under his touch. Mercutio opens his mouth, teeth nipping Benvolio’s thumb.
“I bite my thumb at you, sir.” He laughs loosely. “I bite your thumb at you, sir.”
“You are insane,” Benvolio mumbles against the crush of Mercutio’s touch on his face.
“You worry too much,” Mercutio replies, his hand pulling away from Benvolio. “You are always so concerned about everything.”
“And you are never worried about anything,” Benvolio replies. It is a familiar argument and one they have had many times. He tries to ignore the fact that they are having it pressed together under the same cloak in the street at night with the summer heat making it almost impossible to breathe.
Mercutio laughs again, mad but gentle, but then he pulls Benvolio’s hand away from his face and pushes forward. It is impossible to see and both of them are under the influence of Lord Capulet’s rather extensive wine cellars, but Mercutio seems to be particularly determined, because after a rather disconcerting moment, their masks clack together and his mouth touches Benvolio’s.
It is not quite the first time they have been this close – Benvolio is quite used to dragging Mercutio around and having him fall drunkenly against him – but it is the first time they have actually kissed. Mercutio’s kiss is exactly like him; determined and hard and smooth and enticing and addictive. Benvolio curls his fingers over Mercutio’s shoulders, tilting his head and making their masks bump again. Mercutio makes a small, annoyed sound, threading his fingers into Benvolio’s hair until he finds the string of the mask and undoes it, pulling it away entirely. Benvolio mirrors his actions, and now he can feel Mercutio’s face pressed against his. Without the masks, it seems more intimate; Benvolio feels Mercutio’s eyelashes flutter against his cheek.
He pulls away, mouth raw.
“You are drunk,” he murmurs, and disappointment fills his voice. He wrestles his way out of the cloak, drinking in long lungfuls of air and sanity. Mercutio has the ability to make those around him feel like anything at all is possible, but it is not. It is not.
“You always worry too much,” Mercutio replies, bitterness in his voice.
There is a minute of silence, during which Benvolio berates himself for giving into something he will never entirely acknowledge, for letting Mercutio drag him in too deep for a moment.
“I still do not know where we are,” Mercutio finally mumbles. Benvolio manages a smile, though his cloak is torn in the road and he does not know what happened to his mask.
“We had best get you home, Master Nemo,” he says, reaching out a hand to pull Mercutio along with him. The other man stumbles for a few steps before falling against Benvolio, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “And let us pray God you will not remember this in the morning.”
Mercutio remains silent, slipping further against Benvolio until his face is pressed to Benvolio’s neck and they’re staggering along the road together. This, at least, is entirely familiar territory, for better or worse.
“You dismiss me because I am mad,” Mercutio tells him.
Mercutio is more than mad; he burns so bright that it scares people. Everyone else holds a candle and Mercutio holds a spitting, flaming torch. Benvolio is fascinated by him but knows to keep his distance because Mercutio seems to be the only one unable to get burned from his indefatigable exuberance; and who knows how long that will last.
“I dismiss you because you want everything,” Benvolio replies quietly, “And because of that you do not know what you want.”
“You deny yourself what you want because you are afraid of what will happen,” Mercutio mutters into Benvolio’s neck.
He is right; and they both know it. Benvolio bites his tongue and feels glad that they are nearing Mercutio’s house because he is exhausted and he does not want to think about any of this again. His friend is heavy against him; apparently drained of all his energy and enthusiasm.
“You are still mad,” Benvolio tells him quietly.
Mercutio sighs. “Perhaps.” His voice is flat and he still has not moved, breathing warmly against the side of Benvolio’s neck. His entire attitude is one of reproach, and Benvolio tries not to feel like the guilty one, because he is sure that he is not.
Mercutio is the worst possible person to go to a ball with.