Work Text:
The skies were grey over Verona, as unrelentingly grey as if the sun were gone forever. Grey skies about grey buildings, grey water under grey bridges. He lay on his back and watched the sky without much interest. The stone pavement was chilly beneath him. Not, he thought, as chilly as the grave, and laughed bitterly, and cursed himself.
Soon, he supposed, his uncle would send someone looking for him. There would be business to be done, even in a house of mourning. Especially in a house of mourning. It would have to be settled. Heir to the house of Montague. No. Though his cousin had relinquished that title, he would not claim it. Rank, riches – what were they?
He would rather die, he thought, and wondered if there was any left to kill him. Gone – they were all gone. Mercutio, laughing to the end, though God knew what the joke was, and Tybalt, prince of cats, dispatched with as little ceremony as kittens drowned in a bucket, and Romeo, his other self – poison, they said. He would never have thought of poison, for Romeo. A blade, flashing in the August sun, or else a long life, dying fat and happy and respectable – but not cold poison, of his own choice.
It gave the lie to Benvolio's own pet fancy. He had boasted once that he could measure Romeo's affections by his own. Romeo loved: all Verona knew that. Benvolio loved Romeo, but not, it seemed, to the measure that Romeo loved, for Benvolio yet lived. Of all of the men of Verona, Benvolio lived.
And the lovely Capulet girls. Well, Rosaline lived, though she might as well be dead; and little Juliet, the only one among the lot of them brave enough to turn steel on herself. He searched within himself for fire enough to be jealous of Juliet - that she was brave, that Romeo loved her, that she lay now in his arms – but it made no difference, after all. All that he desired that Juliet had was a grave, and that was easy enough to arrange.
He knew, though, that he would not die. Not by his own hand, at least. His corpse would have been floating down the Adige stream hours since, had he the nerve to do that. He lived now: therefore he would live still. Romeo was dead, so Benvolio must live. Not for love of the Montague name, not for the Prince's ideals of peace, but that Romeo might be remembered.
He sat up and shied a stone viciously into the river. It splashed, leaving a wavering ring on the surface of the sluggish water. He rested his elbows on his knees and watched until all traces had vanished, then got to his feet and turned, reluctantly, for home.