'Zounds

*_* I wasn't going to continue this story, I really wasn't. I realized I fucked up on the whole Rosaline business, and that pissed me off 'cause I'd stayed as true to the play as a dude can while writing fan fiction. I decided to continue, 'cause I had an ending in mind and I thought it was good, and many people don't know why Benvolio just isn't in the later scenes. There is a reason Shakespeare had, that I most probably mentioned before, and I'm just expanding this fact, because people ignore it 'cause it was in the first Folio. Wow, this has gotten long, I'll talk to you as Vel after this next, which will not be the last, chapter. *_*

I didn't look at him. I couldn't look at him. I wasn't going to cry. I repeated it over and over in my head, "Thou shall not cry, Benvolio, Thou shall not cry." The funny thing it, as it always happens to work out, my mantra did nothing, and so did the tears flow.

Mercutio followed me directly, and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me to sit face up. He squatted next to me, and I couldn't tell if he was disappointed, or laughing, or caring. He was probably laughing. Anyway, I hid my horrible, crying face from his gorgeous visage.

"I asked you what that was all about!" He said, sharply.

No, he wasn't angry. He couldn't be. My Mercutio wasn't angry. Oh, god, my Mercutio... "No!" I said, my voice coming out in a hard scream, as though my voice was lost. "This isn't about anything! Go to!" I said to the Prince's nephew.

"Oh, of course it isn't about anything! Of course! Why would it? You just ran like that for no reason!" He said harshly, trying to look at my face.

"No reason at all!" I said, turning away.

He grabbed my arm, and said, in the way he can be seductively mean at the same time, "Then why are you crying?"

"I don't know!" I said, a bit too loud for my own liking. Certainly, at the time, nothing was too my liking, so I guess it's all the same now. "That's the thing, Merc...I don't know! I don't always know! I don't always know the best thing to do, or the best move to make, or the best way to woo your own best friend! I don't know how to lead a war, or to make fun of the Capulets, or to run away, or to have good sex, or even to woo my best friend! I obviously can't do anything, so...I just don't know!" My mind was blank, I screamed out whatever I thought, whatever I didn't think, and whatever I wished I'd thought before.

He looked at me. He didn't say anything, just looked. For a really long time. He just looked really hard at me, stood up, then walked away. I wanted to call him back. My Mercutio. But my voice began to hate me more, and left me as he did. I sat there, wailing silently for a while, then began to stand, toppled over, and just lay there in the sycamore grove. I cried myself dry there, and just lay there even more. For a while, just a little while, I wanted to be Romeo. I wanted to walk his little dainty ass shoes, and live in his stupidly beautiful skin, and fall in love with his romantic, attractive, seductive, funny, masculine, godlike wooer. I thought being him would solve it all. He had so little problems, he feel in love with girls so often, he could do anything he wanted. He wasn't forced into this life of...goodness. I thought like that in that sycamore grove, the place Romeo always was. The sky was bright, and it was hot, yet the trees protected me from the sun's rays. I felt like closing my eyes and not sleeping, but just resting them. After I'd cried so much, I wanted to just rest. Life was too busy. Too much went on, I needed a few seconds of entire calm. Calm...

I felt a shoe with tips so pointed I thought they were daggers plunge into my side. I jolted up, and felt my head go dizzy after sitting up so quickly.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I heard a high, recognizable voice saying. "I just can't get away from all these damn Montagues can I?" She said.

I looked up to Rosaline's face, with her big poofy dress and excessive layers of makeup. "I don't want to talk now. Go to." I said, and lay back down. I didn't want to follow this dumb girl's antics.

"Oh, well that just makes it all better, Montague." She said, and looked down at me. "Your face is odd. Were you crying?" She said, laughingly.

"No." I answered quickly, as if on cue.

"What would a guy being crying about?" I looked at her, and then did something I really wished I hadn't as I've tended to do all too often these past few days.

"Ask your fiancee."

"Him?" She asked. "And don't call him that. I wouldn't marry that...fool if my life depended on it."

I looked up at her, seeing false hope, fool's gold. "But you're engaged."

"Not like I wanted to be, Montague. I did everything to escape your lovely house, and now I'm engaged to one of them. I told everyone I swore not to marry a man, and I still get married to one of your damn little friends! He's just as good!"

"...So, you were lying?" I asked her. Was this all...not true? Did Romeo have a chance with Rosaline? Did I have a chance with Mercutio?

"Of course I was lying! Who's want to marry that lovesick idiot Romeo? Never! And if you actually thought I swore not to love a man, then you are sorely mistaken, Montague. Men are the world to a girl." She said. At first I immediately thought; And Mercutio is the world to me. And then I realized how wrong that was. There was no way I could...ever end up with him. Not here, not now. Verona is a city of lies, lost loves, hatred and bloodshed. Those all go hand in hand. And are the epitome of Verona. Oh, Verona, how bad you are to me.

"Don't call me Montague like that." I said.

"It's your name, Montague." She said. "Go see...what did you call him...my betrothed now. And make up this dumb man crying thing." She said, a spear through my chest. "I don't want him in a sour mood when I marry him if I've got to." I stood up. I wasn't going to argue, but I wasn't going to go find Mercutio. Then she added. "Which I'm not."

So I left, without anything else to go. I didn't bed her farewell or any of that nonsense, we are love rivals, though it seems neither of us know it.

I wandered around this horrid city that I grasp onto with my last breath for around an hour, until I found myself with Mercutio. I barely wanted to look at him, but he approached me first. "Good day, Benvolio."

I looked at him, and thought, Last night never happened. "Hello, Mercutio."

"Where have you been?" He asked.

"Nowhere."

"It's pretty hot out today." He said.

"Yes," I agreed. "Very hot."

"Benvolio, don't be like this, talk."

I looked around. If I wanted to talk, I couldn't here. I played on his thoughts of the weather. "I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire. The day is hot." I added, "The Capulets are abroad, and if we meet, we shall not escape a brawl. For now, these hot days, is the mad bloody stirring."

He looked at me, and understood, but refuses in his own whimsical way. "Thou art like one of those fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need."

"Am I as such fellow?" I asked what I thought sounded mysterious.

"Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved." He argued.

"And what to?" I hissed.

"Thou!" He exclaimed, chuckeling. "Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,
or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast:" He said. I winced. "Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!" He said angrily. No, I wouldn't quarrel at everything! I got angry just as you are now! What's so wrong with that, Mercutio, what is so wrong? Is it because I'm "good"? Fuck being good, Merc!

"An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter." I almost screamed.

"The fee-simple! O simple!" He said.

I said nothing else. I turned away, and thought. I thought about everything. I thought about how good I was, and how bad he was. I thought about how smart he was and how stupid I am. I thought about too much and too little. Then, I noticed that annoying, never going away aura. All Capulet's have it, all of them. "By my head," I muttered. "here comes the Capulets."

He looked at my back, and then switched his attention to the goddamn Prince of Cats prancing in this direction. "By my heel, I care not."

It seemed Tybalt did care, though. "Gentlemen, good e'en. A word with one of you."

I sighed and looked at my feet, but Mercutio looked at the poor, poor, Prince of Cats. "And but one word with one of us; couple it with something, make it a word and a blow." He said, in a mix of horrid cheating and some twisted way of sexual bullying.

"You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, if you do give me some occasion." Tybalt said, slicking his disgusting hair back.

"Cans't thou not take some occasion without giving?" Mercutio said. I could tell he wanted Tybalt gone, but still wanted to play with my clay feelings.

"Mercutio..." Tybalt almost whined. "Thou consortest with Romeo."

Mercutio almost cracked up. "Consort? what, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords:" He laughed, obviously coming up with something funny. "Here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance." Then he muttered, "'Zounds, consort!"

"We talk here in the public haunt of men:" I motioned to the house nearby. "Either withdraw unto some private place, and reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us."

"Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;" He exclaimed loudly into the hustle and bustle of the street. "I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I." He said right to Tybalt.

Then of all people, Romeo came dancing through that very same house.

*_* I think I'll leave you there...Hahaha! That actually gives me joy. You know something interesting is going to happen next, you know it! I really didn't want Rosaline in this chapter, but I couldn't have Benvolio laying around being a bum for a couple of hours. I watched the clip Histoire de le Coeur linked me too. I watched it about 20 times and laughed through all of them. Thank you, so, so much for showing me that. I wish I had seen it sooner. During Mercutio's antics, there would be a mega reference.*_*