Benvolio tips his head back and sighs. Mercutio watches the rise and fall of his chest and wonders if it’s just the warm wine staining his mouth that’s making his heart falter and his skin fever pitch – he decides it’s just that it’s two AM in July, and that the air is muggy and sticks his shirt to his skin, and that the car roof is warm and the stars are faded in the middle of the city.
Be it wine or sleep deprivation or both, Mercutio’s lungs are tightening. That’s been happening a lot, lately.
He takes a breath and scowls at the taste of the humidity. The quiet is just as irritating as the heat, and his eyelids are heavy, and he casts about for anything to say at all.
“How do you sleep?” he settles on, and Benvolio cracks an eye open. “With your house right next to the freeway, I mean.”
It’s a stupid thing to say, but then, that’s fitting. They’re stupid, and young, and better to be stupid and young while they still have the time for it. It’s also something Mercutio’s wondered since the third Wednesday of their freshman year, when Benvolio lead him all the way up to his attic of a room and dumped his backpack on the floor and threw his window open wide and sighed at the rush of noise from the onramp.
(That third Wednesday was when the three of them became unlikely good friends – Romeo, a year behind and wearing blurred black eyeliner, Benvolio, top of the class and breaking, and Mercutio, drifting and not ashamed of it.)
They aren’t anywhere near a freeway now. In a parking lot at the back of a boarded-up tattoo parlor. Romeo is in the car underneath them, and through the open windows, dance music starts to filter out into the early morning hours. The Montagues have long since stopped waiting up, but Mercutio knows that Prince will be curled on the couch, waiting, lips thin and young eyes sharp. For a sophomore, he’s got a worrying sense of responsibility.
“I like the sounds,” Benvolio says, opening his other eye but pillowing his head with his hands. “It’s almost like the ocean.”
“Almost.”
“Almost,” Benvolio agrees, and smiles. “Sometimes there’s a crash, and I’ll convince myself it’s a tidal wave.”
Mercutio hums and lies down next to him, staring up at that same sky. Both their shoulders are bare and their skin is sticky and when Benvolio shifts their hips brush. Mercutio feels it like a shock. He doesn’t move away.
“I wouldn’t be able to do that.”
“You never sleep anyway,” Benvolio points out, and it’s Mercutio’s turn to sigh again. He wishes he hadn’t left that bottle in the front seat when he forced Romeo to pull over. He could use another drink, especially when Benvolio is almost curving into him. Especially when he knows Benvolio’s mouth is wide and chapped, and that he’s warm and his hands are calloused.
He has no places for those tiny snapshots of intimacy besides to hide them under his tongue, where they trip up his words and tangle his breaths going in and out.
“Even if I did, I couldn’t think like that. They’re just cars. I’d listen too hard for the wheels.” Mercutio points into the sky and traces uncharted constellations, just for something to do with his hands other than yank one of his best friends against him and breathe in his skin instead of city smog.
“Maybe it’s better that way. You’d probably fall asleep faster.” Benvolio’s back arches, minutely, in a tiny flex of muscles, and Mercutio’s breath catches. He’s trying not to remember the tiny black FUCK scrawled on Benvolio’s right hip. (It’s a tattoo as old as the wings printed in watercolor on Romeo’s shoulderblades, as old as the map of Pangea on Mercutio’s back from last June). He’s trying not to think about the freckles dusting his back and collarbones and throat.
He tries not to, and he fails.
“Yeah,” Mercutio says, swallowing hard. Benvolio’s still smiling a little, like he knows.
He’s smart. He probably does.
The thought sends a tiny shiver up Mercutio’s spine. He lets his arm drop down again, heavy. Benvolio’s dimples are starting to show, young and sweet.
“I hate my life,” Romeo mutters, just loud enough so that they can hear. “Christ. You’re making out, aren’t you? God.”
His words are slurred. There goes that bottle, then.
“We’re not making out,” Mercutio croaks, throat impossibly dry. To be honest (a rarity), he hadn’t even thought about it. (Another surprise.) It was almost. Almost going too far, to think like that.
The music cuts off, suddenly, and then there’s a flurry of sound – shifting radio channels. Romeo laughs, once, and then –
“What about now?”
“Just because you’re playing Ed Sheeran doesn’t mean we’re going to kiss, asshole.” There’s a smile lurking somewhere under Benvolio’s sharp words, and it melts something deep in Mercutio’s insides.
And then.
Benvolio turns to look at him in the dark, smiling for real. “If we did,” he says, quiet, “I’d still hold you accountable. Sheeran or no.”
Mercutio can’t even move to blink. “I think I could live with that,” he breathes, when he can, and then his mouth is under Benvolio’s and it’s –
It’s not fireworks and it isn’t the end of the world or the start of it, but it could be the start of something, if they wanted. (Benvolio does want, Mercutio can feel it in the way his jaw drops a little and they bite into each other.) And he can feel that smile under his, and Benvolio is kissing him, and that’s all that matters for a long time.
They fit together, and under Benvolio’s fingers, Mercutio’s pulse is learning a speech impediment, skipping and stuttering and faltering. It’s electric, and they’re on top of Romeo’s car, and Mercutio’s mouth probably tastes like wine but that’s okay because Benvolio still has the ghost of cigarette smoke lingering on the roof of his mouth, and Ed Sheeran is still filtering out the window, and it’s fifteen minutes past two AM in July.
And they’re young, and they’re always going to be stupid. But that’s okay.
Because they’ve got the time.
“No,” Romeo says, almost a shriek, into their silence. “No, come on. Seriously?”
Benvolio pulls back to let his head fall onto Mercutio’s shoulder. Mercutio’s lungs shudder and shake, codependent already, and then he’s discovering the soft skin at the back of Benvolio’s neck and the knob of his spine, enchanted by how his rough fingertips smooth down the goosebumps there.
The engine pops to life under them, and Benvolio gives a tiny surprised sound, flying to grip the edges of the roof. Mercutio’s hands startle to hold his hips steady, feeling the dig of his hipbones against his palms. Benvolio makes a another noise, more breathy than surprised, this time.
“You are not making out on the roof of my car,” Romeo calls out the window. “Not today.”
Benvolio laughs at that, warm and quiet against Mercutio’s throat. Mercutio risks letting him go and cards a hand through his hair, not quite believing he’s real. His chest is still tight. It might be permanent.
He might not care.
The car rolls to a stop, and Benvolio hops down after another heartbeat. Mercutio slides after him, knees shaky in their sockets. His pulse is still unsteady in the hollow of his throat and he feels lightheaded.
“Get in the fucking car,” Romeo says, still appalled and betrayed and trying not to laugh. They get in, Mercutio in the front, and when he puts his feet up on the dashboard, Romeo shoves them off. Benvolio buckles his seatbelt and slams the passenger’s seat, eyes still all crinkled at the corners.
“Jesus Christ. Is this going to be a thing now?” Romeo’s foot drops to the gas pedal again, and then they’re pulling out of the parking lot and tearing down the street. Who knows where they’ll go next? They have so many hours until sunrise. They could go anywhere.
Mercutio reaches for the almost-empty bottle rolling under the front seat and considers it for a minute. When he looks up, Benvolio meets his gaze in the windshield mirror, steady and dark. Pupils still blown, making his eyes more black than blue.
“Yeah,” Mercutio says, letting the bottle fall loose on the floor. “It’s going to be a thing.”
And Benvolio grins, so bright, and the beat of his blood is in Mercutio’s ears.
And it almost sounds just like the ocean.
“Fuck,” Romeo says, but when he stretches to change the radio channel, he’s laughing.
//end.
