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It was safe to say that Benvolio was the most sensible out of his friends. He was the one who broke up the fights. He was the one who talked (or slapped, depending on the situation) some sense into them. He was the one who provided the most sound advice, and he was the one who always had a shoulder to cry on.
To shorten things up, he was the mom friend, and everyone, everyone thought of him as so.
“Make sure you take care of Romeo!” was something he heard on a near-daily basis. Even his own best friends asked him for permission before doing anything that might or might not involve him. He was always the responsible one. The most mature. The adult.
Which is why, when he suddenly took off to the back of the school on the second to last day of school with a Sharpie, everyone in the hallway was shocked, and honestly a little scared at what he was going to do, but only two stupid, stupid people followed.
“What the hell are you doing?” Romeo said, arriving with Mercutio and seeing their friend with a wild smile, drawing on the back of the school gym.
Benvolio turned to them, a smile on their face that neither of the two had ever seen him with ever since they were kids. “Teenage rebellion,” was all he replied with, then promptly went back to writing.
Mercutio and Romeo were in awe. The same person who physically tore them away from fights, pushed their heads in their school books when they needed to study, and slapped them silly when they did something stupid, was now writing, in giant letters, “FUCK YOU” on the school gym.
“What the fuck has gotten into your head?” Romeo exclaimed, looking in horror as his cousin started to draw dicks and middle fingers.
Benvolio sighed, turning away from the wall and taking a few steps towards Romeo, a look in his eyes that made Romeo want to apologize for everything he had done wrong in his life. “Look, for 18 years, I have always been the responsible one. The caretaker. The one you got you little shits-” he gave a pointed look to Mercutio who was still staring at him with a weird mix of shock and something else that Benvolio couldn’t exactly pinpoint, but at this point, he couldn’t give a single fuck, “out of trouble! I’ve always been the voice of reason, the, the person who everyone looked to as an example. For one goddamn minute of my life, I want to break the fucking rules! I want to be a moody teenager who slams doors and yells at their mom and listens to My Chemical Romance on full blast! I want to fucking vandalize the goddamn school! I don’t care if you join me, or if you rat me out, I just want to be a teenager!” He panted for a second, then promptly ran back to the wall, adding random profanity words that Romeo didn’t even think Benvolio ever heard of.
Mercutio, who stayed silent through the whole ordeal, gave Romeo a look, shrugged, then took out his own Sharpie and joined Benvolio, who gave him a high five.
Romeo stayed behind, watching in horror as his cousin, who always would slap him silly if he even considered doing something like this, and his best friend (who he expected this from, honestly) drawing on the back of the school gym in black, permanent marker.
“Mercutio! Aren’t you going to say something?” he all but yelled, running his fingers through his hair.
Mercutio turned to Romeo with a mischievous smile that he knew all too well. “If you can’t beat them, join them,” to which Benvolio just muttered, “fuck yeah.”
It was the most disturbing sight Romeo had ever seen.
“Come on Romeo, live a little!” Benvolio said, smiling as he drew another dick on the school wall.
“You’re gonna call drawing dicks on the wall living?” Romeo yelled, almost in earshot of a teacher. Benvolio didn’t even flinch, didn’t even swivel his head to check if anyone heard, no. He just added some cum lines out of the dick.
“Better than wasting one’s life away in a 9-5 job capitalist nightmare,” Mercutio said, writing the words, “sex is in the DICKtionary” (clearly, Mercutio had the most mature sense of humor out of the three). “At least drawing dicks mid-cum is a sense of…” he stopped drawing and looked at Romeo, taking his time to find the right words for dramatic effect. “Release.”
Romeo just made a noise of disgust.
“No, in our society, Romeo, self-expression is an inherent act of rebellion. To be yourself, to create something so uniquely you that it couldn’t possibly be commodified or straightened out into simple, easy to digest, little pods of anything to keep you compliant. Our society doesn’t want freethinkers. Colleges and jobs just say they do to sound progressive. They want workers, those who will enslave themselves to the corporate gods as long as there’s some sort of prospect of making some money, or maybe making some decisions someday, so they can convince themselves they’re doing some sort of good in society. But no. No, Romeo. I refuse to subject myself to that. I will burn bright and my flame will be uniquely mine,” Mercutio monologued, getting more passionate as he went along, eventually getting right in Romeo’s face, who looked extremely unamused.
“You’re drawing paintings of dicks. Don’t talk to me about unique,” he said, deadpan.
“Montague, you wound me!”
“Merc, are you gonna keep on talking about capitalism, or are you gonna check out my amazing picture of Mr. Richards?” Benvolio said, stepping back to reveal the most unflattering picture of their English teacher that had ever existed. “I’m very proud of it, I think I’m gonna put it in a museum.”
“Honestly, I could see people overanalyzing it to find some sort of meaning within it,” Mercutio said, shrugging. He mimicked holding a glass of wine and twirled the small beginnings of a mustache he had on his upper lip. “Well, Romeo, if you look at the grotesque nature of the lineart and crude coloring of the piece, you can truly see the artist’s feelings towards authority and the education system. It’s meant to be a metaphor for how any form of authority, even our kind, and nurturing teachers, can become corrupt and mad with power.”
Romeo, whose mouth was still open from when Benvolio revealed his masterpiece, just shook his head. “You are not Benvolio Montague. I refuse to believe it.”
Benvolio just gave the most shit-eating grin he ever had in his life. “Repression can lead to some wild things, my dear cousin.”
“Some wild things that I’d like to see,” Mercutio said with a wink, looking Benvolio up and down.
“Oh, now would you?” Benvolio replied, raising an eyebrow.
“I swear to God, if you two continue flirting, I will walk away,” Romeo cut in, after gagging at the sight of them.
“Oh great! You’ll give us some privacy!” Mercutio said, clapping and walking over to Benvolio, draping himself all over his boyfriend. “Now we can get to what we really want to do!”
“You guys are literally disgusting, why do I hang out with you,” Romeo said, sighing.
“Aw, is Little Rome mad because he got rejected by a girl again?” Mercutio said, pouting while Benvolio slapped him on the shoulder for being mean.
“I told you not to bring that up again!” Romeo yelled, his face flushing as red as it could go. “What happened between me and Rosaline is none of your business!”
The other two just laughed at Romeo’s flustered squawking, leaning on each other for support, while Romeo kept on stuttering and trying to defend himself (with no avail, in true Romeo Montague fashion).
“Hey, I know I’m the one who started this entire thing,” Benvolio said, once he calmed down. “But we should probably go before a teacher catches us here with twenty dicks drawn on the back of the gym wall.”
“Okay, but consider:” Mercutio started before Romeo could agree. “It would be really funny and there’s nothing they can really do to us.”
“There is no way I’m risking my admission to UCI for writing ‘FUCK’ on the wall,” Benvolio said, already walking away.
“Hey, is that Mr. Richards?” Romeo asked innocently pointing beyond the gym, where Benvolio could see a random figure of authority.
“OH FUCK-” Benvolio yelled before grabbing a hold of Mercutio and Romeo and running away.
Well, if there was one thing Benvolio would always do, it would be to protect these two fuckers, teenage rebellion or otherwise.