Title: Up at night
Fandom: Hamlet
Rating: PG-13
Length: 791 words
Content Notes: Five things that keep Horatio up at night. Hamlet/Horatio is among them, naturally, so is canonical character death.
Author Notes: I can stop any time.
Summary: From Wittenberg to Elsinore, five things that have kept Horatio up at night.
Badges: Lord of the Fives


Horatio is just about to drop off when he hears it: a soft but unmistakable sind like fingernails scratching at wood, then a rustle of papers and the scurrying of tiny feet on the hard floor of the room.

He puts up with a lot to rent somewhere he can afford, but 2 am is not the best time for anyone to get used to the thought that they're sharing their living space with vermin.

There's nothing for it though. The rustling is to distracting to think about just sleeping through it and the thought of the mouse getting under his covers is more than a little disconcerting.

He flicks on the light drowsily and sits up. He has no mousetrap and would be surprised if there was one in the house. He has books and a pail though, and some cheese can be found downstairs. He constructs his makeshift trap, flicks the light off again, and lies in wait.
The mouse appears, walks up the steps to the pail, runs along its rim and just as Horatio thinks this half-baked idea will actually come off, it falls off and back down on the outside of the trap.

Horatio groans and flops back down on the bed. He falls asleep towards dawn, exhausted, and when he wakes up the mouse is nowhere to be seen.

***

He's a good student and so exams should not worry him so much. Everyone else, he is sure, isn't even in bed now, still carousing in the taverns of Wittenberg, only to come home in the early hours and get a mediocre grade.

For them, that will be enough - they already have their futures planned out. For him, things are different. There's so much that hinges on these exams, it almost makes him hate the subject.
He knows that the longer he stays up the worse things will become, but no one can will their body back to sleep.

He doesn't average more than six hours of sleep per week in the time between exams ending and results coming out.

He's passed with flying colours.

***

Once he falls in with Hamlet, he discovers more pleasant ways of staying awake at night. Hamlet crams himself into Horatio's life even though the available space is minute and somehow manages to take up all of it and then some.

The physical side of things is always pleasant, but more often than not they lie awake together because Hamlet likes to talk, to fantasise about how things might turn out once university is over. He'll take Horatio home, he promises, he'll figure out how to turn tides. It's not the world's sanest conversation, but it is intoxicating and Horatio drinks in every word, especially when it gets past the point of tiredness and into a territory where they've both been awake long enough to believe impossible things.

When morning approaches, they've burned through the history of human desire along with all of Horatio's candles.

***

Horatio falls asleep next to Hamlet and wakes up in the morning alone. His first thought is that Hamlet has gone to lectures, his second is that the prince has finally had enough of dallying with a pleb and that he should have expected this.

Part of him always has, and he hates it.

When he gets up properly he sees an envelope on his desk. The paper is better quality than he's ever written on and the hand is one he'd know among thousands.

Hamlet is gone home, with little explanation and no opportunity for Horatio to even offer comfort. He's left him words of such affection that

He finally finds out the truth from the papers - Hamlet's father has died and Hamlet went without a proper goodbye to spare them both.

Horatio draws credit from the few people in town that will lend it to make the journey. He doesn't close his eyes for one minute during the passage and nearly faints when they get to Danish soil.

***

Elsinore is an unfriendly place, but after Hamlet's death it becomes downright hostile. Horatio listens for the sounds that precipitated the last ghost's presence, wonders if Hamlet's soul still has unfinished business with his.

The third night after the funeral comes around and he thinks he can hear it now, at the edge of his overtaxed conscience.

The king's men find him in the morning with a peaceful smile on his face.