Title: for I must hold my tongue
Fandom: Hamlet
Challenge: 146 - Voice
Rating: PG
Length: 960 words
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: I always think I can't possibly have more to say about Hamlet and Horatio, and then a production comes along that shakes me up and makes me think about them in ways I hadn't before. This one was very focussed on how Horatio very obviously loves Hamlet, but has very good and understandable reasons for not vocalising that. So here's one version of how Horatio comes to be in Elsinore, and why he does some of the things he does.
Summary: Some thoughts on Horatio pre-play.



Hamlet was always the golden boy, unattainable in a way that made Horatio mute in voicing anything beyond the easy companionship of fellow students, unwilling to create a present for something without a future. He knows Hamlet discards his lovers as easily as breathing, he can tell the haunted looks in the eyes of half their year, ghosts of past liaisons, flings and one-night-stands haunting the campus. Hamlet moves between them as if he doesn't care. He spends time with Horatio; ostensibly for studying, more often for drinking and talking about anything at all, and half the time Horatio wonder why nothing has happened yet.
By the time he realises he's fallen for Hamlet, it's already too late. The prince looks at him sometimes with barely concealed admiration, but Horatio doesn't consider it his place to respond.
Or so he tells himself.

He keep his affections locked in a secret chamber of his heart. He admits them only to himself, sometimes, in the dark moments at the bottom of a bottle of wine, after he's left Hamlet in his rooms once again, when his blues harp is the only voice he has; and once, they overwhelm him at night when he tosses and turns and finally gives in, falling asleep in a wet sport, the image of Hamlet burned inside his eyelids.
He awakes exhausted to the bone on the morning after, guilt and shame like a blanket around him.

It's a temporary release from the prison he has made for himself, and sometimes he thinks he should find a way, any way, to get away from Wittenberg, go some other place without so many spectres of what might have been.

The feeling lasts exactly as long as he goes without seeing Hamlet again.

He learns of old Hamlet's death from the papers and curses Hamlet once again. The prince has a head start, but Horatio is damned if he doesn't follow. He always knew it was coming, has been vaguely ready for it ever since he realised Hamlet had pulled him into his orbit and there was no resisting gravity. The old king's death heralds the arrival of a new monarchy, with Hamlet at its head. He needs to see the old king buried and the new one crowned, and purge him from his heart once and for all.

He tries not to think too much about Hamlet's reasons for not telling him, or his own for following. He needs to make this real for himself, needs some closure so he can move forward with his life.
The early spring light falls across the graveyard now, luminous on Hamlet's blond hair in a stark contrast to the black he's wearing. Horatio's only ever seen him in jeans and a sweater, but now he's in a dress shirt and waistcoat, a broad red tie across his chest. Horatio's heart constricts as he watches the funeral from the safety of the trees, out of sight of the family, blending into the background in his old pea coat whose raggedness, for once, is camouflage.

He sighs when it is over. He should go home, go back and move on, but something holds him here, among the graves. All lives, in the end, come down to this: a plot of earth and a white stone, tended while there are relatives still living, and then, forgotten and withered, inconsequential among the weeds that spring from the graveyard soil.

It's mild out and he's brought his book of songs, his blues harp, and more time than he reasonably knows what to do with. All his life he's known what to do with himself when he's alone, but today he's restless. He wanders up and down, writes poems and snatches of new songs, and plays melodies to any woodland creatures who are around to hear them.

The sun vanishes in the west, and the sound of revels cuts his melody off mid-line. He makes his way to the castle, interest piqued, for who could think of revelling in the present circumstances?
The twilight hides him mercifully as he peeks through the window. The king's brother in his best suit, with a colourful tie instead of the dark one he wore this morning, and Hamlet's mother, luminous, all in white. There can be no mistaking the occasion. Horatio casts his eye across the room – courtiers, ladies, but no Hamlet.

He's not dressed for the occasion, there's no way they'll let him in. The guards may remember his face, but certainly not his name, and he doesn't want to push his luck. He watches as Claudius and Gertrude exchange rings, kiss more intensely than is quite allowable.

His heart beats in his chest like a caged animal. Somewhere in this castle is Hamlet, in a state that precludes him from attending a momentous event, for the country and for his own life.

A sliver of hope steals into Horatio's heart, devious and unbidden, like a sliver of light through a door he's tried to close a hundred times, but now it's been blown wide open. He stands powerless, contemplating the damage, then shakes his head and moves away from the window.

He'll do what duty bids - only what duty bids - as he has done for such a long time.
Just a little longer, he says under his breath as he makes his way to the gates.

Just a little longer.