If Your Mind Dislike Anything...

Sometimes they can pretend that everything is all right. Sometimes they can pretend Hamlet isn't in Denmark as a result of a murdered father and his mother's overhasty and scandalous marriage. Sometimes they can pretend they know how to take the pain away, or that they aren't terrified for the future. And sometimes, they can even pretend they don't know exactly what's coming.

            Hamlet was many things. He was reckless, impulsive, manic, and he was hurting, but he wasn't stupid. Horatio was sure of that. Hours spent arguing with the prince over philosophy only for his own logic to be proven faulty confirmed it. Hamlet wasn't stupid, so why would he accept the invitation to Laertes' duel? Horatio wished he could pretend he didn't know the answer.

            Hamlet wasn't stupid and when he accepted the king's wager, he knew exactly what he was agreeing to. It didn't take a genius to see what Laertes was planning. Hamlet killed his father. He stabbed Polonius through a curtain. This wasn't just a simple fencing match and Hamlet couldn't win. So, why couldn't he see it?

            "If your mind dislike anything, obey it," he says. His voice shakes as he does, wavers almost as much as his hand on the prince's shoulder. Horatio couldn't tell if he was warning Hamlet of the danger for the prince's sake or begging him not to go for his own. His chest ached. Hamlet's eyes burned as he swallowed thickly. Now was not the time for tears. He sighed, not an exasperated sigh breathed out of frustration, but one of exhaustion. Hamlet was tired.

"Not a whit. We defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is 't to leave betimes? Let be."

Horatio said nothing. There would be no changing Hamlet's mind. They stood in silence for a time that felt both too long and far too short. There was a look in Hamlet's eyes Horatio couldn't quite place; something he had grown used to since coming to Elsinore, but this was different. Hamlet was more himself now than he had been in a long time. At least, Horatio thought he was. As much as he hated to say it, he had begun to doubt just how well he knew Hamlet. But he knew this look. He had seen it the night before he talked the prince down from the roof of one of the buildings at Wittenberg. He remembered that look from the night he held a sobbing Hamlet on the floor of their dorm as the heir to the throne of Denmark told Horatio he wanted nothing more than to die. Hearing Hamlet say that for the first time crushed him. Now, Hamlet's suicidal tendencies were simply an unhappy reality, something they acknowledged and dealt with together.

Now, Horatio looked at Hamlet realized that he knew exactly what he was getting into. He could see Laertes' plan. He just... didn't care. Horatio felt sick. The room seemed to spin as he came to the realization. Of course Hamlet could see it. sorry Hamlet knew Laertes would try to kill him and he didn't care. Hamlet had given up.

Horatio had thought many times about what losing Hamlet would be like, even at Wittenberg and more frequently while they were both at Elsinore. For God's sake, he had spent his entire time here worrying that he would. He was terrified for his lord, but he had never felt such a suffocating dread as this. He never wanted to believe he could lose him, but now he was being faced with the very real danger Hamlet was in. Something horrible loomed over both of their heads and they were all too sure of what it was.

Horatio wanted to badly to say something, anything at all, but his voice caught in his throat. He wanted to cry... or scream, scream at Hamlet that he can't do this! Scream that he can't throw his whole life away to fight in some wager with Laertes, scream that he knows better, scream that he loves him, god, does he love him. But he doesn't say anything. He just looked at Hamlet with the same look he always did. He readied himself to follow his prince and pick up any broken pieces he can, so he can try to put the prince back together just like always. He ignores the feeling in his gut that this time, he won't  be able to. He says nothing.

And they stood there, not wanting to acknowledge what they both knew to be true. They stood there, wrapped in the suffocating silence surrounding the corridor. They looked at each other in a sort of silent goodbye, afraid to speak it out loud, afraid that somehow, if they did, it would make their inevitable departure more real. But Hamlet wasn't going away, not really, Horatio told himself. He wasn't going away. He wished he believed it.

Horatio wanted to break the deafening silence that left so much unsaid, but grief wrapped around his throat like a vice, leaving him silent and hopeless, just like always. Just like always. Hamlet drew in a breath, as if to say something, anything, before they heard footsteps swiftly approaching them.

The prince looked away.