Shakespeare one shots

Like father, like son

Another update! Thank God for erratic sleep schedules, hey?

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Even more so than usual, Ophelia was pissed.

Not her generic "I'm going to poison someone in their sleep" pissed, either. No, this was "I'm going to stab someone here and now" pissed.

The inconvenient bit was that it would be rather useless to stab a dead man.

Hamlet, in all his egotistical suffering, had gotten so wrapped up in himself that he'd forgotten about the real world long enough to leave it. Overdose, because the bastard couldn't bear to do anything unsightly to himself.

Even in death, she thought she saw his lips twitch into a smirk. Ha, if only he could see how hideously his tie clashes with the flowers, Ophelia thought at his funeral, holding back a snort.

As much as the decorative incompetence irritated her (look at a color wheel, people!), the reason she seethed through clenched teeth had little to do with the stupid boy in the casket and everything to do with the stupid boy trembling beside it.

Horatio was the only person who truly cried when Hamlet died. As Gertrude shed a few dignified tears, Claudius and Laertes lowering their heads, Ros and Guil pressing that much closer to each other, Horatio had a hand clamped over his mouth to keep from making too much noise as he sobbed.

And it pissed Ophelia off.

Not that Horatio was sad, mind. She was pissed that Hamlet hadn't anticipated that Horatio would be sad. She was pissed that the stupid prince was too self-absorbed to see that Horatio would be completely, utterly, heartbreakingly shattered by Hamlet's suicide. She was pissed that Hamlet was blind to Horatio's affections; the fond glances as they walked side by side, the endless patience through monologue after monologue, the enthusiasm with which he reciprocated each and every kiss.

The promise in his voice when he said, "I love you."

Ophelia mourned both friends, in many ways. She mourned the loss of the light in Horatio's eyes and the spring in his step. During the funeral, though, she did mourn the dead man. She mourned the Hamlet she climbed trees with. The Hamlet she chased around the halls of Elsinore in games of tag. The Hamlet that comforted her and Laertes when their mother died.

The Hamlet that, from what she knew, said, "I love you too." The same one Horatio cried for into the early hours of the morning, hands shaking even as Ophelia held them.

So naturally, when Laertes approached her in the library two days after the funeral, she drew him into a hug and muttered, "He's such an idiot."

"Which one?" Laertes sighed.

"Hamlet. Horatio's an idiot too, but I won't say it to his face because I love him too much."

Laertes shifted his hold to raise an eyebrow at her. "You loved Hamlet once."

"So did you."

"Touche."

Ophelia all but dragged her brother to sit next to her on the disgustingly ornate library couch that probably cost more than the average Danish farmer's entire paycheck. She pulled her legs up across his lap and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"It's weird, not having him here," she murmured sadly.

"I think it's been weird for a long time," he murmured back. "When was the last time he had a civil conversation with anyone who wasn't Horatio?"

Instead of answering, Ophelia pointed toward the grand doors.

"Speak of the angel."

Horatio slipped as quietly as he could through the small crack he'd made between the wood slabs, looking entirely out of place without the loudmouthed prince who was usually half a step ahead of him. He nodded respectfully when Ophelia lifted her arm, but only moved toward them when she called his name.