One Shots (Feat. Shakespeare's Characters)

Everything you think that I'm not

Horatio knew what it felt like to fall apart in such a way that you weren't sure if you'd ever be able to get put back together. He knew what it looked like to see his entire world crumble around him, leaving him alone in the rubble.

Nowadays he seldom wasted his time indulging upon memories of the past. His fingers were perpetually stained by nicotine, the ink he'd written his thesis with had been forgotten. His diploma didn't matter, the boy who'd written it was dead, replaced with something much darker.

Horatio wouldn't have thought that he'd be spending his afternoons in shadowy alleys and clubs that were just a hair too crowded to be considered classy. Not that it mattered to Horatio, he never paid any mind to who he wound up leaving with. He tried to ignore the sinking pit in his stomach every time someone kissed him, disregarding it as nerves, the buzz of the weed he hadn't smoked.

His new friends didn't care what Horatio's past was, or who he spent his nights with, they were just kids who were looking for an escape. These were the unlikely companions for a boy who'd been forced to grow up too fast. They smoked whatever they could get their hands on, drank on weeknights and were gone in the mornings. But they returned, usually trailing into the darkest, least populous alleyways with some new fix, a fresh can of spray paint, sketchbooks held with the utmost care, markers or pencils stashed into the deepest recesses of their backpacks. Their faces wore the desperate looks of the kids who'd been stripped of their chances at decent lives. They all held giant secrets close to their hearts, the most vulnerable parts of themselves peeking through the cracks of their broken hearts. Each one of them was desperately wishing someone would reach out and help them, not that they'd share that with anyone else.

In a way, these broken, fucked-up kids were Horatio's new family. His old friends had disappeared when Hamlet died, leaving Horatio broken, without anyone to turn to. Somehow he ended up with these guys, whose heads were so spaced out that they didn't give a damn who he was, just whether or not he had some cash in his pockets to keep them away from the crushing reality. It was freeing.

Horatio tried to pretend like the world was too mundane for him, not caring who slept at his side or how long it had been since he'd seen any of his real friends, but it got to him in ways he couldn't explain. He never understood what thrilled him about letting the world fade into the background, maybe the peace of finally feeling free from his problems. It felt like he'd tried every drug under the sun, but he still hadn't touched a bottle of alcohol, not since his junior year of college. Horatio's mood soured when he recalled the times Hamlet had been alive, especially the times he'd been drunk. Horatio did not look fondly upon the countless times Hamlet had stumbled back to their dorm, drunk off his ass. Hamlet, once sobered up after a particularly heavy bout of drinking, had made Horatio swear to never touch alcohol again. (He was very persuasive.) Horatio had passed every time his friends offered him alcohol. They didn't press, there was more for them to drink anyway. Horatio pretended that he didn't like hangovers, and ignored anything to do with Hamlet.

More often than not, Horatio's nights ended in a different place than they'd started. Some of the others would stumble off to go find a place to spend the night, whilst others would gather their art supplies and find a relatively empty patch of concrete to tag. Horatio had never been very artistic when he was younger, but things had changed. His hands, along with being stained by cigarettes, were etched with dabs of spray paint. Tagging the sides of buildings or the sides of subway stations made him feel alive. He didn't care about the consequences, his morals were all sorts of screwed up. The thrill of being caught, mixed with the release of emotions that came with creating art helped, in some weird way. His new friends would come along, backpacks filled with cans of paint that they sometimes paid for. The city was alive with their hastily created masterpieces, left unsigned for the fear of being caught, and the thrill of anonymity. Horatio could only wonder if anyone from his past life had seen anything he'd made, or the life he'd created for himself. He surprised himself when he realized he didn't care.

His life had been completely uprooted. His friends never bothered to call, his boyfriend was dead, and he had no real calling. He was content to continue his life as a person that society frowned upon. Horatio was unburdened by the thought of the mild horror that people would express when they saw him. He had found some way to feel accepted, and maybe a little bit good about himself. The repercussions no longer mattered.

Horatio was free.

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Edgy Horatio is really fun to write, you guys will probably be seeing more of him in the future.

As always, thanks for reading.

Peace.