Chapter Text
i.
In Hamlet’s dream, his father appears.
The void around him swirls and darkens, the air cools, and Hamlet is forced to stare into the stern, unsmiling face of his father. His beard is silver-streaked, and his grey eyes are as cold as Hamlet feels, and worse yet— they are dead. Empty, devoid of emotion, the very opposite of what Hamlet’s desperate memories depict. He is merely a shell of his former self.
He is dead.
Hamlet tries to speak and tries to move, to no avail. The air is heavy with untouchable disappointment and suddenly he feels hollow. His father’s empty eyes tear right through him. His father’s shell— or ghost? — says nothing and slips away. Hamlet can feel himself resurfacing from the dream, and into the halfway subconscious that leaves him strung in the balance between the two worlds, between the real and unreal.
Unthinking, he stretches his hand out to the other side of the bed, seeking comfort. He opens his eyes only when he grasps at nothing but empty air and a cold sheet. Sitting up, he allows himself to adjust to the blue dawn. A quick glance around his bedroom procures the notice of a folded sheet of paper on his bedside table. In neat, small print:
I had to leave early. My apologies, but I borrowed your chauffeur. Sleep well. — With love, Ophelia.
Hamlet can still catch her scent lingering on the pillowcase beside him, and momentarily, he is soothed.
---
ii.
He is late to the meeting, of course. The board room has virtually emptied, leaving the chairs around the long, rectangular table askew and various sheets of paper scattered around.
However, he is there. Hamlet outright refuses to acknowledge Claudius as his uncle, let alone— stepfather. His hands shake a little with the injustice of it all, and suddenly his suit jacket feels tighter, and his tie is suffocating him. How could they? How could the entirety of Denmark Digital, how could his own mother, simply forget the man that brought the company to its height, a mere two months after his passing?
Claudius stands in front of the screen at the head of the room, his fingers trailing over the ornate mahogany of the armchair that is pronouncedly at the head of the table. He is speaking to the company’s chief legal officer, Polonius. Hamlet’s mother, dripping with jewels and dressed to fit her role as a simpering rich man’s wife, is tucked at Claudius’s side.
Hamlet is at a loss— because he cannot fathom the words, because he cannot imagine how he is the sole mourner of the death of his father, and because he knows his rightful place is to be at the head of that table.
“My son has completely tired me out with his constant requests. At last, I had no other option but to begrudgingly allow it. All I ask is for your approval.” Polonius's affected tone in addressing Claudius is reminiscent to Hamlet of that of a servant to his master.
“Polonius, I do agree. Your son should not hesitate to continue his studies in France. He’s young, and his time is his own,” Claudius has a voice that carries over the length of the room, and Hamlet has to physically restrain himself from recoiling in disgust when he is noticed by the newly-appointed chairman. “Ah, my nephew— my son. You’ve arrived at last.”
Hamlet does not deign to reply, and cannot keep his eyes off the chairman’s hand gripping the chair.
Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, forces a smile and clings ever so closer to Claudius’s arm. “Hamlet, darling, you can’t spend forever in this depressed state, looking down all the time. Why torture yourself and remember your father like that? Dying is simply another part of life.”
“This is true, Mother,” Hamlet manages. He runs his hand through his dark hair, trying to compose himself. “Death is common.”
“So why does it seem to affect you so much?”
“Seem? Does it just seem to affect me? Mother, no display of mourning could even begin to capture my true grief. There’s more of that than reaches the surface. You’re only seeing what’s on the outside.” Hamlet’s tight hold over his emotions is slipping, and there are the unspoken words: you are only choosing to see what is on the outside.
Claudius smoothly interjects at this. “Hamlet, my boy, do not misunderstand. It is, of course, commendable of you to mourn for your father. But at this point, we—” He gestures to himself and Gertrude, “both feel as though it has been long past giving your due respect. You do need to realize that you are the closest in line for management of Denmark Digital, and we must see that you are strong-minded and firm enough to handle that kind of responsibility.”
Hamlet reads the underlying insult and the thinly-veiled threat to his rightful throne easily, and he is seething.
“And we don’t wish for you to go back to university.” Claudius continues, and Hamlet is momentarily derailed by this sudden change in topic. “You should stay and observe the company as my right hand.”
“Yes, he’s right, dear.” Gertrude looks up at Hamlet imploringly. “Don’t go back to Wittenberg. Stay with us.”
Hamlet nods his head slightly. “Yes, Mother, I’ll do as you wish.”
Claudius breaks into a wolfish grin. “So then that’s settled! Sweetheart, send for the chef to dispatch some bottles of German wine— this calls for further celebration.”
Hamlet is out the door and down the hall before the request is even completed, hands trembling. All he can think is that if people were animals, his father would have been a mighty lion and his uncle was a snake— and for a wild, desperate moment he resents God for decreeing death by one’s own hand a sin.
---
iii.
Click, click.
The tapping of computer keys has been the only sound Hamlet has heard for the past hour. His office is isolated, in a forgotten corner of the expansive buildings of Denmark Digital. He’s got a magnificent view of the city, though. He likes it best at sunset, when the windows are red, the sky is fiery orange, and the streets are still ablaze with people, and he can watch the river bordering the edge of the city mirror the shifting moods of the sky.
Hamlet moves his mouse around the screen, a slight frown etched onto his forehead. He rubs his jaw absentmindedly and stares at the computer on his desk, wondering what he is missing.
Click, click, click.
It takes another forty minutes before he is forced to admit that he can’t get into any of the company’s accounts. Oh, his own personal bank account is untampered with, and that is what he assumes is the reason he never suspected anything was amiss. All financial information of the company, however, and most of the legal and strategic information as well, has been essentially closed off to him.
In other words, the “work” he’s been given is unimportant, its purpose to keep him complacent and to marginalize his role as heir to the new media empire, and with the Fortinbras Corporation looming over their heads, pushing for a merger...
Hamlet stands up in agitation, harshly loosens his tie, and starts pacing in front of his office’s bay window. He stops suddenly, and slowly lowers his forehead towards the glass pane. It’s winter, and the glass is cold, but Hamlet doesn’t care. He stares absentmindedly out over the streets, and beyond that, to a lone ship balancing on the thin line of the horizon, and inexplicably thinks about his mother.
How could she, how could she? Women are so weak-willed, selfish, slaves to their own desires.
There is a knock on the door, and Hamlet spins around, tense and wary. He stares in disbelief at the figure standing in the shadow of the doorway.
“Hello, good sir.” A slightly teasing voice calls out.
“Horatio? Is that you?” Hamlet questions, and takes a step towards his old school friend. “Aren’t you supposed to be starting the winter semester? What are you doing so far from Wittenberg?”
“I felt like skipping class.”
“Right, because you’re not the last person I’d peg as a truant. What are you really doing here, Horatio?”
Horatio smiles briefly, and then sobers for his next line. “I came to pay respects to your father— for the funeral.” He raises an eyebrow. “Besides, couldn’t I ask you the same question? Why aren’t you in school?”
Hamlet ignores this. “Don’t even— you mean you came for the wedding,” he spits out.
“Well, it’s true that it came soon after—” Horatio begins quickly, but is interrupted by an agitated Hamlet.
“They saved a lot of money with that. It’s great for the company, I suppose, to not have to pay twice for caterers.” Hamlet takes a steadying breath.
“Your father was a great man, Hamlet,” Horatio speaks softly to his slowly unraveling best friend.
“I still— I think I see him sometimes, Horatio,” Hamlet whispers, running his hand through his hair and avoiding his friend’s eyes.
“Where?”
“It's all in my head.”
His eyes meet Horatio’s briefly, intensely, and the rest of the conversation is unspoken and dissolves into the space between the two men, just like it always does. Hamlet changes his demeanor alarmingly quickly.
“How long are you staying for? Come on, I was just about to head out anyway. Do you want to…”
He ushers Horatio out of his office, down a few hallways, and on their way to the magnificent glass stairwell down to the atrium.
Standing on the landing, looking over the expanse of busy Denmark Digital employees, Hamlet’s gaze rests on Ophelia, well below him.
It does not escape his notice when she stops and very deliberately turns away when he catches her eye, quickening her pace in the opposite direction.
His brow furrows slightly, but before he can think beyond the moment, Horatio is prodding him along.
Shaken out of his trance, Hamlet turns to him and grins. “Come on Horatio, I need to teach you how to drink before you leave.”
---
iv.
After it is all over, Horatio will think in bitter retrospect; they never did end up going drinking.
Hamlet visits a new bar alone— some underground place that he’s overheard Ophelia’s brother Laertes mention offhandedly to another person at the office— and orders the first thing that comes to mind. Gin and tonic— top shelf, of course.
He contemplates the art of drinking in solitude, focuses on the simplicity of adding the alcohol, drop by drop, into his bloodstream, and wonders briefly if it’s some type of blasphemy or if he’s just discarding any half-hearted delusions of the use of drinking as a social tool.
Four seats down from him, an older man is reading a newspaper. The story on the front page is accompanied by a picture of Hamlet with his the palm of his hand shielding his face, walking out of the main building of Denmark Digital. Hamlet can see his mother and Claudius too, out of focus in the background of the shot. He doesn’t need to read the story to know what it’s about. Instinctively, his hand twitches up towards the collar of his coat, as if he could again try to protect himself from prying eyes.
It’s not soon after he sees the picture when he leaves the bar. He can’t afford to be recognized by anyone, least of all the paparazzi. He braces himself for the cold outside. Walking along the streets, he wonders why there aren’t as many people outside as he expected, regardless of the late hour.
He sorely misses the rush of warmth that the alcohol had originally given him.
Hamlet’s still ambling along the deserted street when he pulls out a pack of Marlboro Reds— he’s filched them earlier from Horatio, who swears he’s trying to quit. He lights one up and prepares to take a drag, when the air suddenly cools around him.
He drops the cigarette untouched, and it hisses and dies in the dirty snow.
It is déjà vu and he’s staring into the stern eyes of his dead father— but this time, he is most decidedly not dreaming.
---
Hamlet wanders mindlessly, not noticing as the city shifts from somewhat dreary buildings to the affluent apartments and homes of the upper-middle class. He glances up in surprise when he recognizes a building, and stops.
It’s Ophelia’s home— he knows immediately, though he has never been there before.
He looks at the fire escape. He contemplates it.
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