Double Entendre

by littledust

Summary:

Horatio struggles to keep up with his witty prince.

Notes:

Welcome to my latest exercise in pretension. ;D Done for an contrelamontre challenge involving doubles. The idea of writing Shakespeare fic is a little scary, but I at least reached a compromise with myself: the dialogue is (to the best of my ability) Elizabethan, and everything else is in English a bit more modern, since it feels odd to use "sayest" and such. Feel free to point out any errors. "Conversation" is a pun for "copulate". (Yes, I shamelessly stole this from the actual play. I only had 90 minutes to finish this, after all.)

There is a pair of meanings to every word my lord says; at times I opine that for this reason I am so given to silence. If one may talk for two, the other may speak nothing and still be heard, though even without hidden meanings my lord may talk enough for two. But the sound of his voice is pleasing, and thus harmony prevails.

In this moment, he sits beside me in a corner of the library, giving discourse on the nature of man, a subject of which he is fond, and I in return give the very shape of a rapt listener. And oft am I a rapt listener; the Prince Hamlet possesses remarkable intellect and insight. But at times more important is the excitement that fires his frame, the gesture of hand and the flash of eye. He speaks and it is as if the sun shines on him alone--and it is not the words that hold my interest, but he that utters them. There's more to understand in understanding, and mysteries to be seen rather than heard.

"Good Horatio, I had a query for thee, but I do not believe thou wilt know of what I speak." It is clear that I am no player, for my lord looks at me now with smiling countenance; my deception has fallen into pieces on the floor of the room. He continues, "Thy conversation may be worth more than mine today, if I fail to captivate."

"Conversation, my lord?" I am certain that my face wears the very hue of shame, and again before my very eyes march the play of words; they gambol beyond my comprehension, or perhaps I comprehend all too well. But my lord is ever in jest, and though he may say what he means he does not always mean what he says. I, like so many others, am left to flounder and grasp in vain. My lord's words are quicksilver.

He rests his chin on his hand, giving the elaborate appearance of thought. "It is common knowledge that a conversation requires two. Thou art in the right, and thy conversation must be joined by mine." His wit lights his eyes and I myself must smile, though it is uncertain whether I understand the jest. What has he knowledge of? Does he make light of what I know only half myself? He can be cruel in word to those he loves in deed.

"I--I would not know what to say--you must do the speaking," is all I have to offer by way of conversation, at least in one sense of the word. Words are things strange and wild, things difficult to tame even when uttered by others. Especially when uttered by others. Would that I had mastery of but a few, and could make my meaning known.

"Then I will not deny thee," says my lord, and his tone is pitched low and rough at the edges--the intensity of his words give them a meaning all their own, and I remain in perfect stillness even as his face moves from closeness to joined to mine, joined in a kiss. A man may have many faces--I am nonsensical, I am conversing sweetly. I have put my arms around my lord, and a kiss may be a thousand words and an embrace still ten thousand more, and until now I had thought that I would remain ever silent in the face my lord's eloquence, yet now I--we--it is warm.

I cannot help but laugh in short breathless fashion when my lord Hamlet murmurs into the curve of my ear, "I do think I prefer thy conversation to mine, Horatio."

There is something to be said for words, but I would much rather conversation without them.