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It’s not like Hamlet doesn’t like house parties – he likes them very much actually. But even the best student house party can get a bit much sometimes and even the kindest crowd of people can become a little overwhelming. Especially Guildenstern and Rosencrantz have a tendency to be exhaustingly clingy and overly excited when they get too drunk and Hamlet gladly uses a moment in which they’re distracted to escape their attempt to drag him onto the dance floor and flee from them.
He flits from the room quietly without anyone noticing and takes the first door to his right that he reaches that looks like nobody will be behind it, in hopes of just breathing in some silence for a moment. To his surprise, he finds himself in a small kitchen and the room already occupied.
He has already closed the door softly behind himself again when he sees it – which is a shame because otherwise he might have been able to turn around and immediately leave again without disrupting the scene. This has become somewhat impossible now.
On the tiled kitchen floor, leaning against the kitchen counter behind her and visibly losing the fight against even more tears than already cover her face is a young woman. Hamlet wrecks his brain for her name and remembers eventually – Olivia! Yes, she is the hostess of this party, he really should know her name, but damn Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for dragging him along to a party where he hardly knows anyone again...
Next to Olivia sits a young man with soft dark hair and a pair of glasses. He is awkwardly patting her on the shoulder in an attempt to soothe her – an attempt that doesn’t appear to be going very well. He looks up when Hamlet enters and gives him a friendly smile and a shrug when Hamlet starts making apologising gestures. Unsure what to do Hamlet stands by the door for a moment, then he simply lets instinct guide him. He crosses the space and sits down on Olivia’s other side, joining the young man’s awkward attempts at soothing. He gets a grateful look from across Olivia.
“There, there,” he tries when she helplessly starts sobbing. “It’s okay.”
“I am an absolute mess!” Olivia cries into her hands. She makes herself small and buries her face in her arms. “I am good for nothing! I can’t even throw a party – I can’t—“
The rest of it is incoherent and muffled and doesn’t make a lot of sense to Hamlet anyway. He shares a look with the other man over Olivia’s head. “Did I say something wrong?” he whispers.
The other man sighs and nudges his glasses back up his nose. He looks cute, Hamlet finds himself thinking...
“I don’t think so,” he mutters back in a low voice. “This has been going on for minutes.”
“What happened?” Hamlet asks, keeping his voice equally low. Although he doesn’t think Olivia can hear them over her elaborate sobbing.
“She burned the pastries she was making and then she simply broke down and started saying stuff about being a terrible hostess and all that...”
Hamlet eyes Olivia worriedly. “Has she gone through a bad breakup or something lately...?”
“It’s a little complicated, I’m afraid,” the cute guy whispers back. “I’m sorry, just... Would you mind trying to calm her down while I try saving the pastries? I promised I would take care of the baking for her and I sort of hope she will calm down when that’s taken care of...”
“Yeah, absolutely, don’t worry!”
The other gives him a grateful smile and gets to his feet. Hamlet watches him go about the kitchen for a moment, then turns his attention back to Olivia and slings an arm around her shoulders. It takes him some minutes of whispering soothing words to her and rubbing her back, but she calms down somewhat and comes back up at some point. Apparently, she is calm enough then to realise that someone else has joined her for the first time since Hamlet has entered the kitchen.
“Who are you?” she asks, voice strained from sobbing and sounding a little confused. But she doesn’t sound like she minds being comforted by someone who is practically a stranger.
“I’m Hamlet,” he introduces himself with a winning smile. That always works. She smiles back, still looking a little sad.
“Hamlet...” she repeats. “That’s a strange name.”
“Yes, it is indeed,” he agrees light-heartedly. Better distract her from whatever is putting her down so much. “I got it from my father – second hand, so to say. That’s to say I was named after him. He is Hamlet senior, I am Hamlet junior. But people don’t usually call me that, they just call me Hamlet.”
Olivia frowns lightly. “What do they call your father then?”
“Your Majesty, mostly.” It is a lame joke and one without context as well, but the young man actually chuckles at it and Hamlet looks up to see him wearing an apron now and gathering whatever is left of the pastries Olivia must’ve been trying to make earlier... He looks even cuter in an apron...
His attention is drawn back to Olivia who looks very confused about what he just said, but then apparently decides that she doesn’t really care. “Oh my, people out there are probably all just waiting for me, aren’t they?” She looks more upset again. “I’ve been gone from my own party so long, they will think I’m a horrible hostess and then they will come looking for me and see just how horrible a hostess I really am--!”
Hamlet goes back to rubbing her back. “Hey, don’t you worry! Nobody is impatiently waiting for you, Olivia! Your party is great and everyone is having a wonderful time! Nobody will come in here, people aren’t even thinking about the kitchen. It’s literally just a coincidence that I came in here because I needed a break from the cheerful party crowd!”
That does seem to sooth her a little, but there are still tears in her eyes. “What about the cupcakes I promised everyone though?” she says in a very sad and small voice.
“Don’t you worry about those cupcakes for a second!” Hamlet reassures her earnestly. “Your friend here is taking perfect care of that.”
She follows his gesturing with her eyes and smiles. “Horatio!” she says. “You are entirely too good for me!”
Horatio then, Hamlet thinks. Not the most common of names either.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Horatio says with another one of his cute smiles while tirelessly stirring the dough he has made... How did he manage to make dough in such a short time?? Hamlet didn’t even notice...
“I don’t deserve your kindness,” Olivia quietly says.
“Oh come now!” Hamlet scolds her gently. “Why would you say such a thing? You’re an amazing young woman throwing an amazing party! Nobody should say that about you, least of all you yourself!”
Olivia sniffs, but gives him a half-heartedly grateful smile. Horatio, from the other side of the room, raises his eyebrows at him in a supportive manner.
“I don’t even know why I make all the effort,” Olivia sighs. “I didn’t even want to throw a party first thing after moving back in, but Toby said – my stupid cousin Toby, you know? He convinced me that I should throw a party again, like old times, that it would be good for me. But really I think he just wanted to get me to agree to seeing people because he wants to introduce me to his stupid new friend Andrew and set him up with me...”
“Hold on, Andrew?” Hamlet blinks in surprise. “Andrew Aguecheek?”
“Yes, do you know him?”
“Vaguely,” Hamlet frowns. “But isn’t he gay?”
Olivia sighs. “Yes, well, the poor fellow is hopelessly in love with Toby as far as I can tell, but Toby is oblivious to it of course. Poor Andrew stands no chance. Toby is courting Maria, too...”
“’Courting’?” Horatio incredulously repeats from where he is putting dough into cupcake forms.
“Yes, Toby is quite old-fashioned about that kind of stuff,” Olivia rolls her eyes. “I’m starting to think perhaps I shouldn’t have let him live with me. He can be an ass at times. The way he treats Andrew... And he has a tendency to be ever so slightly homophobic generally, it’s unbearable! Ugh, but he’s family and I always sort of hope I might be able to turn him around...”
“Curious,” Hamlet muses. “Do you reckon he might turn out to be the stereotypical gay bully type?”
“You mean the type that bully the gay people who can’t defend themselves and then turn out to be gay themselves years later?” Olivia asks.
“Exactly that,” Hamlet shrugs. “I’ve met a lot of those in my time. My first boyfriend was that type – Fortinbras... Well, ‘boyfriend’ might be stretching it too far actually. Not a very healthy relationship, that, in retrospect. But well, we live we learn, you know?”
Olivia seems to actually be cheered up quite a bit by now. “Absolutely,” she agrees with a more genuine smile. “And you know, I do hope Toby will learn too. Maria is a sweet girl, for example, and she really brings out the best in him. I hope...”
They go on like that for a while and when Horatio retrieves the finished cupcakes from the oven, Olivia ushers both of them to the table so that they can decorate them together while still complaining loudly about her cousin and his friends.
About forty minutes after Hamlet first entered the kitchen, they are handing a tray of beautiful cupcakes to Olivia and giving her a final pep-talk before she will return to her party.
“Remember what we talked about!” Hamlet encourages her. “Go out there and show them who the lady of the house is!”
“It’s about what you will!” Horatio joins in.
”What you will,” Olivia repeats quietly. Then she flashes them a bright smile. “Thank you, boys!” And she’s through the door that falls shut behind her again.
They look after her for another moment, nodding to themselves in thought.
“Do you know her well?” Hamlet eventually asks.
“Not very,” the other admits. “I shared a flat with her for a few months, but she kept to herself a lot in that time... Her brother died about a year ago and she wanted to live somewhere else. She’s only returned to their shared apartment now, to honour him and so on... But she’s still mourning a lot, really.”
Hamlet sighs sympathetically. “Oh no. The poor thing.”
“Yeah... He’d suffered from cancer for years, apparently, but it still hit hard when it happened... She’s getting better now, really, she is, but it’s still... Well...”
“Yeah...” Hamlet agrees. They stand in silence for a moment more, still staring after Olivia. Eventually, Hamlet snaps out of it first. “Well, I think we’ve done what we could for her for now, wouldn’t you agree.... Horatio?”
The young man turns around to him and smiles, sheepishly running a hand through his hair and thereby accidentally leaving some flour in it... He really is cute. There is a slight flush to his cheeks and it brings out the few freckles around his nose that the glasses otherwise distract from. His eyes are of a warm brown that is overshadowed by hints of green and when he smiles it is like the green takes over more of them... “Yes, Horatio.”
They shake hands. “Hamlet,” Hamlet introduces himself again.
“Hamlet, prince of Denmark, I take it?” Horatio says with a raised eyebrow as they let go of each other’s hands. Now it’s Hamlet’s turn to smile sheepishly.
“So you figured that out by listening.”
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop if that...” Horatio is quick to say, but Hamlet reassures him.
“No, that’s fine, don’t worry.“ They share a smile and return to the kitchen table where Horatio starts cleaning up the remainders of his baking session and Hamlet joins him in the process. “So, Horatio...” He conversationally tests the name on his tongue again. “Where are you from? Seems fair that I should know, now that you know I am from rainy, boring Denmark...”
“Hey!” Horatio laughs. “I like Denmark! I grew up there for parts of my childhood too. But really I’m sort of from everywhere... so long as that doesn’t sound stupid.”
“Not at all,” Hamlet watches him discreetly while Horatio puts the bowls he used into the sink. He is about Hamlet’s height, perhaps a little bit shorter than him, not as lanky as Hamlet, but lean, he moves with a certain steadiness and Hamlet likes the way he speaks in calm tones... “So why Wittenberg then? Shouldn’t a young man of the world study in some meaningful city like... Paris? Or Berlin?”
Horatio turns around and leans against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms. There is a glint of mischief or challenge in his eyes that Hamlet immediately takes a like to. “And why isn’t the prince of Denmark studying in Oxford or at least Copenhagen?”
Hamlet grins. Well played. “Oh I don’t do well in big cities for great amounts of time,” he readily explains, leaning against the table himself. “I’m doomed to have a nervous breakdown at some point and in the city there’s always someone nearby with an iPhone, filming and live streaming it on twitter or something. My parents didn’t exactly appreciate the #madprinceHamlet.”
Horatio lets out a beautifully open and friendly laugh at that. The sound makes Hamlet feel a little giggly.
“Yes, I’m better with smaller cities as well,” Horatio admits. “Personally, I think Wittenberg is very meaningful in her own way. You can track down and feel her history to this very day, I like that. I’m a bit of an antique in that regard, I’m afraid.”
Hamlet smiles. “That’s nice! I know very little about Wittenberg’s history. I reckon even as a modern prince I should probably know more about the history of the city I chose to study in than I currently do... Perhaps you should give me a tutoring lesson on the city some time.” It is an easy joke and also probably a blatant, but good-natured attempt at flirting. Hamlet doesn’t expect anything to come of it. He is all the more surprised when his teasing tone is returned.
“Your poor servant ever,” Horatio mutters with a smirk.
“Oh please don’t say that!” Hamlet laughs. “I have been surrounded by servants all my life. I am very glad to take a break from that for once, thank you very much!”
Horatio’s smile is unfaltering. “Terribly sorry,” he says. “Forgive me, my lord.”
Hamlet gasps. He has not expected this at all! Horatio is... Horatio is thrilling. There is a definite attraction there, like a natural draw, and Hamlet is very ready to go with that – as it seems Horatio is, too...
“Horatio,” he takes a jokingly scolding tone and sees Horatio’s lips twitch at it. “Is it just me or are you fl—“
It is in that moment that the door to the kitchen is shoved open and a young man staggers inside.
“Horaatioooo!” he slurs and reels over to the man, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “I’ve been looking for you all over – come, Antonio is doing that card trick that I’ve been telling you about, you need to see that!”
Horatio chuckles lightly and it is all he can do to throw Hamlet an apologetic look while his friend drags him off. Hamlet waves after him with a bemused smile and sighs then. Well, some things simply aren’t meant to be.
He leaves the kitchen not much later and the party soon as well and life returns to its usual self. He doesn’t think too much of Horatio anymore – except when his thoughts sometimes take him back to the picture of the cute young man wearing glasses and an apron who is throwing a challenging smile at him and he catches himself feeling inexplicably warm at the thought of it.