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Dead men, they say, tell no tales. It's a saying the pirates are fond of. Traitors get killed before they can betray the captain's secrets, plunder his treasures or otherwise endanger his pursuits. Pirates are quite liberal with the whole killing thing, Rosencrantz has learned. There are a number of people who will never tell tales ever again. Some of them haunt Rosencrantz at night, in his vivid nightmares, and some lie rotting by his feet, in this cell he finds himself in, shackled to the hull of the pirate ship. They slaughtered everyone else, these pirates. They slaughtered the entire crew of the ship that was supposed to bring Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Hamlet to England. Them – and that damned letter.
The pirate attack came out of nowhere and it was brutal and bloody and Rosencrantz knows he would have never survived had he not clung to Guildenstern for dear life. And Hamlet just.... left. Left them to die. Hamlet had been captured, too, but he did something, said something to the pirates, maybe gave them money? Rosencrantz doesn't know. He only knows that Hamlet is not here anymore. Left without a second glance at his old friends. Hamlet was alive the last time Rosencrantz saw him, but he has no idea how much time has passed – time goes by slowly here, shackled in chains – and deep down he suspects Hamlet is probably dead by now. The Prince just always had a habit of pissing off exactly the wrong people. Rosencrantz sometimes wonders if there's even anyone left alive in Elsinore castle. Maybe in the whole of Denmark. What if there was a war? Rosencrantz has no way of telling. No way of knowing. He doesn't even know why the pirates let him and a handful of other people live, capturing them instead of killing them. Maybe to sell them as slaves? But they've not done a very good job then, keeping their prisoners alive.
There's only two left now. Two people in the cell. Everyone else has died of starvation or thirst or knocked their heads against the iron bars so many times that the last knock ended their misery. There's only him, Rosencrantz, and the skinny bundle of flesh chained up next to him, fitfully sleeping, racked by the same nightmares Rosencrantz knows all too well. That skinny bundle of flesh is Guildenstern and that skinny bundle of flesh is the only reason Rosencrantz is still alive. He drinks rain water, piss water, it doesn't matter. He does whatever it takes to stay alive. He needs to be strong. Needs to find a way to get out of here. Because Rosencrantz loves this skinny, starving, stinking, chained-up bundle of flesh more than anything in the world and he knows that there's only one way this will end. They're surviving this together or neither of them does. Dead men tell no tales, they say. Well, to the world, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. And this is their tale.
On what feels like the one-hundredth day of their captivity, but there is really no way of telling time in this place, the pirate ship hits a rock. It's a dull thud, at first, accompanied by a soft sound, that Rosencrantz wouldn't even have noticed if the piss bucket hadn't fallen over. Five minutes later, everything is in uproar. There is a leak somewhere. The crew is panicked, running around like headless chickens on the main deck. The ship..... is sinking.
"G! Hey G, wake up!"
Rosencrantz forcefully shakes Guildenstern awake, who had been sleeping, again, as it's all he's been doing lately. He doesn't have much strength for anything else.
"Bzuh?"
"Yes, really eloquent there, babe, but the ship is sinking. GET UP!"
Within two seconds, Guildenstern is wide awake, his green eyes wide open, his dark blond hair, long and shaggy now, dishevelled and his breath ragged and out of control.
"What!??"
"This ship. Is sinking. The pirates are panicking and seem to have forgotten about us, so this might be our only chance to get out of here!"
There is water at their feet now, in the cell. It's rising. The dead bodies in the cell are starting to float.
"And how do you suppose we do this, huh? May I remind you that we're CHAINED UP!?", a shrieking Guildenstern demands. He's just been rudely awoken and now he's in a frenzied life-or-death situation, so really, all the shrieking in the world would be understandable.
But Rosencrantz has a plan. And if he does say so himself, it's a pretty good plan. No one's ever gonna call him 'the dumb one' again after this. Well. Unless they both drown and die miserable deaths, then everyone will call him the dumb one for all eternity. Actually maybe they already do, considering everyone back home probably thinks they're dead. But Rosencrantz is fine with being the dumb one for all eternity if there is an eternity to come. An eternity to spend with the beautiful, albeit currently panicking and severly malnourished, man by his side.
"We're going to kick the hull of the ship so hard that a plank comes loose. We're shackled to the hull. Everyone is distracted, no one will hear us kicking and screaming down here. The plank is gonna come loose and we can grab onto the plank and float away. This ship is sinking anyway! They won't miss a plank."
It's a crazy plan. It depends on two starved, skinny, shackled men mustering up enough strength to kick down reinforced oak. Before the cell fills up with water. And without one of the pirates noticing. It's a crazy plan. Which is exactly why it works.
The water rises and and rises and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been kicking at the planks with all their might and at full force for a long time and the water is at their throats. Rosencrantz can feel the life draining from his legs and in a moment he won't be able to breathe. Guildenstern is almost underwater.
"Babe, babe, don't give up now. One last kick, at the same time, and the plank will come off! Babe. BABE!?"
A wave washes over them and Guildenstern swallows water, tries to spit it out, coughs. No. No, this is not happening. Not now that they're so close to freedom!
Rosencrantz takes his lover's face in his hands, looks him deep into his eyes, breathes in, and kisses him. Gives him breath. G coughs out a fountain of water, but he's breathing. Faces still pressed close together, Rosencrantz whispers 'one, two, three' and on 'three' they both kick, one last time and on the strength of a combined breath, and the plank comes loose.
Suddenly everything goes topsy-turvy. The undercurrent sucks them out of the ship, still attached to the plank by their chains, and Rosencrantz loses line of sight, doesn't know where top or bottom is, can't tell if he's swimming or just being pulled. For a moment, everything goes black.
When he comes to, the plank is floating, in calm waters, and the sun is shining. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are lying face to face on top of the plank, their arms still shackled to it. It holds their weight. It actually goddamn worked. G smiles. The way only he does. Only him, in all the world.
"Hey, sleepyhead!"
A warmth spreads through Rosencrantz's stomach. They're alive. They're both alive. For how much longer, he doesn't know. But for the moment, they're alive. He pushes himself up on his elbow – a bit tricky in chains, but he manages – and looks at the man next to him. He really is the luckiest unlucky man in all of history, he thinks. Rosencrantz leans over to Guildenstern and kisses him. Deep and thirsty and desperate. It's their first kiss in freedom in God knows how many days. Please Lord, let it not be their last.
Land comes like a revelation. Like something out of a dream, a mirage, something not quite tangible but yet undeniably real. The plank washes ashore on a stony beach. All of a sudden, there is land. There are trees. There is grass. It's the simplest things, but Rosencrantz has never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life.
"R, are you seeing this? Land!"
There is so much abundant joy in Guildenstern's voice, that Rosencrantz is startled for a second because he hasn't heard it in so long. It's the way G used to talk about music or a particularly enjoyable play he'd seen. There will be music again. Because they're alive.
England, Rosencrantz realizes. They're in England. They washed ashore in the very place they were going to in the first place. Before all this. Before the pirates.
"Hello!? Are you alright? Gentlemen? Can you understand me?"
A nun comes running towards them on the shore, very agitated, her habit flowing in the breeze. Now might be a great time to come up with a story about why they're chained to a plank and ask her for help. But before Rosencrantz can formulate a plan, Guildenstern is already babbling on about pirates and sinking ships and planks. It's a refreshing kind of honesty that Rosencrantz has always really loved about Guildenstern, really, and he can't even be mad right now. Especially because it works. The nun immediately runs back up to the street to fetch a blacksmith who should be able to remove the chains. Huh. The helpfulness of the English people simply cannot be overstated.
"It's funny, isn't it?", says Guildenstern, as soon as the nun is out of earshot, "If she knew about us, about our history of betrayal.... I don't think she'd help us."
Traitors. That's what they probably were to Hamlet. But they never really meant to hurt him. They weren't malicious, really, it was just charismatic Claudius and his scheming that did them in. They were naive, maybe. But never evil. Never.
"Who do you want to be, G?"
"Huh?"
"Well, when the nun comes back, we can't tell her we're Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead."
"I will be.... George. George Goldenstar. And you can be Richard Rosecrown."
Rosencrantz has to laugh, but he loves it, really. It's exactly the kind of thing they were always known for. Silly, maybe, but effective. It gets the job done.
Back in Elsinore castle it used to be an ongoing joke among the servants, guests and even the royals that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were interchangeable, that no one could tell them apart. It was suspected that one would claim to be the other and vice versa on a regular basis. In fact, they never did that. Neither of them ever misrepresented themselves. And they themselves would never, could never, mistake each other.
Rosencratz is a man of medium intelligence, maybe a bit slow, but with huge compassion. A strong man, physically and emotionally, too. Good at exercise, drills. Soldier material. He likes animals, children, social gatherings and pretty clothes. Guildenstern is a smarter man, maybe, but also a more reckless man. A scholar. Well-read, a lover of music, the theater and fine foods. A man with a hearty laugh, a kind soul and an inexplicable knack for card tricks. They are very different. Very. If other people never knew this it was simply because they never bothered to learn. No one ever asked them anything, so is it any surprise no one ever knew anything about them? Well. It was all about Hamlet all the time, anyway. The Hamlet show. Not anymore. Now the time has come, finally, for Richard Rosecrown and George Goldenstar.
On a beautiful day a week later, the sun shining down on the abbey yard, Richard and George are sitting underneath a tree, eating breakfast in the shade. In the week since their rescue the two men have tried to make themselves as useful as possible, helping out around the abbey, doing repairs and handiwork, gardening, and acting as general bodyguards for the nuns. Which the nuns really appreciate, especially ever since they realized that their female wiles really have no effect on these handsome, washed-up strangers and that they are therefore not in danger of losing their dignity before the Lord. Richard thinks that's about the kindest and most unexpected reaction he's ever heard upon someone discovering their... inclincations. Proclivities, if you will. But these nuns really don't seem to mind. They've offered them much needed food and shelter and life, incredibly, is good.
Richard glances over at G and his beautiful lover is smiling, staring out into the yard, being hit by the sun just right to make his eyes gleam.
"Marry me."
"What?" G's eyes light up and his mouth crinkles, like he thinks it was a joke.
"There's a church literally right here. We could go in, right now, and get married. Just you and me. No one else has to know. Just us... and the Lord."
Silence under the tree.
"I love you, G. George. Guildenstern. You are the only person I have ever loved and the only person I will ever love. Marry me. Marry me right now and make me the happiest man on God's green Earth."
"YES". The answer comes quickly then, as if George is afraid the offer might be recinded. There is that smile. The only thing that kept Richard going in that cell on the pirate ship, where all hope was lost and dead bodies were their only companions. That smile. Richard wants to wake up next to it for the rest of his life. And he will. Because his man said Yes!
They are married before no one but the Lord as their witness. In the small stone church on abbey grounds. Richard Rosecrown and George Goldenstar, formerly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of Elsinore castle, united in wedded bliss for a lifetime on this Earth and for whatever eternity awaits them in the great beyond. Dead men, they say, tell no tales. But for two dead men, Richard thinks, they have a pretty amazing tale to tell.