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Horatio had had a relationship with death for much of his life.
When he was seven, his older brother died. He remembered coming home to see his parents hunched over a table, heads bowed and faces red with tears. His sister had been at football practice, but their father was going to go get her, once he’d explained to Horatio what had just happened. Horatio had hardly understood what death was at the time, he’d needed it explained to him and had only understood it as the idea that his brother was gone somewhere and he’d never see him again. He remembered thinking it was horribly unfair.
Moritz had been thirteen when he died. He’d had a big, warm smile, a narrow face, and a body that seemed slightly the wrong size for him. Moritz had been an outdoorsy boy, the kind of person who couldn’t walk past a creepy crawly without picking it up and showing it off to everyone. Despite that difference, he and Horatio had always gotten along quite well. Moritz had seemed like a guiding light in Horatio’s life, the flame to his moth. He could often be seen with a much shorter, more reserved little boy trailing after him, who he’d introduce slightly unenthusiastically as his little brother, Horatio, before running off to spend time with friends. Horatio had been young, and biassed, and to him Moritz was everything good there was in the world.
How did he die? The most pointless question in the world. What did it matter how he died, it didn’t very well change the fact that he was dead. Still, Horatio had needed to know. He always needed to know, needed to understand everything he could. He’d never let himself be taken by surprise like that again.
He was hit by a car, was the utterly uninteresting answer. Of course he was hit by a car, there was a crossing near Moritz’s best friend’s house that was famously unsafe, and he had been a distracted boy. It could have been written out and any half-decent reader could point out all the signs that he was going to be hit by a car. Still, it had shaken Horatio to the core; it struck him as horribly unfair.
Horatio had never learnt how to deal with grief. He’d been miserable, crying all the time and screaming at anyone for the slightest thing, and then one day he’d just stopped. Every time Horatio thought about Moritz, he felt the urge to cry and scream bubble up in him, so he figured he hadn’t overcome anything. Repression was good enough, though, and Horatio learnt to live with it. He’d seen a whole bunch of therapists, who’d all told him that Everyone grieves in their own ways, take your time and then proceeded to ask him a thousand questions about what was making him so anxious, which Horatio was pretty sure was a completely different issue.
Moritz was buried in Germany. Four months after the funeral, Horatio’s family had moved to a whole different country. Seven months after that, his parents had gotten a divorce. Horatio had only visited his brother’s grave in person four times in his life, but that was okay. He had a few pictures he only took out in the few days before and after the anniversary of the death, and he always lit a candle or two. It felt like it shouldn’t be enough, but it was.
A dedicated student, Horatio lived to learn, largely because he didn’t have the option to live for anything like relationships or community. He was toiling his way through school until he got to go off to Uni and could stop worrying what it might be like to go off to Uni. He wanted to go to medical school, because he wanted to help people and save lives. Which had nothing to do with Moritz, of course. Why would it have anything to do with Moritz?
Objectively, Horatio was a sad and repressed teenager who’d never recovered from the loss of his brother, which he still had labelled as ‘Horribly Unfair’ in his mind. If one were to have asked seventeen-year-old Horatio himself, he’d have grumbled that he was doing fine before burying himself in studies he was only doing because he’d never really learnt anything else.
Horatio didn’t last long in medical school. It took him three months to have a complete breakdown and have to drop out and move back in with his sister.
He’d only been in med school because of Moritz, who was too dead to offer any sort of reassurance or advice. Once he’d realised that it was far from anything that interested him, Horatio had lost a lot of faith in his own ability to make choices. From there, it had only gotten worse. He became convinced he could feel Moritz peering over his shoulder and getting ready to offer the perfect advice, but whenever Horatio tried to listen, he’d vanish. He started seeing his brother everywhere, and the mere idea of crossing a street was enough to provoke a full-blown panic attack.
Horatio’s sister was three years older than him; she’d been ten when Moritz died. Her name was Karlotta, and she was the most talented cello player that Horatio had ever heard. She had his broad shoulders and nervous smile, and always seemed to be able to make time for him, just as he would for her. When Moritz died, they both lost the sun they orbited, and it took them years to realise they could simply reattach to each other.
Lotta was brilliant in a way Horatio could never dream of, she had a natural talent and knew what to do with it. Effortlessly charming but just awkward enough to stave off the rabble, Lotta had the perfect friend group that she wisely never tried to insert Horatio into. They were all musicians, and he was a failed med student who still couldn’t give up on the idea of the fabled land that was Uni. He wanted to get an English lit degree for his own sake, which was a big breakthrough for him. Of course, it would have been better if he’d had that breakthrough before applying to med school, but living was learning.
While living with Lotta, Moritz felt more present than ever. They both knew why he’d tried to be a doctor, and why he’d had to give up, so they were both thinking about the missing sibling more often than not. It felt like a healthier sort of presence than when Horatio was off losing his mind as a med student, but it made him want to get out of the house.
The quest for a world not haunted by his dead brother was a tricky one, but Horatio was good at running, and he was sure one day he’d camp out somewhere ghost-free.
Hamlet was just about the opposite of a ghost-free person. He was a man who was so clearly haunted, and Horatio shouldn’t be drawn to him.
He accepted him as a roommate almost without thought; there was something about him… it felt like fate, if Horatio were one to believe in such a thing. Hamlet’s face was sadder even than Horatio’s own, and he was the visual opposite of him. There was something about a man who looked so different to him – and wasn’t unattractive, in his own way – but felt so familiar that Horatio simply couldn’t help but be called to.
Hamlet had a haunted expression that he tried to hide, but Horatio had become an expert at recognising it simply from looking in the mirror. He’d wanted to deny Hamlet, had wanted to say No, no more ghosts in this flat, but it had proven impossible. Hamlet smoked, and tried to hide it; Lotta had done so too, for nearly four years until she’d moved out and no longer felt the need to hide her addiction. Hamlet was well-read and argumentative; the kind of person Horatio was learning that he was, and the kind of person he was learning that he flourished around. He had a propensity for music and a sort of effortless charm that all reminded Horatio so much of Lotta, and his exact type of nerdiness aligned almost perfectly with Horatio’s own. And, of course, he had a big, warm smile, a narrow face, and a body that seemed slightly the wrong size for him. He had sparkling eyes like guiding lights and a personality like the sun, and Horatio knew he’d be sucked into his orbit.
No, sorry, he’d wanted to say. I can’t make you into my old ghost. It wouldn’t be fair to Hamlet, who hardly even realised how easily he was dragging Horatio in. He shouldn’t replace his ghost with a real man who didn’t even know about the haunting in the first place, shouldn’t trade one sun for another, but there was no denying the fact that he was going to. It should be easier to resist, but he’d been worn down over time. It all struck Horatio, once again, as horribly unfair.
Hamlet took Moritz’s place as the centre of Horatio’s world. There was no need for a ghost when a flesh-and-blood man, already so haunted himself, was there to step in for it. One visit, Lotta pulled Horatio aside and asked him in hushed German whether he was sure he’d made the right choice. Horatio hadn’t known how to tell her that he’d never had a choice in the matter, Hamlet had shown up at his door and his fate had been sealed.
How did he die? was never going to be a question Horatio asked about Hamlet. He’d been poisoned, there were no two ways about it. Horatio didn’t walk into a room to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, heads bowed and faces red with tears, didn’t ask what had happened, and where his sun was, and who he was supposed to follow now that it was gone.
He held Hamlet as he died, forehead pressed against his, and cried until the cops came in and pulled him away.
How did he die? The detectives wanted to know, wanted all of Hamlet’s secrets revealed and spilled out for the world to see. He’d been poisoned, of course. His family was far more than shady, his ghosts had dragged him back into the shadows, and he’d been poisoned before he could get away again.
Horatio wondered if he ought to ask the detectives what he was supposed to do, but they all seemed far too busy and far too stressed. Luckily, Horatio cleared his own name quickly enough, but it felt like a hollow victory. He was left spinning out alone again, lost for anyone to hold on to, and they didn’t even need him to answer any more questions about his shining star’s tragic supernova.
He went home, and two ghosts were leaning over his shoulders. He found himself unable to cross roads, unable to handle blades. He found himself crying more than ever, and screaming even more. His anger flared out of him, his betrayal. He’d warned Hamlet, he’d sensed the end drawing near, and the fool hadn’t listened. He could’ve prevented his end.
Hit by a car was obvious, almost planned, and there was nothing Horatio could possibly have done about it. He could’ve saved Hamlet, yet he hadn’t. His failure followed him almost more loyally than the ghost of the man himself.
At least Hamlet's grave wasn't far. Horatio visited him as often as he possibly could, almost hoping that leading the ghost to its final resting place would set it to rest.
Before the whole ordeal with Hamlet Sr., Horatio had assumed his ghosts were more metaphorical in nature. It had been made clear, though, that hauntings could be very real and that they could be very destructive. His didn't feel ill-intentioned, though they filled him with a constant sadness and rage and desperation and- maybe it was just grief, actually. Horatio didn’t drop out again, but he moved back in with Lotta. If she was annoyed by him bringing so many hauntings into her home, she didn’t say anything. After all, Horatio had had a relationship with death for most of his life; there was only so much he could do about the ghosts