more wwi!a.u.

[willnotbenow]

*Laertes told him to rest, and he wanted to (wanted to obey -- when it comes to winning the love of a father, he doesn't know what to do, except to behave, to obey, to stay out of the way -- of course he was never going to be anybody's equal), but in Laertes's apartment he thought of all the wrong things, thought of a morning in bed teasing and

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[ay_my_lord]

*he's returning from a first day at work (because a man must work, if he is to keep a house--even if it is a rented place, even if he has only a tiny place in it); there is ink on his hands, ink on his cuffs, but he's smiling when he catches sight of Hamlet* Hello, there.

[willnotbenow]

*looks startled at him -- as though he really was expecting the house itself, and not Horatio, to come and speak to him -- but then he says, even and calm and unhelpful* I was in the wrong story.

[ay_my_lord]

... what?

[willnotbenow]

*monologue!* It was a story about two lovers, preparing to face a trial together. Because of various misunderstandings between them, they've never known each other's feelings, and they don't even know that they're lovers. The audience knows. One of them ... has been seeing somebody, but always offstage, because if it were a real person with a real stake in this, the narrative wouldn't be as neat, the audience couldn't be as sympathetic. It can't be too neat, though, or nothing would ever happen -- so the other one decides to take up with someone new, too. To incite jealousy, or, less deviously, to somehow show themselves that they can. But the lovers are destined. They conquer their misunderstandings, and know at last what they mean and have to be to each other, and usually they wouldn't have had the incentive, if it weren't for that someone new. So what can she do? She can't insist on her feelings -- then she becomes a harridan or a villain. The time she's had on-stage is too short for the audience to believe her feelings are that