What will he be to the prince when his prince is a king? He'll never be broad and grizzled like his father, the fawn-smoothness of his cheek displays that much. Will he put aside philosophy, leave the lecture-hall and the stage and put on armor again? The prince moves against him urgently and Horatio's head is swimming with a million desires.

They've hurried in and shed their robes in an inky heap and now Hamlet is the only dark blot in his vision, looking both exhausted and pleased with himself. Horatio practically collapses on him with kisses, his hands are itching to do some sort of work -- inflamed by hours of Hamlet's sideways glances, his calm disputations even as their hands brush one another's behind the folds of their cloaks.

("You've often claimed there is a precedent for what we do."

"Yes, my lord."

"Perhaps not quite like this. Let us speak no more of it tonight.")

Their nameless manner of loving -- more than is perfectly proper, odd to see (small dark Hamlet and his dutiful schoolmate stumbling after him like a dancing bear on a chain) and yet well matched. The prince's secrets are safe with him. He is past the point of caring about anything beyond the two of them. Denmark does not exist, the tavern below their little room in Wittenberg does not exist. They kiss and kiss again, hands canvassing bodies and struggling against one another's strength.

Hamlet fumbles at him from beneath; he seals his trust with a kiss and they begin to come undone. A strange generosity overflows him and leaves the prince burning, drunk on being admired and admiring. His breeches are unbuttoned, hitched down around his thighs and Horatio murmurs high praises down his soft, cloth-wrapped chest, against his navel, into his lap. Against the masses of black cloth this slice of Hamlet's bare body is a clean cut-out like shaped paper.

What are the words for his prince, for what they are here, alone shipwrecked on one another's bodies?

Pulcher, pulchrior, puer formosus, basia, osculum - to make small mouths with their kisses, he wants to kiss every part of him, starts with what is exposed of his naked thigh (biting a little, making him laugh) and finding the sweet dark tangle between his legs. He breathes in the tender damp and mouths against the hidden heat of him, framed with his fingers, Hamlet's grip against his back.

He must reach the right place with this tongue because Hamlet gives a faint cry -- hoarse, low, impossibly sweet to hear -- and his legs shift to press him closer. He proceeds to sucking at him, biting lightly, tangled in his sleeves and guiltlessly thinking of what his prince has done for him with his laughing mouth and small hands.

Horatio lifts his head up only once, ceases from drinking him up with damp-smeared cheeks upturned -- some foolish worry seizes him that he's doing this all wrong, that he's doing something so unthinkable it hasn't a name, but Hamlet's fingers slip through his hair and he sinks down again. He couldn't say how long it is until he begins to breathe again.

(princeps, domine, his superior, his commander, his companion)

Hamlet finishes with fluttering spasms and pained breathing, a gasp, one shod foot knocking weakly against Horatio's back. Horatio can breathe again; his head begins to clear.

"My lord," he mutters against his prickly thigh, exhausted and elated and mildly ashamed with the awareness dawning on him that he'll have to do laundry very carefully in the morning.

"I thank you, Horatio." His voice is slightly broken. He sits up a little, tugging his shirt down; Horatio looks up from wiping his mouth, willing himself to remember how he tastes, another of a thousand things he'll recall for his own sake alone and tell nobody.

Hamlet cannot blush and look dignified at the same time; he is very pale save for two patches of pink color burning in his cheeks (the one of them impressed with a crease from where he'd pressed his face against the cloth and found a seam) and his hair's all fanned out like a broken paintbrush. Horatio straightens, muttering a butchered aphorism -- all animals being melancholy after sex, save roosters and princes. Hamlet knees him a little and makes him laugh.