Crossover: Lord of the Rings/Hamlet

Warnings: SO. MUCH. CRACK. Horribly, horribly wrong iambic pentameter. Also, uh... spoilers for Hamlet? o.O

Disclaimer: None of the characters or settings are mine. Both Tolkien and Shakespeare might rise up and haunt me for this one, but hopefully they won't sue.

Summary: Denmark, Riddermark, what's the difference, really?

A/N: Apparently the weird things are hopping. This was started for the Livejournal Gen Battle back in February, the prompt "Merry, Pippin, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern - fallen into the wrong story" The other side of the swap is posted at the Gen Battle page, sort of. This one is less 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' and more straight-up Hamlet. I'm not happy with the end but I suspect that will never change, so I'm posting and running away.

Formatting Note: All Shakespearean character dialog is supposed to be indented, but it won't let me do that here. For a slightly easier to follow version, see my LJ page, linked on my author page.

-.-

Exeunt All, Pursued by Hobbits
by CaffieneKitty

-.-

Hamlet held out his hands and stooped slightly to greet his visitors.

"My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
Meriadoc! Ah, Peregrin! How do you both?"

Pippin reached up to take the Danish prince's offered hand. "Honestly, Hammy, it's just Merry and Pippin. We've known each other since you were as big as us!"

Merry took Hamlet's other hand and shook it. "No need to be formal or anything."

"Makes us think we're in trouble." Pippin grinned.

"Safe assumption in your case, Pip," murmured Merry.

"What?"

"Well, I'm just saying-"

Hamlet cleared his throat.

"Right! You asked how we were. About the same, I guess. Happy."

"Yeah, that's about it. Always happy, us."

Hamlet looked between them oddly, as though he was waiting for them to say something specific. Merry and Pippin smiled blithely back. Confused silence stretched for a long moment before Hamlet sighed in frustration and began speaking.

"While fortune may have smiled her shining face
upon you both, it is her nether cheeks
she turns to me. Alas, my friends I shall
enfold you in my recent miseries..."

As Hamlet spoke at length, Merry and Pippin stood and listened. Then they sat and listened. After a while Merry held up his hands.

"Steady on, Hammy! I know you lost your Da and that's a terrible, horrible thing, but there's no need to go right 'round the twist! Blethering nonsense about hawks and handsaws and all that!"

Hamlet blinked.

"But-"

Pippin hopped down from the footstool he had been sitting on. "Yeah! No need to be so glum! Your Da wouldn't like this, you locking yourself away, nattering about being bound up with nutshells."

"Come on. Let's go down and have an ale or two, in memory of your Da."

"There was a man who liked his ale," said Pippin with a sad nod. "Fix you right up. There's got to be a pub 'round somewhere."

"It's almost time for second breakfast too," added Merry.

"But-"

"Yes!" Pippin grabbed Hamlet's hand and started pulling him, leaning into the pull like an ox at the plough. "You need feeding. Come on. To the pub. Ale and breakfast!"

Hamlet frowned, and his eyes shifted side to side, looking to the shadows of the room.

"But-"

Merry grabbed Hamlet's other hand and pulled, starting the much-larger man stumbling towards the door. "Come on. Get a mutton sandwich and a tankard or two of ale into you and the world will seem a much better place!"

-.-

"So," said Merry, frowning over the top of a half-pint mug of ale in a random anonymous Elsinore pub, "you think your Da's haunting you, and your uncle killed him to court your mother and get the crown?"

Hamlet, face hidden deep within in a cowled robe, nodded glumly and hiccuped.

Pippin shook his head in disgust. "I knew I didn't like him. That's worse than anything the Sackville-Bagginses ever did!"

"Too right, Pip."

Hamlet stared blearily at his two short friends.

"But of my thoughts I ask you not reveal
their content or import. To keep the King
off-guard I must my true intent conceal,
else he will not betray his fratricide
unto the court in whole. Revealed in parts,
another death would heal the secret's bond.
The court would be awash in reddened waves."

Pippin blinked. "You think he'd honestly kill everyone?"

Merry grimaced. "Well, if he's killed his own brother, a bunch of courtiers wouldn't be a heartache."

Hamlet glared into the dregs of his ale.

"I need to catch him unaware of my
duplicity of mind, and his conscience
waken to the foulness of his vile deeds.
I need to catch the conscience of the king."

Pippin nodded. "Get 'im to show himself as a murderin' bastard."

"Before he dies, he shall suffer the depths
of anguish he has caused. This is my aim."

"Oh, well! You've got a good few years then! Loads of time to bring him to justice!"

Hamlet narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth.

"He'll know the grave's embrace afore the week
is done. 'Ere full moon rises, he will fall."

Merry and Pippin exchanged wide-eyed glances. Merry leaned closer to Hamlet and lowered his voice. "You... uh. You aren't thinking of natural causes there, are you, Hammy?"

Enigmatically, Hamlet half-smirked.

"My rantings are to be dismissed as naught,
For I am mad; and madmen say mad things."

Pippin snorted. "You're a drunk man, mate."

"Now look here." Merry stared levelly at Hamlet, "Me 'n Pip don't hold with talk of murderin', mad or not, so just stow that load of codswallop."

Hamlet dropped his eyes back down to his ale tankard.

"But wherein shall my road to vengeance lie?"

"You just need him to confess himself, the rest will follow suit," said Merry.

"Get him off his guard."

Hamlet's knuckles whitened on the handle of his tankard.

"And when the varlet doth himself betray,
slip a blade between-"

"Oy, no!" Merry held up a hand, frowning. "Trying to avoid blood and guts here, Hammy! No death. What would your Da say?"

"That is, if your Da were alive and not a raving, dead, ghostly nutter like he is now," Pippin clarified.

"Right." Merry nodded.

Hamlet sank lower in his chair.

"Your words are short and plain, as suits your selves,
but on the whole they reach the central truth.
While bloody-minded vengeance suits my mood,
my father's memory it would not improve."

"There's some wisdom!" Merry clapped Hamlet on the forearm and smiled.

"Always find the best sort of wisdom at the bottom of a mug of ale!" Pippin raised his own mug.

"But how to coax the truth into the light?
A canny wretch; he will not self-betray,
perhaps an echo of his crimes in form
of song or play would breach his cunning guard?"

"Well, there was that great load of jumblers with a fancy cart, raving about blood..." Pippin looked dubious.

Merry shook his head. "I dunno what good they might do you though, Hammy. Seems a bit too much fuss. You want your uncle to admit to the murder, feel bad about it and get punished for it, yeah?"

Hamlet nodded.

"And you want your mum to own up to... whatever she's doing. Such as it may be." Pippin's ears turned red.

"Right. So here's my thinking then. Have a great big party, a whatchercallit, a wake thing, drinking the dead away. Get him drunk and talking, he'll slip and everyone'll hear it."

"Yeah, right! What you need is to get him drunk. Really drunk. Get him talking-"

Hamlet held up a hand, stopping Pippin.

"Your plan bears a spark of reason, forsooth,
but murderous uncle mine would not imbibe
against the chance he would himself undo.
Save by force he would not lower his guard,
intoxicate himself and prove deceit."

"Oh, we'll get him drinking." Merry grinned.

"Yeah. You haven't been to one of our parties, mate. Everyone drinks. Even Samwise Gamgee's Gaffer's pig."

"Not that he had a choice in the matter, eh, Pip?" Merry elbowed his friend.

"None at all!"

-.-

Around the main ballroom at Elsinore, courtiers were passed out or staring at the king in stupefied horror. Someone's long-suffering horse stood in the corner, mane and tail painted bright green. Servants and guardsmen stood by, looking at each other in shock and bemusement.

King Claudius sat on an empty mead barrel, wobbling slightly, just having finished his detailed confession. Queen Gertrude sat on the floor beside him, face turned away, sobbing.

Merry lowered his chin and stared levelly at King Claudius. "Now that you've got all that off your chest, and all the guards have heard it, don't you think you owe someone an apology at the very least?"

Pippin stood beside Hamlet, resting a hand on his shoulder. No hope of restraining Hamlet if he decided to launch himself at Claudius, but it seemed enough to keep the furious, drunk, and inexplicably pants-less prince sitting on the floor.

The King raised his eyes to meet Hamlet's.

"My nephew, I am sorry for my deeds.
To take a father from an only son,
heinous! And yet more heinous still,
a fratricide induced by greed alone."

Hamlet said nothing, but glared in liquor-fogged fury at his uncle. The king dropped his eyes, took off his crown and clutched it in his hands.

"I have proclaim'd my deeds unto the court.
I'll take what punishment becomes my due."

Claudius slid off the mead-barrel and held the crown out to Hamlet, who took it, blinking.

"This is yours, thy father's legacy.
'Twas murd'rous folly 'ere it came to me."

The guards came forward to collect the weaving former monarch and escort him and Queen Gertrude to the dungeons, to be sorted out formally when the court was sober again.

Hamlet stared down at the crown.

"You got him, Hammy," said Merry quietly, coming to stand beside Pippin and Hamlet. "From the sounds of it, your mum might not be as involved as you thought."

"Sounds to me like maybe she was stuck and didn't know how to get away. Court'll decide what to do with them both tomorrow, I guess."

"He will receive a just and swift censure,
high treason bears a full and final cost.
I did not think that I would gain the crown
by bringing this to light. I'm at a loss."

Pippin laughed. "What did you think would happen? They'd raffle it off? Someone's got to be in charge."

"You're the prince, so it's yours now. Castle, Kingdom, courtiers and all."

"I'd thought to fight and die in bloody war.
Avenging is a terminal pursuit.
I had not planned to live for long beyond."

"Oy!" said Merry, lowering his brow. "Me 'n Pip don't hold with talk like that neither."

"No fallin' on your sword. We'd miss you too much." Pippin patted Hamlet's shoulder.

Hamlet turned the crown over in his hands.

"I've shaped myself for death but find new life.
What am I to do? My friends, tell me?"

"You be king, Hammy. You've got your head screwed on straight, despite what you wanted people to think. You'll do just fine!"

"Words easily said, but deeds... I know not how."

Pippin grinned. "First things first?"

Hamlet looked up from the crown to Merry and Pippin.

"Before you pass any laws, Your Highness, you'll want to put on some pants."

- - -
(that's it. *facepalm*)