A/N: For those of you following me because of Fate Does NOT Exist, I'm trying to update that. Hopefully you'll see something within the month. In other news, the majority of this has been sitting on my computer for months, and I'm obsessed with Horatio so I figured I might as well, especially since I haven't uploaded anything in a while.
Modern AU because I can't do period stuff for shit. Some language. And I highly doubt anything I describe is actually mentally or emotionally healthy at all, even the ending. Just a fair warning.
Hope you enjoy.
-caelumdeity

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

He's so tired of this.

So.

So.

Fucking.

Tired.

In any other circumstance, exhausted he could deal with. A few days alone and he would have been fine. But there is no rest. Almost as soon as it happened, reporters flocked him. Smothered him with their inane questions. Psychologists around the world suddenly felt the urgent need to focus their collective intensity bearing down on his soul.

What troubles him the most is that he's perfected his control over his expression so much so that no one can tell – and the one person who possibly could is dead. All these brilliant minds, and not one of them can see that he's dying. Suffocating. Drowning. He tells himself there's no reason for them to care.

So after the hundredth time that some reporter or investigator asks him to explain again, "So you're telling me that…?" or "Just how do you know…?" all he can do is slowly and carefully relive those aching memories, over and over again, for as long as these idiots need him to. Because Hamlet asked him to. And never in his life has he felt so bitterly towards his feelings.

He swallows his heart; he stills his stomach; he lets his eyes positively burn with tears unshed. He hasn't slept in days, not that anyone would let him. Fortinbras was just as insufferable as the rest of them, calling him at all hours of the day about how to deal with the suddenly headless company.

It's scary how often he finds himself standing at the top of the corporation building. Sometimes he spends hours sitting at the edge in the middle of the night. Sometimes he'll stare up at the invisible stars. Sometimes he'll stare out into the city. Sometimes he'll stare down at the street thirty stories below him.

He imagines that Hamlet is there, every so often and with increasing frequency, and this insanity is the only thing keeping him sane.

Attending class has become impossible, but he can't stay more than a few minutes within their – well, his now, he supposes – apartment without breaking down.

He occupies most of his time fantasizing about complete nonsense he can feed the irritating reporters and intrusive psychologists, because they don't seem to believe the truth anyways. Despite the countless stories he comes up with, every time he entertains the thought of saying one the truth barrels its way through, unfailingly.

He spends the rest of his time alternatively cursing Hamlet and cursing himself.

Every waking moment seems dedicated to this. Thinking about Hamlet.

Was it his fault for not stopping him? Could he have stopped him? Or would he have just exacerbated the situation? Would it have been possible to steer Hamlet from his careening path of self-destruction?

At some point, he is so far gone that he manages to convince himself that he could have. And that Hamlet, wherever his spirit lurks now, blames him for not trying harder.

He floats between several states of consciousness, none of which he is sure reflects reality but he can hardly bring himself to care.

The only constant thought that continues between each state of being is his burning desire that this end, and end soon. But it won't. These people will plague him until he dies, and he knows he won't let himself die until they get their damn stories straight.

Because he promised Hamlet.

Every time he falls unconscious – not necessarily in his apartment and he always wakes in a hospital to find that a few days have passed – his sleep is uneasy and fitful. When he awakes, his first emotion is hollow disappointment. His second is loathing. Nevertheless, he appears calm. Always calm. Because he's a man of his word.

When he closes his eyes, the moment before unconsciousness he pretends that he's living his life from just a few months before, and everything is all right for a few seconds.

Then he wakes up and he feels even worse than he had before.

Fortinbras does ask him once, when he's feeling especially snappish one day, if there's something bothering him. He considers telling Fortinbras, for a brief second, before smiling and saying its nothing and asking how Fortinbras has been handling things.

Months later, he hears a rumor floating around that he was the one who actually concocted the entire massacre. He scoffs and ignores the calls.

The rumors go away, eventually. But the calls don't stop.

He sleeps better now, at least, and he's started attending his classes again. But the apartment is still too big, too empty. He feels ridiculous, pathetic even, but he spends all of his free time lying on the couch, staring mindlessly at the television or blankly at a book, reading the same line over and over again.

Fortinbras calls, every so often, and the calls become less about business and more about trying to get him to leave the apartment for more than classes and food.

It's over drinks – and he was never much of a drinker before but he is now – that he heaves a heavy sigh and tells Fortinbras everything. He tells him how the world had started falling apart, about how Hamlet started breaking, how he knows that Hamlet felt he was the only constant thing in Hamlet's life, and how he's in love with Hamlet and Hamlet depended on that, but even that wasn't enough. It hadn't been enough.

He even tells Fortinbras that the only thing that keeps him going, especially in those first few weeks, is imagining that Hamlet is still there with him, even in spirit. Sometimes he can feel a touch, or hear a whisper, and he isn't sure whether to cry or smile when it happens. He thinks he may be going insane. But he can't be, because he needs to stay sane to let people get their stories right because Hamlet asked him to and he promised, but he can't do this anymore. All anyone cares about is tending to their morbid fascination; sometimes he feels like he's just another storybook character telling a storybook fairy tale, and can't they see that it's killing him? He's been reduced to a pathetic state of existence, and he's not even sure what to do anymore.

When he stops to take a breath, he's gasping back ragged breaths in between futile attempts to swallow down choked sobs and it startles him. For a moment he forgets his exhaustion, his indignant fury at the world, his utterly aching core, he's so surprised.

Is he really…?

Gently touching his face and staring blearily at his shaking hand — oh.

Tears. Honest to god tears.

He can't help but stare at Fortinbras, hand still suspended, hoping for once that he's not the one with all the answers. He can't be the one with all the answers, because he has absolutely no clue what's going on anymore.

Whatever his current expression is, and he's positive it's absolutely dismal, Fortinbras doesn't hesitate to draw him close and nearly crush him with the feel of human contact. And Fortinbras is saying something, right in his ear, but he pays him no attention, he doesn't have the ability to.

The last time he was this close to another human, the touch gradually grew weak, gradually grew cold, robbing him of everything.

He can't hear Fortinbras' words, much less even begin to understand them, but he sinks into the embrace and simply shatters.

I miss him I miss him I misshim ImisshimImisshim misshim misshim miss

And there's a brush on his hair, and a touch along the skin of his neck, that has nothing to do with Fortinbras or the air or anything else readily visible. Or so he tells himself. Because he needs it. Needs to know that it's Hamlet. Hamlet sees him, sees his suffering, and wants to comfort him, really, truly does.

His eyes slide closed with the faint impression of a hand combing through his hair and he falls asleep to the sensation of a kiss to his temple in a mix of drunken stupor and inner peace.

He may no longer be entirely sane, but what is sanity anyways? He'll be okay and that's all that matters.