![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fan_eluneTitle: To the end of reckoning
Fandom: Shakespeare in Love
Rating: R
Warnings: slash. Also, complete mangling of talented writers such as Shakespeare and Marlowe. Less well done than in the film, I'd wager.
Summary: set after the film. Said film was about theatre, this is about writing. And hot guys taking off their doublets and jerkins and hoses and what-nots.
Notes: I completely blame![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesofbrixton for this, and she said she was looking forward to it even after I told her I couldn't get it right, so if this is atrociously bad it's her fault I'm still posting it. If it's, however, not atrociously bad, do let me know as well, and I'll take all the credit thank you I'll have her to thank for it. Snuggles and props to randomling for the beta job and being ever so lovely in general.
To the end of reckoning
Will spends no time staring at the blank page this time. At the top he writes in plain, large letters, TWELFTH NIGHT.
Act One.
Scene 1 – The Sea-Coast.
Enter Viola, a Captain, and Sailors.
Viola: What country, friends, is this?
It writes itself out.
How does it end well, he wonders.
'Tis a mystery, he knows.
"Master Shakespeare," comes a voice, sultry and low, rich as the richest cloth, thick as the thickest honey, nothing as melodic as music, but something rare, a different quality. "Henslowe's spoken of you to me."
Will looks up from his tankard of ale. Fingers inkier than his, but the nails are not bitten, albeit just as short. A writer, then, not plagued by the same addiction as he. A poor doublet, carelessly worn, no jerkin. A man of little money, even littler care. The face tilted at him as the man takes a seat next to him, noble features, a smart, warmly condescending gaze, reflection of the smile that elaborates into amusement, approval. Eyes that have naught to do with the sun, dark and entrancing, not dazzling bright but deep wells of obscurity. Thin lips, no flower blossom, no such rich colour as can be found rising in maiden's cheeks when they are first uncovered, to be known and had.
Wariness surges to the fore of his being. He does not know the man, and has found out since his arrival in London that it is easier to make enemies without even noting the making of them, than friends if you were applying the whole of your being to the task. "Ill or well?"
"Ill, and thus well, as it is not his fashion to praise those he loves to any other man he deems a friend."
The wariness eases slightly, an expansion in his lungs, for the man clearly knows Henslowe, and seems to wish Will no harm. "You have me at a disadvantage, sir."
"And if I like it best thus?" The dark eyes twinkle, the glint of a wild beast's fang, a fancy gone as soon as it has been imagined into existence. "What would you have, my name?" The man raises his arm and motions the serving wench over. "Let me buy you a drink, Master Shakespeare, and you shall know the name of your benefactor."
After a moment, Will tilts his head in agreement. "If only to restore the balance. A compact. I shall drink with you, if you'll tell me your name."
They drink brandy. He almost chokes on his drink when the man casually drops his name. Not any writer, but he of Dido and Tamburlaine, Christopher Marlowe.
"Call me Kit," he murmurs against his beaker. "And tell me what you're working on, Will. I'm curious."
His quill has gone dull by the time he puts it down. He's written the whole first act, fuelled by the memory of her, although he thinks that he should probably rearrange the scenes so that the play opens on Orsino instead of Viola.
Oh, Viola. So fair, so soft, opening up so readily under him, and the way her fingers trembled when she first reached for him. And her mind, her laughter, and the love she bore him, the love she will bear him always, for to him she will never wane, nor fade, nor die, but stay ever young, and fresh, vivacious.
Willful.
He sprinkles sand over the ink, pauses, and sighs. Oh, Viola. The latest love which he has lost, but he is no Romeo, he will not die from this loss anymore than he has from the others. Anymore than he has from Marlowe's death.
Muses. Rosaline was a fancy, an illusion. The likes of Kit and Viola...
His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of boots coming up the steps two at a time, and he gathers the sand back in the small sander where it belongs before angling the stool he's on towards the door, unsure what to expect.
"Ho!" comes Ned's voice before he even bursts into the room, smiling brightly. "I'm seeking a bloody awful scribe by the name of William Shakespeare. It seems that he's wanted for some celebrations. Something about a play, the Queen, a wager and a partnership?"
Will cannot but smile back, for there is so much charisma in the person of Ned Alleyn, not the most famed player, growing favourite of her Majesty because of his good looks alone. "I've been writing."
Ned eyes the stack of parchment dubiously. "Anything for me? Something where I don't die in the third act?"
He lets the name roll off his tongue. "Orsino. A Duke."
Ned purses his lips. "Good name."
"'Tis what I said."
Ned raises his eyebrows. "Who...?"
"Her."
Silence stretches between them, and with it comes a dead weight of dark emotions dropped in Will's lungs. It's in how sombre Ned looks, how much power he sways over others' moods even off stage. Particularly offstage? Will stands and shrugs on his doublet. "Come, Ned. You talked of celebrations! What sort of merriment can I expect?"
Ned hangs his head, and smiles his impish smile. "The same sort as ever. The best sort. Laughter, ale and whores! 'Tis what you need, I wager, though you mightn't know it yet."
Will claps Ned on the shoulder on his way to the stairs. "Nay, my friend. I know it only too well."
'Tis what he needs each time after all. 'Twas what he had the night of Kit's death. 'Twill be what will take him through this night. The sun is waning outside, bleeding low over the rooftops. 'Twill be what will take him through the dark recesses of this night, and to the clear morning sky, to drown himself in the memory of her eyes. After each loss there is the need to prove himself alive.
Ned follows him down the stairs, a step behind, and leads the way to the tavern – a house of ill repute, but good reputation.
Will has more than a handful of Fat Phoebe on his lap, and she's pouring wine into his beaker with the very generous nature her ample bosom hints that she possesses. The generosity is somewhat belied by the fact that the bill shall be all his to pay, but he lets her all the same. Tonight is a great night, as his Richard Crookback has successfully opened, and Ned Alleyn – too busy being Faustus to be Richard, but we shan't hold that against him – has only just announced his intention to marry Henslowe's daughter, or the daughter of his wife in any case, Joan something or other. Joan soon-to-be Alleyn.
Henslowe has just exerted his poor wits, poor but rich enough for most of the revellers, and the table bursts into coarse laughter.
"Henslowe!" Ned bellows, and the man smiles an amiable, drunken smile as the player walks over. "My good man." He towers above the theatre owner – to say that Ned is a giant is more than just a poor image for his talent – and slings his arm over his shoulders. "You must drink with me to Joan's fertile womb."
Will is distracted by the cry of "Kit!" that has just erupted at the entrance of the tavern, the welcome of a inebriated friend. The other writer strolls drunkenly into view, has to steady himself against a beam, and the hurt shining sharp in his onyx eyes is not so hard to read. In an instant Will has pushed Phoebe off of him and reached Kit, talked to him without saying a word, for men of words though they might be they know the value of silence, and all that is not said. All must be said on the stage, but outside of the playhouse the silences mean as much, if not more than the words, much as Will fears and despises that truth. Kit slumps against him and he walks him out of the tavern, then hesitates, ponders the destination that should be theirs.
He secures his arm around Kit's waist, catches the man's cloak right before it falls off and rearranges it hastily over his shoulders, ignores his muttered imprecations against players. This is not his business, something they never saw fit to confide in him; he's simply doing both Kit and Ned a favour, as he leads the way towards his own room.
Kit smells strongly of ale, and many a time he might have fallen had he not had Will's support. His angry words tumble past his lips like so many pearls slipping off the thread of a broken necklace, and Will fancies them the treacherous beads that lie under his feet and rob him of balance.
The stairs are a narrow ordeal and they bump into the walls on their way up. Kit's gone silent, and he drops on the bed when Will lets go of him to light a candle and fetch some water.
"You've brought me to your room," Kit remarks, and turns down the water with a dismissive hand motion.
"You're in too miserable a state to leave you alone in the streets," Will says, crouched in front of him. "I'd be a poor friend to abandon you now."
He stands and moves away to put the water down, stills at Marlowe's words. "Is that all you are to me? A great friend, indeed, but ay me, I am still robbed of what I would you were."
His back is to Kit, and when he looks over his shoulder he sees that the writer is lying on his back, an arm slung over his eyes, the picture of nonchalance. He looks away immediately and takes a drink of water to ease the sudden dryness of his throat. "Kit..."
"Oh, fret not, Will," the other man interrupts. "I'll not do a thing to affront your virtue, although an excess of drinks has rendered me unable to hold my tongue, it seems. They're but words, sweet poet, and words are naught but the phantoms of dreams, illusions we like to let ourselves believe." The nonchalance has bled out of his tone, leaving it a thing of sharp edges and sharper corners. Will turns around to find him sprawled in the same manner, but something in his jaw speaks of tension. "You know it as well as I, as they are our gift and curse both," and his voice takes on a pleading quality. "Give me a sonnet, Will. Make me believe."
He gives him a sonnet, and watches him go to sleep in his bed. He turns around on his stool, bends over his table and writes another five sonnets by candle light.
Dawn is creeping into the sky in small touches of pink and blue, lighter colours etched on the canvas of the stars. Will sits outside the tavern, cradling an empty tankard in his two hands. He's made merry all night, he's bedded Sue and cheered and laughed with the Admiral's Men, and he's drunk to her, again and again, and remembered her laughter and the softness of her wan skin, the radiance of her lustrous hair, the heaves of her bosom and moans of her sweet lips in the throes of love-making, and imagined her again walking on the faraway shore, free of Wessex but far from him, too. Oh, Viola.
"Not melancholy, I hope!"
Ned bumps into his side as he sits next to him. Others might have made it a question, or used a gentler tone. Will has just seen his lady wed to another in loveless matrimony and embark upon a ship for the new world, after all; he has a right to be maudlin. But Ned almost makes it a command, because for Ned, the world revolves around none other than Edward Alleyn.
Perhaps there is some truth in it, Will ponders, and the order of this world does not depend on kings and queens, but on the moods and whims of one famed player. Would that not be supreme irony?
"Melancholy? I've never been melancholy in my entire life, Ned," he blatantly lies, raising his eyebrows at him.
Ned is not, however, so easily deterred. "Has Sue not lifted your spirits? I've never found her wanting myself."
"'Tis not my spirits she's lifted, as well you know."
Ned breaks into a rakish smile, and bumps his shoulder into Will's again, voluntarily this time. "Now that's more to my liking, Master Shakespeare! Bawdy jokes are a certain barrier against lurking anguish."
"And what would you know of anguish?" Will retorts amiably. "Life would certainly never mistreat such a favourite creature of hers?"
Ned shakes his head. "I'm not beget of Life, Will. I'm beget of Nature, and so Life treats me as she will. Which is on occasion cruelly, as she is wont to do with all."
"I did not know you for a philosopher, Ned."
"You do not know me for a lot of things."
The words are out of his mouth before he can hold them back, treacherous quick little serpents hissing and poised to bite, fangs gleaming with poison. "I know you for a lot of things, just the same."
Ned does not seem to see the serpents, only smiles. "Spare me the endearing insults, eh? I too love you for the scoundrel you are."
Will's breathing eases; the serpents slither away. "No insults, my dear man. You are, as I once said, a gentleman. To which I recall you answered by calling me a shithouse."
"And I maintain my assessment!" Ned gets to his feet and shakes his head as if to clear it from the dregs of drunkenness. "Come, then."
He does not move. "Where to?"
"Does it matter? Live a little, Will! Let's see where our feet shall lead us. Inactivity bears down on me."
Will almost points out that they've both been up for almost a day now, but knows better. Ned is a boisterous creature, and he knows that others have loved him for his indomitable spirit. He puts the empty tankard down, stands, and they walk.
When he wakes, the first thing he sees is his ink pot. He lifts his head from his crossed arms slowly, and groans at the crick in his neck, brings a hand to his nape and rubs, hoping to ease the discomfort.
He only remembers about his guest, and why he fell asleep at his table, when a few parchments are carelessly thrown where his arms used to be lying. He knows the words he has written last night by heart, those markings scrawled across the vellum but an assurance that he keeps them not locked in his mind.
"They're rather good," comes the assessment.
He looks up at Kit, who's already turning away to go back to sprawling across his bed, a hand beneath his head. The writer has stripped to his shirt and hoses, and he bites into a piece of dry bread that is probably a few days old, smiles smugly at Will through his efforts at chewing.
"Quite so, indeed. My end is 'truth's and beauty's doom and date', say you? They even make up for the poor quality of the hosting. The food is horrendous, there was no wine to be found and believe me I looked, and ask me not about the bedding. Empty and cold. Thankfully the view was not so bad."
Will looks at him, and is reminded of a big feline eyeing its prey. He knows better than to rise to the bait. "Think you then that my lady will like them, for whom they were writ?
"Your lady is a fool, dear William, and thus I suspect she might not."
"And on what, pray, do you base your judgement?"
Kit's smile is more present in his eyes than on his lips, and Will knows it bodes ill when the writer stands and wanders closer. "I need not know her to deem her a fool." So tall a man, that crouches down in front of him now, head tilted invitingly to the side. "She's let you out of her bed, for any lucky soul to try and snare you into theirs."
Will does not react to the invitation. He knows when he is not truly wanted. "Ned –"
"Ah, blast Ned and all other self-absorbed players! Ned can very well marry all the wenches he likes." Kit puts a hand on Will's thigh, but he cannot feel its warmth through the rough cloth. "You've caught my eye from the very beginning, Will. Hunched over your drink, those intense eyes of yours lost in otherworldly sights, worlds none other than writers can explore, and I longed to explore them with you. Few would have seen what was between Ned and me, Will, and your eyes are as sharp as your wit."
"Caught your eye, eh?" he retorts, and puts his hand on Kit's to halt its steady progression. "Think you that I will be this easy, truly? Tell me, what happened to your promise not to offend my virtue?"
Kit raises surprised eyebrows, then frowns. "I was in the clutches of drink, and quite beside myself. Surely you shan't hold such nonsense against me." He frees his thumb from under Will's hand, rubs it gently on one of his knuckles. "And ay, my eye only, at first. Will you hold it against me? My heart was not yours 'til I read your sonnets this morn."
"They're but words, Kit, and you and I both know the lies that words shelter."
"We do," Kit agrees, and brings Will's hand to his lips, surprises him by foregoing the predictable kiss and applying a lick in its stead, a long swipe of hot tongue along the length of a curled finger. Will's whole being shudders. "And how we love to be deceived, you and I."
Will cannot but agree, and grant that he has lost this battle of wits. Their first kiss is that, a deception, a lie, a story they're telling with lips adding to words, and soon hands, bare skin and moans.
They stop under a porch when the rain starts pouring. Thunder claps as if the gods themselves were angry with the world, and the lightning strikes across the dark sky in an attempt to reach the reason for their anger. The strikes do not come close, and so Will feels comforted that he is not, this time, cause for their discontent, else the wrathful gods have very poor aim. The small, deserted square soon turns muddy, plagued with pools of dirty water, and Will leans against a beam of the porch, curls an arm around it, and sighs forlornly.
"Master Shakespeare," Ned scolds him in a melodic tone. "What did we say about melancholy?"
"'Tis pouring rain, Ned. This is where our feet led us. 'Live a little'? Catch a little death, more like."
"You're impossible. I'm not sure how anybody puts up with you, and I certainly don't know why I bother. You're not worth the waste of time." Will turns his gaze to Ned, wretchedness stirring within him. "Look at you!"
"Look at this!" he retorts, and in a sweeping gesture indicates the drenched square.
"Exactly!" Ned steps out from under the porch, laughing, and Will decides that he must be mad. Completely, absolutely mad. Ned extends his arms on either side of him, palms up, and tilts his head back, grinning at the pouring rain. In no amount of time his doublet, jerkin and shirt are soaked through, and where the doublet is open the drenched white shirt clings to his chest. "This is not a curse, Will. Water! Live a little, yes."
Will rolls his eyes, grabs the man's jerkin and pulls him back under the porch with a fond smile, does not let go but leans his hand against him after he's backed him into the beam. "Ned. Why do you care?"
For a second the man's insurmountable spirit falters, and gravity peers through. "You were there for him once. When I broke his heart, you mended it." It is said not with regret but honesty and simplicity.
Will pushes away from him, runs a hand through his hair, then whirls back to Ned and finds himself short of words. A poet of no words, and he hears her laughter echo in his mind, and sees Kit's amused twist of lips echo her mirth. "I love her."
"And always will, as he never stopped loving me," Ned answers, and sags a little against the beam, as if suddenly breathless from a long, exhausting run. "'Tis what you do. Writers. You deal in stories that are fixed for all eternity, and so live your life."
"What do players do?"
"They act."
Will looks away, and bites fiercely on the nail of his thumb. "You'll catch your death like that, and he'd never forgive me it." The rain has abated, the gods have been appeased. "Come to my lodgings, they're closer than your house. You need a good fire to put some warmth back into you."
This time, Will leads the way.
They have a hundred quarrels; their spirits are too close kindred to avoid them. They're about writing, and theatres, the court, the gods, players, money, tobacco, royalty, whores, anything, everything, and they usually end in clothes strewn all across his room or Kit's, shadows playing on their bare skin from the flicker of a candle and the movements of their passion. Soon Kit's body has no more secrets for Will, as he has explored it all in great details with hands and mouth, and the other writer has returned the favour oftentimes.
They never stop speaking, in between kisses, and licks, and bites, although they regularly interrupt themselves, and each other, with moans and sighs and chuckles and cries. But they need the poetry, they need the words and the fascination that comes with them, in a way they've never truly needed them with anyone else, because they are too acutely aware of the danger of silence. They are both men of words, and they strive to fill their every moment with them, for fear that the lies would crumble down to dust, the very dust that slips through man's fingers without hope for retrieval, or redemption.
They know the end has come nary three months later. Will brings up Ned, and his wife's swelling belly. Kit strikes back with Anne and the children, as if Will had intended to hurt him. Biting remarks turn into embittered shouting, and they resort to settling the dispute as they usually do.
They step forward simultaneously, a well-orchestrated choreography. Their teeth clash as their hands grip at each other, and when they break apart they are breathless, and neither one of them finds a word to speak. The lies weigh in on them, and Will sees the knowledge reflected in Kit's sharp eyes. This is the end, where all lies fail and the truth prevails. There is naught left for them but a last time, and a first, for silence sheds a new light on the proceedings, a harsh glare which sends the colours flaring to harmful life. A goodbye, and fare thee well, my friend.
Will's fingers stumble on the buttons of Kit's jerkin, and he hears the tear of material as he finds no patience within himself. He feels as if his insides had been lit on fire, and drinking from Kit's kisses and from the touch of his skin only could douse it. He thought he had learned everything about the man, and he can no longer even perform the simple task of undressing him.
There is a short struggle for power, and Will feels the cold wings of fear flutter inside his chest and brush at the walls of his lungs. They have never struggled for dominance before, too happy to give each other, or take, depending on the mood. Neither wins and they mirror each other's actions for one last stand of equality, hands stroking each other fervently, minds lost in a hazy maze of lust and spiralling darkness.
When they are spent Will is seized by sudden disgust at the light, and feels like reaching over to blow the candle out. He refrains, because Kit has just sit up on the edge of the bed, and Will can only stare at the light playing on his back and wish it were in his cards to pay a thousand more homages to this body, to use his tongue to revere the string of beads that is his spine, to run his palms over the shoulder blades and feel their sharpness shift under his hands.
"Know you the greatest lie we tell?" comes Kit's voice, a sinful whisper as ever. "We fix stories for all eternity, of love and hate, power and weakness, honour and deceit. But in the end, nothing lasts forever."
"God offers us eternity," Will ventures. His voice does not sound like his own.
"God is but another word," Kit says, but what he means is, God is but another lie.
Will puts his clothes back on and leaves in silence. This, he thinks as he walks out into the streets, this is truth.
"My true loves are my stories," he explains to Ned. "And thus my only lovers are my muses. She could have inspired me another hundred stories, and in truth I feel that she will."
"Why tell me this?" Ned asks, and the candlelight is playing on his face, flickering sharply in and out of existence in his eyes.
"Why come to my room?" Will shoots back, because being soaked is but an excuse and they both know it.
"I am no muse of yours," Ned remarks. "Nor have I any intention of becoming one."
"Oh but you have been, and will be again. You oft remark on my writings, Ned, for you have never been one to think poorly of your own opinion. And in so doing, you have helped me write best."
Ned is standing, leaning an arm up against the frame of the elevated bed. "Master Shakespeare, are you endeavouring to seduce me?"
Will feels more like Kit than himself, tonight, and wonders whether the departed soul has returned to possess him. Or maybe, for one night, he is a player more than a writer.
"But for one night, if you'll let me," he answers, still seated on his stool, and has a wry twist of the lips. "Although I must confess, my hopes were leaning towards you being the 'seducer' of the two of us." He grows grave again. "You loved him well. I shall never stop. But for one night, Ned, in memory."
Ned nods. Will stands, and they do not bother with the lie of a kiss.
But for one night, in memory, and in silence.
Fandom: Shakespeare in Love
Rating: R
Warnings: slash. Also, complete mangling of talented writers such as Shakespeare and Marlowe. Less well done than in the film, I'd wager.
Summary: set after the film. Said film was about theatre, this is about writing. And hot guys taking off their doublets and jerkins and hoses and what-nots.
Notes: I completely blame
shadesofbrixton for this, and she said she was looking forward to it even after I told her I couldn't get it right, so if this is atrociously bad it's her fault I'm still posting it. If it's, however, not atrociously bad, do let me know as well, and randomling for the beta job and being ever so lovely in general.To the end of reckoning
Will spends no time staring at the blank page this time. At the top he writes in plain, large letters, TWELFTH NIGHT.
Act One.
Scene 1 – The Sea-Coast.
Enter Viola, a Captain, and Sailors.
Viola: What country, friends, is this?
It writes itself out.
How does it end well, he wonders.
'Tis a mystery, he knows.
"Master Shakespeare," comes a voice, sultry and low, rich as the richest cloth, thick as the thickest honey, nothing as melodic as music, but something rare, a different quality. "Henslowe's spoken of you to me."
Will looks up from his tankard of ale. Fingers inkier than his, but the nails are not bitten, albeit just as short. A writer, then, not plagued by the same addiction as he. A poor doublet, carelessly worn, no jerkin. A man of little money, even littler care. The face tilted at him as the man takes a seat next to him, noble features, a smart, warmly condescending gaze, reflection of the smile that elaborates into amusement, approval. Eyes that have naught to do with the sun, dark and entrancing, not dazzling bright but deep wells of obscurity. Thin lips, no flower blossom, no such rich colour as can be found rising in maiden's cheeks when they are first uncovered, to be known and had.
Wariness surges to the fore of his being. He does not know the man, and has found out since his arrival in London that it is easier to make enemies without even noting the making of them, than friends if you were applying the whole of your being to the task. "Ill or well?"
"Ill, and thus well, as it is not his fashion to praise those he loves to any other man he deems a friend."
The wariness eases slightly, an expansion in his lungs, for the man clearly knows Henslowe, and seems to wish Will no harm. "You have me at a disadvantage, sir."
"And if I like it best thus?" The dark eyes twinkle, the glint of a wild beast's fang, a fancy gone as soon as it has been imagined into existence. "What would you have, my name?" The man raises his arm and motions the serving wench over. "Let me buy you a drink, Master Shakespeare, and you shall know the name of your benefactor."
After a moment, Will tilts his head in agreement. "If only to restore the balance. A compact. I shall drink with you, if you'll tell me your name."
They drink brandy. He almost chokes on his drink when the man casually drops his name. Not any writer, but he of Dido and Tamburlaine, Christopher Marlowe.
"Call me Kit," he murmurs against his beaker. "And tell me what you're working on, Will. I'm curious."
His quill has gone dull by the time he puts it down. He's written the whole first act, fuelled by the memory of her, although he thinks that he should probably rearrange the scenes so that the play opens on Orsino instead of Viola.
Oh, Viola. So fair, so soft, opening up so readily under him, and the way her fingers trembled when she first reached for him. And her mind, her laughter, and the love she bore him, the love she will bear him always, for to him she will never wane, nor fade, nor die, but stay ever young, and fresh, vivacious.
Willful.
He sprinkles sand over the ink, pauses, and sighs. Oh, Viola. The latest love which he has lost, but he is no Romeo, he will not die from this loss anymore than he has from the others. Anymore than he has from Marlowe's death.
Muses. Rosaline was a fancy, an illusion. The likes of Kit and Viola...
His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of boots coming up the steps two at a time, and he gathers the sand back in the small sander where it belongs before angling the stool he's on towards the door, unsure what to expect.
"Ho!" comes Ned's voice before he even bursts into the room, smiling brightly. "I'm seeking a bloody awful scribe by the name of William Shakespeare. It seems that he's wanted for some celebrations. Something about a play, the Queen, a wager and a partnership?"
Will cannot but smile back, for there is so much charisma in the person of Ned Alleyn, not the most famed player, growing favourite of her Majesty because of his good looks alone. "I've been writing."
Ned eyes the stack of parchment dubiously. "Anything for me? Something where I don't die in the third act?"
He lets the name roll off his tongue. "Orsino. A Duke."
Ned purses his lips. "Good name."
"'Tis what I said."
Ned raises his eyebrows. "Who...?"
"Her."
Silence stretches between them, and with it comes a dead weight of dark emotions dropped in Will's lungs. It's in how sombre Ned looks, how much power he sways over others' moods even off stage. Particularly offstage? Will stands and shrugs on his doublet. "Come, Ned. You talked of celebrations! What sort of merriment can I expect?"
Ned hangs his head, and smiles his impish smile. "The same sort as ever. The best sort. Laughter, ale and whores! 'Tis what you need, I wager, though you mightn't know it yet."
Will claps Ned on the shoulder on his way to the stairs. "Nay, my friend. I know it only too well."
'Tis what he needs each time after all. 'Twas what he had the night of Kit's death. 'Twill be what will take him through this night. The sun is waning outside, bleeding low over the rooftops. 'Twill be what will take him through the dark recesses of this night, and to the clear morning sky, to drown himself in the memory of her eyes. After each loss there is the need to prove himself alive.
Ned follows him down the stairs, a step behind, and leads the way to the tavern – a house of ill repute, but good reputation.
Will has more than a handful of Fat Phoebe on his lap, and she's pouring wine into his beaker with the very generous nature her ample bosom hints that she possesses. The generosity is somewhat belied by the fact that the bill shall be all his to pay, but he lets her all the same. Tonight is a great night, as his Richard Crookback has successfully opened, and Ned Alleyn – too busy being Faustus to be Richard, but we shan't hold that against him – has only just announced his intention to marry Henslowe's daughter, or the daughter of his wife in any case, Joan something or other. Joan soon-to-be Alleyn.
Henslowe has just exerted his poor wits, poor but rich enough for most of the revellers, and the table bursts into coarse laughter.
"Henslowe!" Ned bellows, and the man smiles an amiable, drunken smile as the player walks over. "My good man." He towers above the theatre owner – to say that Ned is a giant is more than just a poor image for his talent – and slings his arm over his shoulders. "You must drink with me to Joan's fertile womb."
Will is distracted by the cry of "Kit!" that has just erupted at the entrance of the tavern, the welcome of a inebriated friend. The other writer strolls drunkenly into view, has to steady himself against a beam, and the hurt shining sharp in his onyx eyes is not so hard to read. In an instant Will has pushed Phoebe off of him and reached Kit, talked to him without saying a word, for men of words though they might be they know the value of silence, and all that is not said. All must be said on the stage, but outside of the playhouse the silences mean as much, if not more than the words, much as Will fears and despises that truth. Kit slumps against him and he walks him out of the tavern, then hesitates, ponders the destination that should be theirs.
He secures his arm around Kit's waist, catches the man's cloak right before it falls off and rearranges it hastily over his shoulders, ignores his muttered imprecations against players. This is not his business, something they never saw fit to confide in him; he's simply doing both Kit and Ned a favour, as he leads the way towards his own room.
Kit smells strongly of ale, and many a time he might have fallen had he not had Will's support. His angry words tumble past his lips like so many pearls slipping off the thread of a broken necklace, and Will fancies them the treacherous beads that lie under his feet and rob him of balance.
The stairs are a narrow ordeal and they bump into the walls on their way up. Kit's gone silent, and he drops on the bed when Will lets go of him to light a candle and fetch some water.
"You've brought me to your room," Kit remarks, and turns down the water with a dismissive hand motion.
"You're in too miserable a state to leave you alone in the streets," Will says, crouched in front of him. "I'd be a poor friend to abandon you now."
He stands and moves away to put the water down, stills at Marlowe's words. "Is that all you are to me? A great friend, indeed, but ay me, I am still robbed of what I would you were."
His back is to Kit, and when he looks over his shoulder he sees that the writer is lying on his back, an arm slung over his eyes, the picture of nonchalance. He looks away immediately and takes a drink of water to ease the sudden dryness of his throat. "Kit..."
"Oh, fret not, Will," the other man interrupts. "I'll not do a thing to affront your virtue, although an excess of drinks has rendered me unable to hold my tongue, it seems. They're but words, sweet poet, and words are naught but the phantoms of dreams, illusions we like to let ourselves believe." The nonchalance has bled out of his tone, leaving it a thing of sharp edges and sharper corners. Will turns around to find him sprawled in the same manner, but something in his jaw speaks of tension. "You know it as well as I, as they are our gift and curse both," and his voice takes on a pleading quality. "Give me a sonnet, Will. Make me believe."
He gives him a sonnet, and watches him go to sleep in his bed. He turns around on his stool, bends over his table and writes another five sonnets by candle light.
Dawn is creeping into the sky in small touches of pink and blue, lighter colours etched on the canvas of the stars. Will sits outside the tavern, cradling an empty tankard in his two hands. He's made merry all night, he's bedded Sue and cheered and laughed with the Admiral's Men, and he's drunk to her, again and again, and remembered her laughter and the softness of her wan skin, the radiance of her lustrous hair, the heaves of her bosom and moans of her sweet lips in the throes of love-making, and imagined her again walking on the faraway shore, free of Wessex but far from him, too. Oh, Viola.
"Not melancholy, I hope!"
Ned bumps into his side as he sits next to him. Others might have made it a question, or used a gentler tone. Will has just seen his lady wed to another in loveless matrimony and embark upon a ship for the new world, after all; he has a right to be maudlin. But Ned almost makes it a command, because for Ned, the world revolves around none other than Edward Alleyn.
Perhaps there is some truth in it, Will ponders, and the order of this world does not depend on kings and queens, but on the moods and whims of one famed player. Would that not be supreme irony?
"Melancholy? I've never been melancholy in my entire life, Ned," he blatantly lies, raising his eyebrows at him.
Ned is not, however, so easily deterred. "Has Sue not lifted your spirits? I've never found her wanting myself."
"'Tis not my spirits she's lifted, as well you know."
Ned breaks into a rakish smile, and bumps his shoulder into Will's again, voluntarily this time. "Now that's more to my liking, Master Shakespeare! Bawdy jokes are a certain barrier against lurking anguish."
"And what would you know of anguish?" Will retorts amiably. "Life would certainly never mistreat such a favourite creature of hers?"
Ned shakes his head. "I'm not beget of Life, Will. I'm beget of Nature, and so Life treats me as she will. Which is on occasion cruelly, as she is wont to do with all."
"I did not know you for a philosopher, Ned."
"You do not know me for a lot of things."
The words are out of his mouth before he can hold them back, treacherous quick little serpents hissing and poised to bite, fangs gleaming with poison. "I know you for a lot of things, just the same."
Ned does not seem to see the serpents, only smiles. "Spare me the endearing insults, eh? I too love you for the scoundrel you are."
Will's breathing eases; the serpents slither away. "No insults, my dear man. You are, as I once said, a gentleman. To which I recall you answered by calling me a shithouse."
"And I maintain my assessment!" Ned gets to his feet and shakes his head as if to clear it from the dregs of drunkenness. "Come, then."
He does not move. "Where to?"
"Does it matter? Live a little, Will! Let's see where our feet shall lead us. Inactivity bears down on me."
Will almost points out that they've both been up for almost a day now, but knows better. Ned is a boisterous creature, and he knows that others have loved him for his indomitable spirit. He puts the empty tankard down, stands, and they walk.
When he wakes, the first thing he sees is his ink pot. He lifts his head from his crossed arms slowly, and groans at the crick in his neck, brings a hand to his nape and rubs, hoping to ease the discomfort.
He only remembers about his guest, and why he fell asleep at his table, when a few parchments are carelessly thrown where his arms used to be lying. He knows the words he has written last night by heart, those markings scrawled across the vellum but an assurance that he keeps them not locked in his mind.
"They're rather good," comes the assessment.
He looks up at Kit, who's already turning away to go back to sprawling across his bed, a hand beneath his head. The writer has stripped to his shirt and hoses, and he bites into a piece of dry bread that is probably a few days old, smiles smugly at Will through his efforts at chewing.
"Quite so, indeed. My end is 'truth's and beauty's doom and date', say you? They even make up for the poor quality of the hosting. The food is horrendous, there was no wine to be found and believe me I looked, and ask me not about the bedding. Empty and cold. Thankfully the view was not so bad."
Will looks at him, and is reminded of a big feline eyeing its prey. He knows better than to rise to the bait. "Think you then that my lady will like them, for whom they were writ?
"Your lady is a fool, dear William, and thus I suspect she might not."
"And on what, pray, do you base your judgement?"
Kit's smile is more present in his eyes than on his lips, and Will knows it bodes ill when the writer stands and wanders closer. "I need not know her to deem her a fool." So tall a man, that crouches down in front of him now, head tilted invitingly to the side. "She's let you out of her bed, for any lucky soul to try and snare you into theirs."
Will does not react to the invitation. He knows when he is not truly wanted. "Ned –"
"Ah, blast Ned and all other self-absorbed players! Ned can very well marry all the wenches he likes." Kit puts a hand on Will's thigh, but he cannot feel its warmth through the rough cloth. "You've caught my eye from the very beginning, Will. Hunched over your drink, those intense eyes of yours lost in otherworldly sights, worlds none other than writers can explore, and I longed to explore them with you. Few would have seen what was between Ned and me, Will, and your eyes are as sharp as your wit."
"Caught your eye, eh?" he retorts, and puts his hand on Kit's to halt its steady progression. "Think you that I will be this easy, truly? Tell me, what happened to your promise not to offend my virtue?"
Kit raises surprised eyebrows, then frowns. "I was in the clutches of drink, and quite beside myself. Surely you shan't hold such nonsense against me." He frees his thumb from under Will's hand, rubs it gently on one of his knuckles. "And ay, my eye only, at first. Will you hold it against me? My heart was not yours 'til I read your sonnets this morn."
"They're but words, Kit, and you and I both know the lies that words shelter."
"We do," Kit agrees, and brings Will's hand to his lips, surprises him by foregoing the predictable kiss and applying a lick in its stead, a long swipe of hot tongue along the length of a curled finger. Will's whole being shudders. "And how we love to be deceived, you and I."
Will cannot but agree, and grant that he has lost this battle of wits. Their first kiss is that, a deception, a lie, a story they're telling with lips adding to words, and soon hands, bare skin and moans.
They stop under a porch when the rain starts pouring. Thunder claps as if the gods themselves were angry with the world, and the lightning strikes across the dark sky in an attempt to reach the reason for their anger. The strikes do not come close, and so Will feels comforted that he is not, this time, cause for their discontent, else the wrathful gods have very poor aim. The small, deserted square soon turns muddy, plagued with pools of dirty water, and Will leans against a beam of the porch, curls an arm around it, and sighs forlornly.
"Master Shakespeare," Ned scolds him in a melodic tone. "What did we say about melancholy?"
"'Tis pouring rain, Ned. This is where our feet led us. 'Live a little'? Catch a little death, more like."
"You're impossible. I'm not sure how anybody puts up with you, and I certainly don't know why I bother. You're not worth the waste of time." Will turns his gaze to Ned, wretchedness stirring within him. "Look at you!"
"Look at this!" he retorts, and in a sweeping gesture indicates the drenched square.
"Exactly!" Ned steps out from under the porch, laughing, and Will decides that he must be mad. Completely, absolutely mad. Ned extends his arms on either side of him, palms up, and tilts his head back, grinning at the pouring rain. In no amount of time his doublet, jerkin and shirt are soaked through, and where the doublet is open the drenched white shirt clings to his chest. "This is not a curse, Will. Water! Live a little, yes."
Will rolls his eyes, grabs the man's jerkin and pulls him back under the porch with a fond smile, does not let go but leans his hand against him after he's backed him into the beam. "Ned. Why do you care?"
For a second the man's insurmountable spirit falters, and gravity peers through. "You were there for him once. When I broke his heart, you mended it." It is said not with regret but honesty and simplicity.
Will pushes away from him, runs a hand through his hair, then whirls back to Ned and finds himself short of words. A poet of no words, and he hears her laughter echo in his mind, and sees Kit's amused twist of lips echo her mirth. "I love her."
"And always will, as he never stopped loving me," Ned answers, and sags a little against the beam, as if suddenly breathless from a long, exhausting run. "'Tis what you do. Writers. You deal in stories that are fixed for all eternity, and so live your life."
"What do players do?"
"They act."
Will looks away, and bites fiercely on the nail of his thumb. "You'll catch your death like that, and he'd never forgive me it." The rain has abated, the gods have been appeased. "Come to my lodgings, they're closer than your house. You need a good fire to put some warmth back into you."
This time, Will leads the way.
They have a hundred quarrels; their spirits are too close kindred to avoid them. They're about writing, and theatres, the court, the gods, players, money, tobacco, royalty, whores, anything, everything, and they usually end in clothes strewn all across his room or Kit's, shadows playing on their bare skin from the flicker of a candle and the movements of their passion. Soon Kit's body has no more secrets for Will, as he has explored it all in great details with hands and mouth, and the other writer has returned the favour oftentimes.
They never stop speaking, in between kisses, and licks, and bites, although they regularly interrupt themselves, and each other, with moans and sighs and chuckles and cries. But they need the poetry, they need the words and the fascination that comes with them, in a way they've never truly needed them with anyone else, because they are too acutely aware of the danger of silence. They are both men of words, and they strive to fill their every moment with them, for fear that the lies would crumble down to dust, the very dust that slips through man's fingers without hope for retrieval, or redemption.
They know the end has come nary three months later. Will brings up Ned, and his wife's swelling belly. Kit strikes back with Anne and the children, as if Will had intended to hurt him. Biting remarks turn into embittered shouting, and they resort to settling the dispute as they usually do.
They step forward simultaneously, a well-orchestrated choreography. Their teeth clash as their hands grip at each other, and when they break apart they are breathless, and neither one of them finds a word to speak. The lies weigh in on them, and Will sees the knowledge reflected in Kit's sharp eyes. This is the end, where all lies fail and the truth prevails. There is naught left for them but a last time, and a first, for silence sheds a new light on the proceedings, a harsh glare which sends the colours flaring to harmful life. A goodbye, and fare thee well, my friend.
Will's fingers stumble on the buttons of Kit's jerkin, and he hears the tear of material as he finds no patience within himself. He feels as if his insides had been lit on fire, and drinking from Kit's kisses and from the touch of his skin only could douse it. He thought he had learned everything about the man, and he can no longer even perform the simple task of undressing him.
There is a short struggle for power, and Will feels the cold wings of fear flutter inside his chest and brush at the walls of his lungs. They have never struggled for dominance before, too happy to give each other, or take, depending on the mood. Neither wins and they mirror each other's actions for one last stand of equality, hands stroking each other fervently, minds lost in a hazy maze of lust and spiralling darkness.
When they are spent Will is seized by sudden disgust at the light, and feels like reaching over to blow the candle out. He refrains, because Kit has just sit up on the edge of the bed, and Will can only stare at the light playing on his back and wish it were in his cards to pay a thousand more homages to this body, to use his tongue to revere the string of beads that is his spine, to run his palms over the shoulder blades and feel their sharpness shift under his hands.
"Know you the greatest lie we tell?" comes Kit's voice, a sinful whisper as ever. "We fix stories for all eternity, of love and hate, power and weakness, honour and deceit. But in the end, nothing lasts forever."
"God offers us eternity," Will ventures. His voice does not sound like his own.
"God is but another word," Kit says, but what he means is, God is but another lie.
Will puts his clothes back on and leaves in silence. This, he thinks as he walks out into the streets, this is truth.
"My true loves are my stories," he explains to Ned. "And thus my only lovers are my muses. She could have inspired me another hundred stories, and in truth I feel that she will."
"Why tell me this?" Ned asks, and the candlelight is playing on his face, flickering sharply in and out of existence in his eyes.
"Why come to my room?" Will shoots back, because being soaked is but an excuse and they both know it.
"I am no muse of yours," Ned remarks. "Nor have I any intention of becoming one."
"Oh but you have been, and will be again. You oft remark on my writings, Ned, for you have never been one to think poorly of your own opinion. And in so doing, you have helped me write best."
Ned is standing, leaning an arm up against the frame of the elevated bed. "Master Shakespeare, are you endeavouring to seduce me?"
Will feels more like Kit than himself, tonight, and wonders whether the departed soul has returned to possess him. Or maybe, for one night, he is a player more than a writer.
"But for one night, if you'll let me," he answers, still seated on his stool, and has a wry twist of the lips. "Although I must confess, my hopes were leaning towards you being the 'seducer' of the two of us." He grows grave again. "You loved him well. I shall never stop. But for one night, Ned, in memory."
Ned nods. Will stands, and they do not bother with the lie of a kiss.
But for one night, in memory, and in silence.
