Work Text
Something clicks in Alfred’s mind the moment he sees the pair of them.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Childhood friends with the Prince of Denmark. The Prince’s name- Hamlet. He’s mad. Or acting as such. They were sent for to fix it. Hamlet will betray them after they betray him, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will die in England.
His mother always said that he saw things other people didn’t. She also said that it must be a gift from God. Alfred thinks that’s wrong; he doesn’t believe in God, though he would never say it aloud. He knows there’s something up there but it doesn’t feel divine.
“Or rather woman, or rather Alfred- get your skirt on, Alfred-”
Alfred shakes himself out of it and grabs the dress, and starts shoving it on. The Player keeps talking, smooth, selling it, until- the one speaking- hits him. The Player stops. “Get your skirt off, Alfred…”
The number
98
hits him like a bolt of lightning as he’s doing so. He turns the number over in his mind like a coin.
Heads. 98. There’s more, but that’s where they stopped counting it.
The one speaking is angry. Guildenstern- or is it? He knows it is. Unimportant. It might as well be Rosencrantz.
They go to leave.
they won’t
“Excuse me!”
“Ha-alt! A-al-l-fred!”
Alfred starts shoving it on again.
They thought it, they hit it, but then they got it wrong
, he thinks, madly, savagely, unbidden.
Divine intervention. But not so divine. 92 heads in a row, because They wanted it. Only question is
why.
Why? It’s absurd.
Alfred feels sick. He wants to leave.
He doesn’t know anything about the majority of people. There’s only a few- like them- that he knows things about but then the knowledge is like a
flood
, like words splayed in front of his eyes that he doesn’t want to read.
He shouldn’t leave. He’s not supposed to. He doesn’t want to. But he’s only ever had this a few times before and it’s dizzying-
“Do you like a bet?”
Alfred closes his eyes, and he can see the entirety of the next scene laid out in front of him in his head.
Head. Head. Head. Head. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. It starts up like a drumbeat.
“What kind of bet did you have in mind?”
Heads. Heads.
“Double or quits.”
“Well-”
Heads.
“Again? Evens.”
Heads.
“Again.”
Heads.
“Tails.”
Heads. Heads.
“Heads.”
“No!”
Heads- heads. Heads
“Heads I win.”
“No.”
“Right again.”
“Heads I win.”
Heads. Heads heads heads- headsheadsheadsheadsheadsheads
“No.”
“And right again.” Guildenstern flips it one more time.
Tails.
“Heads I win.”
“No!” The Player says indignantly and turns away. Unlucky. For the Player. Lucky for them two, though.
In the face of- next to- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern- he’s losing himself.
major minor character characters background background background
His part’s coming up, though.
Suddenly, the Player pushes and leads him forward, and then his head
s
is absolutely clear.
He looks up. Guildenstern regards him sadly.
“Was it for this?” Guildenstern says to the Player.
“It’s the best we’ve got,” the Player replies.
Guildenstern looks around, his gaze measured. “Then times are very bad indeed.”
The Player opens his mouth to say something, make some sort of protest, but Guildenstern turns on him viciously. “The very
air
stinks,” he sneers, looking the Player dead in the eyes.
Then he turns and looks away, and softens. “Come here, Alfred.”
Alfred comes forward hesitantly. He feels frightened, small.
“Do you lose often?” Guildenstern says gently.
“Yes, sir,” Alfred says.
“Then what could you have left to lose?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Guildenstern looks at him for a moment.
Do you like...being an actor?
“Do you like being an actor?”
No, sir.
“No, sir.”
Alfred wants to leave. But he’s not sure where he’d go.
-------
“You did alright today, Alfred. Of course, you could do better, but, alright.” The Player quirks his head.
“Thanks, sir,” Alfred says automatically.
“And call me by my name. I’m always having to remind you to do that,” the Player says gruffly.
“Yes, _€|£hjsh/@:o,” Alfred says automatically again, forgetting the name as soon as it leaves his lips. The Player has a name, of course, but it’s not important, so it doesn’t really exist. Not
truly
. It’s all Alfred knows, anyway.
The feeling of unnatural, unknown certainty is what led him to the player in the first place. Alfred had been babbling about uncles and deaths, coins coming up heads, poison in someone’s ear, a man named King Claudius, since he’d been born. His mother had ignored them all as fantasies, until the day when King Claudius actually took the throne in Denmark after King Hamlet’s death; after a few frantic discussions with the local priest, Alfred had been declared as blessed with foresight by God.
The pull had been irresistible. When he had met the Player, that was. Irresistible. Unstoppable. He was
meant
to go- decided beforehand- he
had
to-
There’s no God, Alfred thinks. No real one. There had been someone who had created everything, long ago- old. Ancient.
Hamlet.
Someone. First.
And then someone else-
Rosencrantz
- someone who made the coins flip-
Guildenstern
- they didn’t make, or maybe they did, they changed and expanded-
are
- and they did that. A second Someone.
dead.
If the first one had been a God, then the second, a lesser one. A pantheon. A hierarchy? No. Yes. Gods-?
And then the
last
one. More shifting, expanding. But- only Alfred. Alfred only.
Why?
Someone. Three- Someones. Someone a something that wasn’t divine.
His life- why?
Alfred feels sick.
And he always wants to leave, and always has no idea where to go.