Exactly what the title says. Alongside being rich, hot, funny, smart, and occasionally competent, Hamlet is (though I sometimes forget about it because he's such a dumbass) royalty, and that gives him a whole myriad of strings to pull as he pleases.

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Hamlet, by his own opinion, was simultaneously the most perfect and most ill-suited for his title. Of course, he always failed to take into account his baby-soft skin, his large collections of books, his ability to talk to anyone he wished to at any time, and his wardrobe which cost more than the average Danish farmer made in a year.

All of the above tipped him more toward perfect, but he resolutely clung to his fierce hatred of all the pomp and circumstance. He wished for the crown but was too lazy to walk down the red carpet to fetch it and would instead whine about it from the entrance hall, draped over a velvet chaise lounge.

Per his aforementioned ability to talk to anyone he wished to at any time, he had barged into a professor's office long after hours and bribed himself an extension on a particularly troublesome essay. He was gloating to himself for this accomplishment, smiling a smile of cat-like smugness, and fussing over the clasp on his cloak.

It was winter at Wittenberg and there were no gaudy bearskin rugs to lay on as there were back home in Elsinore, so all the rich young bastards were making do with fur-lined everything and pretending that shivering in silence was noble.

His princely, fur-lined boots crunched over the snow of the courtyard, leaving behind indents and then large sweeps of cloak among the patterned footprints set over the course of the day. As much as his more regal side hated to admit it, the many childish parts of him were positively sobbing about how the wind bit at his face, so he almost mistook it for his own internal monologue when he heard a cry of distress.

Almost. Hamlet looked up, and wasn't terribly surprised to see a group of three boys in fur-lined cloaks (of slightly worse quality than his, he noted, though they obviously couldn't help it) jeering at a lad without a cloak who was frantically trying to rescue a small explosion of parchment from the snow.

The cloakless one dutifully ignored the synonyms of "dirty peasant" thrown his way, blowing snowflakes off his papers and replacing them carefully in his bag. Hamlet mentally commended him for his dedication, and was about to continue on his way when one of the cloaked boys ceased his name-calling to land a hard shove on his victim's shoulder, sending him sprawling backwards into the snow.

Hamlet could not imagine the discomfort of laying in snow without the proper clothing, and the boy's evident lack of anything warm aside from the knitted scarf around his neck nearly gave the prince a cold just thinking about it. So, figuring he couldn't get into too much trouble, he fixed a bored look on his face and sauntered over.

"Ho there," he called, causing all four fellow students to look his way. He smiled under the attention. "Having a snowball fight, are we?"

Hamlet wasn't sure whether it was his distinctly sardonic tone or the fur-lined everything he was wrapped in, but the cloaked boys seemed to decide he was friend rather than foe.

"Just a little horseplay, my lord," said one of them. "Apologies if we disturbed your peace."

"Oh, not at all," said Hamlet. "My peace has been overdue for a disturbance. I don't believe I've made your acquaintance?"

The cloaked boys recited their names and titles (Basil, Maynard, Remington) with the proud tone only achieved by people with lofty expectations and no will to reach for them, but fell awkwardly silent when Hamlet looked expectantly at the cloakless boy on the ground, who had recovered himself and almost all of his parchment.

He gave a small start when he realized he was being looked at. "Horatio," he said quietly. "Horatio Roman. That's it."

Hamlet made a not-bad-face and held out his hand to shake. "Hamlet of Denmark."

Horatio Roman That's It took his hand tentatively, and the prince did not miss how he dipped the tip of his index finger into the soft rabbit fur along the edges of the glove. Hamlet allowed the touch and said nothing of it, then turned to the three noble something-or-others.

"A good evening to you, gentlemen." Then separately, to Horatio, "And a good evening to you, Mr. Roman. I would suggest you have the buckle on that bag replaced, lest your assignments escape again."

Now, Prince Hamlet of Denmark is not known for his good common sense, nor for his control over his emotions. He is, however, known for his spontaneity and unexpected split-second decisions, which he tends to act on as soon as possible. So, when he heard the snicker of "I bet he can't afford it" and the sound of a buckle strap being ripped from its seams, he promptly whipped around.

"Horseplay, is it?" he snarled, plucking the leather strip from gloved hands. "Just having a little fun? I wasn't aware that harassment and property damage were common activities of entertainment for the minds of children you three seem to possess."

The beginnings of a protest began forming among the three cloaks, but Hamlet dampened that fire by yanking his right glove off with his teeth and removing one of his rings, a simple one with his family's royal crest emblazoned on a circle of silver set into the band.

He grabbed Horatio's hand, then paused in the middle of his flourish to ask a silent question. Horatio nodded ever so slightly, and Hamlet slid the ring onto his middle finger.

He summoned his best approximation of his father's Serious Kingly Decree voice, knowing he hadn't quite mastered it yet but adding his own little hiss that he thought made it work.

"Do not speak to this boy again. He is under the protection of Prince Hamlet of Denmark, Heir to the Royal Throne and third of my name. If you so much as look at him wrong, I will know, and you will answer to me. He is mine."

~~~

As famous as the proclamation became, Hamlet never once repeated it for another fellow student, or anyone else at all. Horatio (immediately deemed "Hamlet's Horatio" to remain forevermore) gained a good deal of Wittenberg fame for the prince's uncharacteristic use of his royal leverage, but would forever claim he had no idea what he'd done that was so special.

Hamlet later admitted to him, in private, that it was because his immediate impression of Horatio was that he would be utterly gorgeous lounging on a bearskin rug with little else to keep the chill from his skin. (Hamlet is known for his spontaneity and also his unrelenting libido. Horatio indulged him the first time he accompanied his prince home for the holidays, confirming the first impression. The rug, a lavish polar bear pelt, never quite recovered its previous innocence.)

Whenever the prince told the story of their betrothal, years after the bearskin rug incident, he took liberties as expected, and tended to use the events of their meeting as inspiration.

He would regale his listeners with a dramatic tale of how a lovely young woman had been forcing her affections on Horatio, whom he was desperately in love with, and how he spoke at the last moment before Horatio would have given in to her advances. He told of how he had flung himself to the ground in front of his beloved and begged him not to leave. He told of how Horatio had lifted his head with gentle hands, caressed his face, and promised to be his for the rest of their lives.

It was a tearjerker.

The real story was this: Hamlet forgot that the ludicrously expensive engagement ring was in a pocket of his favorite doublet, which he carelessly dropped on the floor of their bedroom as always. Horatio came across the ring while tidying, knew exactly what it was, and wore it for almost two weeks before Hamlet noticed.

Afterward, Hamlet took to smugly kissing the ring on Horatio's finger whenever any "lovely young woman" would "force her affections" on either of them. Many of the women (and men) in their lives realized this and took to doing so, just to see Hamlet wrap himself around Horatio, kiss his ring, and growl, "Mine." Horatio, because it made Hamlet beam like the damn sun, took to doing the same.

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I wrote this after listening to Bunnicula on audiobook for several hours, and I heard this entire thing in Chester the cat's voice. In all honesty I think it improved my writing style a great deal.

As per usual, I had a small plot bunny festering in the back of my head and then just typed whatever the fuck my sleep-starved brain desired. Most of it was written in a hotel room in Wyoming, and the last of it the morning afterward in the car.

I'm on a toad trip.

A thousand apologies again for the increasingly sparse updates, my darling faeries. May lovely young women force their affections on you only when you want them to, probably when they're very cute and sweet and you're a lonely queer like me.