home

Title: Sanctum Sanctorum
Author: kiltsandlollies
Note: Originally for lotrips100 this week, but I couldn't bear to cut it any further. I am weary with editing. 200 words.


Billy has spent hours in this place, learning his craft anew, speaking the speech as trippingly as his tongue will allow. Its silence and warmth have comforted him when nothing else has, and the current violation of that comfort makes him want to scream.

Elijah, Orlando and Dominic’s bottles clink (and spill, Billy thinks, and stain) at first in celebration of Billy’s debut as the Prince of Denmark. But their attention moves rapidly to other things, calling Billy back to a past too distant now to cling to, the way they do.

Billy hears Hamlet’s lines in his head now, not Peregrin Took’s. The “too, too solid flesh” speech is what sings in his veins, not any hymn to the Green Dragon. Dominic knows this and carries on anyway, his laughter filling the room.

This desecration of such a perfect present moment with memories of the imperfect past is unintentional, of course, as is Billy’s angry reaction.

Elijah and Orlando leave as one, hurt into silence. Dominic remains, waiting for Billy’s breathing to slow before he presses a kiss into Billy’s hair.

“Thaw, melt and resolve yourself, Billy,” Dominic says softly, and disappears.

Billy’s dressing room has never been quieter.


home