He supposed he'd never get used to hearing voices coming around the door as he came home. One soft voice reading aloud from his texts, in soft light, that poked its way around the edges of the closed door. Sometimes he'd sit outside and listen to the uninterrupted and sometimes hilarious attempts of the kid. It wasn't like any of the neighbours were under the delusion that he'd use prop weapons… anymore.

Sion seemed to be having trouble with one line in particular. Repeating it over and over in various voices:

"Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness"

Though watching the idiot struggle was its own kind of amusement, it had gone on long enough. He opened the door and the reading stopped. The kid seemed more surprised than he should have been. There were the rats resting on his shoulders as he read. "what are you gaping at, idiot."

"I didn't know you could be summoned using Ophelia's name…" The kid said making Nezumi tense.

"I don't answer to that unless they're paying me." He said with a forced calm.

"Why?"

"You haven't finished the play yet? Have you?"

"No…"

"Well then understand, no comparing me to Ophelia, or Desdemona, or Juliet. If I am anyone I am Viola."

"Is she one you'd answer to without being paid?" Sion asked Innocently.

"I have a soft spot for her." He rolled his eyes and picked a worn copy of Twelfth Night from the shelves before sitting down heavily next to Sion.

"Why?"

"Full of questions…" Nezumi tutted. "Well during a terrible storm, she washed up near the estate of the Duke, who is pretty much the biggest sap there is. She thinks crossdressing will make her life easier after the duke takes her in and everyone is fooled cause she is fantastic at it. But she quickly makes the Duke fall in love with her causing some serious confusion in the duke. They actually live happily ever after…"

"That sounds wonderful!" Sion said wide eyed.

"Doesn't it though? I usually hate comedies… but… I guess I can identify." Sion leaned in close to see the words better. Nezumi cleared his throat and hesitated. "You should read for Orsino."

"But won't I make her cry?"

"Viola's tougher than Hamlet. Besides that's why I'm here. I'll coach you through it."

"Err okay…

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before…"

And they continued, settling slowly into each other's bodies. Nezumi often had long periods of attempting various voices and trying to restrain his hand gestures, which would send Sion flying.

When Sion got to the lines:

Come hither, boy: if ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are,
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?

Though falteringly and slowly, with blushes rising from late realizations of what he had just said, Nezumi seemed not to care, he'd practically turned the boy into a pillow.

"It gives a very echo to the seat

Where Love is throned" Nezumi said, looking straight into Sion's eyes. And making the poor, innocent kid nervous for reasons entirely unrelated to the lines.

"Nezumi, you might have this memorized, I still have to read…"

"I'm just acting out the things going on in Viola's head." He murmured into Sion's skin.

"You're not acting like yourself…"

"Mayhaps I'm bewitched." Nezumi had a gleam in his eye that was rather unfamiliar. He'd put his hands on either side of Sion's head, looking down at him half in fun and half in all seriousness. "Wouldst thou be ruled by me?"

Quick cutesy stuff... Mainly sparked by my utter annoyance whenever a couple is compared to a ShakespeareanTragedy. The Hamlet/Ophelia thing has come up in a couple of the books I've read lately... I have NO expectations for any couple compared to them. What about the comedies though? Viola and Rosalind are so loveable AND THEY LIVE.

Written to the tune of F+TM's "Ship to Wreck" which is surprisingly apropos for the Twelfth Night thing...

No ownership implied.