AN: Everyone is always ignoring Davy's infatuation with Shakespeare but I love it so this was created

Davy Zlatic didn't discover Shakespeare until they were already at war. He didn't have a coping mechanism. Nothing. It was times like those that he regretted that his instrument of choice was the upright bass, because he missed that music more than he had ever expected to, and there was no way to recreate it.

No, he didn't have anything. So, he had to come up with something else.

The only problem was, he was in Germany. He didn't exactly have time to explore new interests and hobbies. Not only did he have nothing to keep himself sane, but he had no resources. It was only after a few weeks in hell that he found something.

One of the other guys stationed at the same military camp, a guy he barely knew, approached him. God only knows why he walked up to Davy with it, but he did. Supposedly his mother had sent him a book that she thought would help him, but he didn't want it. For some reason, he though Davy Zlatic would want it, so he went up to his bunk and handed it to him. 

Initially, Davy thought it was useless. It didn't mean anything, it didn't do anything. There was no way it'd help him. But one night, when he couldn't sleep because the sounds of gunshots were going off inside his head, he decided the pick it up and read it.

The Works of William Shakespeare. Davy'd had no idea what he was getting himself into. Sure, he'd heard of the guy, Shakespeare, but the only thing he'd heard of that he'd written was Romeo and Juliet, and that wasn't exactly Davy's taste. But, he'd try anything to get the noises to stop.

He stayed up for two hours reading until he'd made it all the way through Hamlet. He wasn't quite sure what about it infatuated him so much, but there was something about the phrasing that took him somewhere else. The words were from another time and another place, and if Davy concentrated hard enough, he could almost think that he was there instead of lying in a tent in Germany surrounded by a bunch of other guys all fighting for their lives.

Suddenly, he had found his coping mechanism. He read those words over and over again, and as much of it as he possibly could. He read them until they were almost constantly running through his head. Anytime he needed everything to stop, when he needed to block things out and be somewhere else. That was when he pulled the words of William Shakespeare out of depths of his mind and into the forefront. And then everything went away.

It wasn't much. It was barely anything. But he used it like a shield, he used those words to hide from things. He felt weak for it - he shouldn't have to hide behind anything. He was a member of the United States Army, for God's sake. But if he wasn't strong, her could pretend that he was. And that was sufficient.