Disclaimer: Oddly enough, I don't own these characters. Chances are, after all, you had probably heard of them before I was even born, so endeavoring to claim the contrary would be foolish in the extreme.

Their competition of wit - Hamlet: VII, Horatio: IV, for the scholar was beginning to learn to keep pace with the prince - had been on the verge of devolving into lewdness and so they had broken it off by unspoken accord; this . . . love between them, open and affirmed, was too new to venture onto such ground. Horatio had shied off due to a natural . . . shyness, for want of a better word. Disinclination. Dirty jokes were not his province; he heard and noted them, as he heard or saw and noted all things, but he did not make them. He might undertake them one day - yes, that was definitely a possibility - but it would not be now.

Hamlet, for his part, was far from uncomfortable with such humor. At its basest, it was not his preferred style of jests, but there were ones that could be told using double and triple meanings, and, master of words that he was, Hamlet enjoyed these as much as he did witticisms of less indecorous subject matter. The Dane had even done a couple of pieces in the style of the Goliards, one of which songs - naturally, the one Hamlet thought the weaker of the two - seemed to have worked its way into the standard Wittenberg drinking repertoire. Even he, however, was glad not to tread such a path today. He was, if he could have put it into words (he never could, when it came to himself, not in a simple way at least), afraid of breaking this precious thing, this tender bond so newly forged between them . . . horrified of reducing it to crude ridicule.

They lapsed into silence for a while and even made a semblance of returning to reading, for they had nominally been studying in this otherwise unoccupied corner of Wittenberg. Such a scholarly facade, however, was superficial in the extreme, for it was Horatio who broke it first, going so far as to discernibly lift his head and look across at Hamlet - Horatio, who was known to sit for hours at a window in the library, to all appearances absorbed in a book and yet noting all that passed both within the room and in the world without. Hamlet caught the spirit of this new game, or perhaps was the first of them to truly discover it, and soon another competition, one of looks and glances, was well afoot. Being both observers, albeit each in his own way, they were on much more even standing here, although neither could have quite explained the rules or goals of the contest. Devoid of words though it was, it nonetheless managed to be more articulate than its predecessor, for rather than armistice, this one ended in withdrawal to the nearest private chamber.

As it chanced, this was Horatio's, though the matter would have been inconsequential save that when they at last broke apart from kisses and caresses and collapsed supine upon the bed to regain their breath, it was more by art than by chance that neither touched the other. Afternoon faded into evening and somebody would probably have to light a candle soon, but -

`Horatio?'

`Yes, my lord?'

`Which of us is . . . .' Words failed him. He knew what he wanted to say well enough, but words themselves let him down and gave him no decent way to express himself . . . nothing of which he approved. He forged ahead anyway. `Which of us is to be the girl in this relationship?'

Horatio pondered this for a while, for it seemed Hamlet expected one thing and wanted another. `I do not see,' he answered at last, `why we might not each be ``the girl'', at times.'

`It isn't . . . that's not done, Horatio!'

`Sodomy is not done, my lord.'

Hamlet thrust himself up on one arm, crying, `But - !' then paused, and, laughing, let himself fall back down upon the bed again, still shaking with mirth. Horatio too was smiling, silently, to be sure; Horatio's unobtrusive laughter, Hamlet called it, but he could seldom miss it. And in that moment the simplest words were right, and suited Hamlet perfectly. `Te amo.'

`Amo te.'