Shakespeare one shots

The one where Hamlet sets them up in the garden

My first shot at H2O. (Considering what happens to O, is this name awful or genius? You decide, dear reader.) Even without any shipping, I firmly believe this should be canon for how Ophelia and Horatio learn of each other's existence. It would be SO in character for Hamlet. Anyway: ambiguous era.

There's a reference to another fluffy fic in here, and if you're on Ao3 like I am, you might spot it ;)

Here. Have a ridiculously fluffy, kinda short, tentatively shipped piece of mostly-straight (though I stand by Horatio being gay) garbage.

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

"And you could only be Ophelia," Horatio said, smiling as if he had a wonderful secret, eyes glinting with knowledge behind his glasses.

Ophelia was beginning to understand why Hamlet liked him so much.

"A confident assumption, stranger," Ophelia teased. Okay, this might be a bit more like flirting than intended. Okay. This is fine.

Horatio sighed, then broke it with a smile. He beckoned gently to follow as he stepped away, and she took his arm. "Well. When I saw a girl wandering around the garden at sunset with dirt under her nails, I thought, 'this must be Ophelia,' because no one else I've heard of would tend to the flowers with a butterfly's touch quite like she would. Then the girl looked at me, and I saw the eyes like the sea after a storm, the golden hair of Apollo, the very essence of a spring fawn, and I knew it must be her. Ophelia; fae, nymph, firefly, lioness, fall apple, winter snow, flower crown, silk dress on a summer evening Ophelia. Girl of all girls, Horatio, and she loves me."

Ophelia giggled. "I take it Hamlet doesn't change much between Wittenberg and Elsinore."

"He does not, my lady," chuckled Horatio in the good-natured tone she suspected he always used.

"He's poetic about everything, then? Or rather, more things than just me?"

"Awfully."

They wandered in easy companionship. Ophelia occasionally darted off to examine some plant or another, muttering to herself about inadequate garden staffing, and Horatio patiently hovered until she returned to his arm.

"So you're the wonderful Horatio," she said, sitting them down on a stone bench facing her favorite fountain. "He won't shut up about you, either."

She watched the emotions flicker across his face like the prince had told her she must. Shock, delight, steady amusement.

"He won't?"

Ophelia didn't miss the badly-smothered hope, either.

"All the time," she mused. "He comes home in the summer just bursting with stories about his Horatio, his Patroclus, his Hyacinth, his Athena in an earthly body."

Despite his melanin to hide his blush (Curse him, I need that, she thought), Ophelia sensed the heat of his face. She smirked.

"Even just the way he reads, Phe!" she whined, managing what she thought was a pretty damn accurate impression of Hamlet. "It's like... Christ, I swear he's got a whole library's worth of words in his head, but I can't find one that comes close to describing him!"

Here, she feigned a sigh, holding Horatio's shoulder for balance as she leaned back with the force of the gesture. He laughed, spurring her on.

"Lovely, radiant, sublime, the very picture of scholarly perfection, ancient knowledge, eternal gentleness, sweet as the chocolate of his skin-"

"Ophelia, beauty beyond description," Horatio chipped in.

"Horatio, roaring fireplace and warm blanket."