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It started—and ended—not with pain and screaming, like Hans imagined, or even the dull voice of a priest, like he expected, but with the click of a lock. It tolled with grim finality as the walls of Hans’ stuffy Suchdol casket closed in on him for good.
That was it, he realized numbly. A quick, urgent brush of their lips, a clash of teeth for the span of a single moment, and then a cold, crushing emptiness filled with Hans’ feeble apologies as Henry recoiled. That was all he would ever get.
He closed his eyes against the sound of footsteps, throat dry as he swallowed down his shame. He’d stomached the hunger of the siege, ignored the gnawing in his gut, but he couldn’t shake the one urge that should’ve stayed buried. And now, if Henry didn’t live to see the sunrise—if Hans didn’t—their last memory together would be of Hans’ blubbering. His moment of selfish, tender weakness, soft innards exposed like a hart strung up to carve.
Should he have laughed it off? Spun it into some inane jest? He’d done it before to keep Henry’s friendship when earnest words slipped past his lips too easily. He could’ve said a thousand things to brush it off, but he’d felt flayed in the moment, cracked open and feeble like a fledgling evicted from its shell too soon. Damn it all, it was too late. Too late, too—
A warm, solid weight rested on his arm and pulled. In a single motion, Henry was there, everywhere, the arm wrapped around Hans’ waist, the squeeze as Hans was pulled flush to another body. His chest thrummed with the brush of another arm reaching to cradle the back of his head.
Hans’ eyes fluttered, and he nearly staggered backwards as he went completely slack. Distantly, he registered the sound of firewood clattering to the floor.
Fingers threaded through Hans’ hair, guiding his face to press against another. Henry’s face—a sight so dear he’d know it by the imprint behind his eyelids. Stubble that had graduated to a beard over the course of a long siege. Long, delicate eyelashes. Deep-set blue eyes, recently hollowed by starvation.
With desperation, Henry chased along the edge of Hans’ jaw, before finally closing in on his mouth to press their lips together.
A soft groan left Hans’ throat, muffled by Henry’s mouth, and finally, Hans’ body caught up to him. He reached up to pull Henry as close as he could, and met his kiss with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
The brush of their jaws—Hans’ overgrown stubble meeting Henry’s short beard—burned with a friction so real Hans was dizzy with it. He was lightheaded, mind pulled in a thousand different directions.
His heart pounded to the unfamiliar beat of raw, unfiltered elation. The feeling surrounded him like the welcome embrace of outside air after too long trapped indoors. He leaned into their kiss, but his stomach twisted, sobering Hans immediately with hollow weakness in his gut and suffocating dread coiling around his throat. Oh, god, his eyes were stinging. He wouldn’t cry, he couldn’t cry.
Henry walked him back towards the bed, arms still tangled around Hans’ back in a tight embrace. They parted for only a moment as Henry laid him down on the lumpy mattress. Hans reached to wrap his arms around Henry’s neck to draw him in, gasping as Henry eased himself over Hans’ heaving chest, but Henry paused, worry lingering on his brow.
He ran a soothing hand down Hans’ flank and raised his gaze, searching for something in Hans’ face. He hoped he didn’t look as exposed as he felt, because if Henry leaned back to give him any space, the tears might actually start falling.
Hans swallowed heavily, head clearing slightly as he met Henry’s eyes. He nodded, a shaky exhale passing between them, and hoped it conveyed what he couldn’t speak aloud.
I want this. I want you. Stay.
Henry’s fond, tired smile washed over him like every kind of comfort Hans could think of. The soothing cool of a stream in late summer, the warmth of a fireplace in a cold castle, a heady perfumed bath, a hot meal at the end of a long day. It seeped through every place their bodies met and into his very bones.
Hans pulled Henry down to press their chests flush again. He leaned in and brought his head to the crook of Henry’s shoulder, pressed his cheek along the line of his neck, and lingered in that spot, listening to the sound of their mingled breaths.
He could feel Henry’s pulse against his cheekbone, beating a rapid, exhilarating rhythm against his skin. Henry leaned into their embrace, pressing his nose into the side of Hans’ hair. Hans was certain he was rank; properly washing his hair had not been high on his list of priorities, but Henry breathed him in anyway. He was shaking, slightly. Hans could feel it against his chest.
Hans reached up to cup Henry’s jaw, smoothing along his beard with as much gentleness as his unsteady hands could provide. Henry leaned into the feeling, exhaling long and slow in a breath that ghosted along Hans’ ear, sending a shudder down his neck.
Emboldened, Hans traced his hand down Henry’s jaw once more, before trailing a finger up the charming curve of his ear and finally resting his palm on the back of Henry’s neck.
Hans felt a stirring pressure on his thigh as he palmed the jut of Henry’s spine at the base of his neck. Hans lifted his thigh up ever so slightly to press between Henry’s legs.
He was rewarded with a hitch of breath near Hans’ ear and a low, almost apprehensive groan muffled into his hair, as if Henry was testing the waters.
Hans ground his leg up again, and Henry moaned soft and eager into Hans’ neck. Hans floated, distant in his body and uncertain he’d stay tethered to the mattress without Henry to ground him.
The sound pooled warmth in his empty stomach, dripping lower and lower as Henry began to rut shallowly against his thigh. Hans gasped as Henry reached between them to palm Hans’ soft cock, and a ravenous spike of feeling shuddered through him. He was suddenly, acutely aware of the gnawing hunger in his gut he’d learned to ignore.
Hans gripped the back of Henry’s neck again, firmer this time, rubbing a trail up to the base of Henry’s skull with his thumb and forefinger. With his other arm, he pawed at the ties of Henry’s chausses.
Henry, mercifully, caught on quickly, and leaned back to fumble at the front of Hans’ pourpoint. Slowly, reverently, he peeled back the gold buttons one by one, until his pourpoint lay open at his chest, revealing his linen undershirt.
Belatedly, Hans realized he was still wearing his hood, too focused on undoing one of the ties at Henry’s hip. With an awkward grunt, he shifted and shucked the red fabric over his head, tossing it away from the bed.
He was embarrassingly winded from the effort, and leaned his head back against the pillow to brace himself. Henry took the opportunity to clumsily shed the rest of his own outer layers, pulling his gambeson off with as few buttons undone as possible.
He’d chosen to forego wearing his armor, instead padding it with cloth and carrying it on his back to keep quiet as he scaled the fortress wall. He’d dropped it off by the door when he entered to wish Hans farewell.
Such a mundane thing. Clever. Practical, to the very end. Henry really intended to come back. The reminder sent a fresh wave of emotion through Hans’ chest. He scrambled to undo his own shoes and hose.
Hans reached to free himself from his braies, but stilled as a palm gently reached into the gaping collar of his undershirt and rested on his collarbone.
While Hans was fumbling with his hose, Henry had pulled off his undershirt and braies.
It was nothing Hans’ hadn’t seen before. He’d caught glimpses, once while hazy with drink in a shared bathtub, a couple times during a companionable wash in the river after a long day of travel. He remembered every time, the image of Henry sticking in the back of his mind. It had become a part of him, without him even realizing it.
He would never forget this.
Henry kneeled over Hans on the bed, haloed by dim firelight like a vision from the Lord above. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths, flushed pink along the pale expanse of skin that never saw the sun beneath his armor. The curve of his breast was gently furred, hair darkened and stuck to his skin with sweat.
The hair trailed lower still, to a place Hans had never dared to let his eyes linger. Nestled in a thatch of dark hair, Henry’s cock stood at half-attention, curving to rest near the crease of his thigh.
Hans’ breath caught in his throat, and he glanced up to look Henry in the eyes.
Henry gazed right back, downturned eyes bright and searching, raking over Hans’ body before coming to rest on his face with raw, open affection. The flush that decorated his chest graced his cheeks and ears in equal abundance.
Hans twitched in his braies as Henry looked him over, and he remembered that he’d been trying to remove them. He moved his fingers to grab the ties, but Henry leaned in and placed his other hand over Hans’, stopping him from undressing himself.
“Let me,” Henry murmured, soft and slow as a lazy summer breeze.
Hans sank back into the mattress without a word.
Henry ran his hands up Hans’ side and down his arms to his wrists, undoing enough buttons to free Hans’ arms from his pourpoint. Once the ties were loosened enough for Henry’s liking, he pulled it, and Hans’ linen undershirt, off in one go, though with no small amount of shuffling.
Hans huffed a quiet, breathless sigh. It would’ve been a laugh, if he’d had enough air in his lungs for it. Hans Capon, a fine paramour back in Rattay, exhausted and panting from the effort of removing his clothes with the help of his squire.
With Hans’ chest finally free, Henry wasted no time and bent over to rest his forehead on Hans’ bare breastbone. He breathed heavily against Hans’ skin for a long, drawn-out moment.
After a lengthy exhale, Henry turned his head to pillow his cheek against Hans’ breast. He smiled, the barest upturn of his lips, half pressed into Hans’ chest as they both caught their breath.
With a smooth, steady motion, Henry pulled Hans’ braies down over his legs and deposited them with the rest of their clothes.
Finally. Heat rose through Hans’ chest and up to his head, intensity leaving him unsteady and dazed. His stomach was eating itself, hands permanently shaky and twitchy with hunger, but still, some mad reserve of energy in him managed to push the blood in his body to plump his length to half-mast in anticipation.
Henry stared openly, hands hovering a hairbreadth away from Hans’ flushed skin, but not touching. He hesitated, as if the enormity of the moment had come crashing down on him.
“I—please. If you want,” Hans whispered, barely an exhale between their heavy breathing.
Henry looked at him like he wanted nothing more in the entire world. A look that promised an after. Today, tomorrow, twenty years. A look that would stay in that firelit room long after Henry left it, and would live, deathless and immutable, in Hans if he never reentered.
Henry kissed him again, and in the same breath brought their hips together.
Hans made a low, strangled sound into Henry’s mouth as he felt them slide against one another. The hot, pliant pulse of Henry against his stomach, slicked by sweat and the fine hairs beneath Hans’ navel.
Hans rocked into it eagerly, gasping as their lengths brushed side-by-side. Their meeting was eased only by sweat, but Hans couldn’t bring himself to care, shuddering as Henry pulled back and ground down again, harder this time.
The friction burned, not with pain, but sheer overwhelming intensity. A fire that purged, cleaned, and rearranged Hans—body and soul—from the inside out.
With a grunt, Henry shifted his weight and brought his hand down to bring them together, guiding the meeting of their cocks to a focused, razor sharp point of pleasure.
Hans keened into Henry’s grip, rutting a slick trail into his palm that Henry guided down to wet their frenzied meeting. Hans brought his own hand up to attend to Henry, stroking at the base of him where Henry’s hand didn’t reach.
Hans was approaching the precipice, not climbing steady and easily, but hurtling rapidly towards the cliff’s edge.
Above him, Henry eased off of Hans’ lips and instead trailed searching kisses all over his face; his sweat-streaked brow, the corner of his panting mouth, his closed eyelids. He lingered especially on the fold that ran down the side of Hans’ nose to the corner of his mouth, the place that creased with mirth whenever he laughed or smiled.
Henry twisted his palm over their flushed cocks in a long, gratifying pull that had their heads brushing slickness against each other. Henry moaned brokenly into Hans’ cheek, and something wet dripped down the side of Hans’ face—sweat, or spit, maybe tears.
Worry tugged at Hans through the haze of grasping friction. He'd been clutching at Henry's back with his other arm, but he reached up to cradle the back of his head instead. Stroked his ear in silent question.
Henry trailed lower and nodded into Hans’ neck.
He shifted his grip, pressing them together into Hans’ stomach. His hips stuttered faster, each thrust bringing Hans higher and higher. With panic, Hans realized he was starting to soften from exertion. He stroked himself and Henry together, sweating and gasping as he willed himself back to only half-stiffness.
Henry’s head trailed lower once more, mouthing down Hans’ collarbone and sucking red marks into his flesh. Hans pushed Henry’s head harder to his chest. He wanted to be marked, wanted the memory of Henry’s lips, his teeth, his solid, still-breathing touch seared into his flesh more permanently than a brand.
Henry obliged him, mouthing bruises across his chest. It made the angle of their thrusts awkward and incomplete, but the simple closeness of their bodies was enough to heat Hans’ blood to boiling.
After a final kiss to the side of Hans’ neck, Henry reached to press the flat of his tongue to Hans’ peaked nipple. He rested it there for a moment, wet warmth engulfing Hans, before giving him a tentative bite.
Hans’ vision blurred, his eyes watering with strain as the shout that wanted to exit his mouth was muffled to a whimper. Spurred on, Henry continued to lave his attention over his nipples, sucking marks on their ruddy flesh and the pale skin surrounding.
Hans was teetering over the ledge, held back only by the knife-edge of his own willpower and the desire to make Henry finish first.
Henry reached down, and instead of bringing them together, wrapped his fingers solely around Hans’ flushed cock. He tightened his fist, pressing the heel of his palm into Hans’ mound before stroking his grip up Hans’ entire length.
Hans’ unsteady resolve shattered with a single touch. It hit him like a handgonne gone off too close, leaving his ears ringing and whole body shaking. A gasping, wailing moan tore itself from his throat as his insides burned, too hot, too fast, too much. His sounds were quickly muffled by Henry’s mouth on his. Hans’ entire body pulsed with the feeling, high and sharp, sparkling behind his eyes and under his skin.
He twitched in Henry’s grasp as gentle fingers rocked him through it, pulling a few weak dribbles from his spasming cock.
The high lasted for a single, perfect instant, suspended in the warmth of their closeness. The silhouette of Henry above him blurred in and out of focus, dreamlike and fuzzy.
Henry pulled back, and at once, panic gripped Hans’ trembling body. Ice-cold dread doused any remaining warmth from his climax, and a weak groan left his lips. He fumbled for Henry’s hips to pull him in again.
Through his delirium, Hans knew that Henry hadn’t come yet. He’d meant to tend to him first, to give Henry a parting gift, perhaps for the last time. He’d wanted—oh, how he’d wanted, but he had no golden spurs or ornate hunting bows. The last thing he had to offer was a piece of himself.
He brought their cocks together in his fist, Henry stiff against his fragile softness. The sharp, unpleasant pull crawled up his spine painfully. It chafed at his sensitive flesh, wringing tears from his eyes like twisting water out of a wet rag.
“Keep going,” Hans begged, gripping Henry’s arse to spur him on.
“Are you sure?” Henry panted, stilling his thrusts.
“Please. I want you. Please—”
Hesitantly, Henry chased his pleasure with a few erratic thrusts. Hans heaved a labored breath and willed the stinging to subside. Henry must be close. He just wanted to hold them together as Henry came undone.
An errant thrust from Henry dragged the head of his cock across Hans’ oversensitive slit. His entire body seized, recoiling painfully against the sensation. A sob that he’d been holding back bubbled past his lips. He couldn’t breathe. His chest rose and fell with rapid gasps, but the air filling his lungs burned as if stale, wrong in some fundamental way.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pull Henry as close as possible, but Henry stilled completely against him. Against his stomach, Henry’s cock began to soften.
No. Henry had been so close. Just a little longer. He wouldn’t treat Henry like—like a bathwench. A vessel for his own pleasure, fun, playful, but easily discarded with a handful of groschen and a squeeze. Had it not felt good for him? Had he done something wrong?
Henry reached a trembling hand up to wipe the tears from Hans’ face, and the dam finally broke. Hans made a sound like a wounded animal. He turned his face away from Henry’s hand, hiccuping as his sobs darkened the pillow.
Hans heard a sharp, pained intake of breath above him. “Hans—Hans. Please, look at me,” the alarm was palpable in his voice.
He couldn’t. He’d ruined it—tainted the moment with his own shortcomings.
“Hans. Please,” Henry’s voice broke in the middle, wretched and pleading.
Tears blurred his vision, but Hans obeyed. With that voice, how could he deny him anything? He’d do whatever Henry asked of him.
Henry’s face came fully into focus, and it was not the face he’d seen just moments earlier. A view was one he’d not seen in months, not since their ill-fated meeting. Henry gazed down at him with the hollow, despondent eyes of the boy who’d just lost everything.
“Did I hurt you?” Henry whispered. Tears ran down his chin, dripping onto Hans’ chest.
“No—well...” Hans trailed off. “I just—I just wanted you to enjoy it.”
The wetness on Henry’s cheek caught against the firelight. He stared at the places his palms mapped across Hans’ body as if he’d find bloody handprints where he’d touched.
“I wouldn’t. Not if you don’t,” he said. His voice was raw, rough and wet with emotion.
Shame coiled its grimy fingers around Hans’ ribcage. He hiccuped and put his face in his hands, feeling wetness against his palms. “Oh God, Henry, I’m sorry. I’m so—“ for the second time that night, he blabbered meaninglessly, wasting the last moments of their time together.
“Don’t. Don’t apologize. Please. Let’s just…” he lowered himself to rest beside Hans, flopping onto his stomach with little ceremony. One of his arms was still slung over Hans’ bare chest.
“I can still…” Still what? Get him off, fetch some oil to consummate their half-completed Act of Sodomy? He could barely move.
He glanced at Henry, who had turned his head to the side to look at Hans’ profile. Henry’s eyes were still wet as he shook his head.
“We can just stay like this,” he murmured, reaching over Hans’ chest to tangle their fingers. He pressed a gentle kiss to Hans’ shoulder.
Hans gulped audibly, dryness in his throat. “I want to hold you,” he declared.
“Of course.”
Hands soothed up his side, not probing or groping, only gentle. Henry maneuvered their bodies to meet, bringing Hans' back to his chest. Hans shivered at the feeling of Henry’s chest hair against his spine. He wrapped both his arms around Hans’ shoulders and pressed his lips to the back of his neck.
“There?” The sound was muffled into Hans’ skin.
“I actually meant the other way around, but this is still nice,” Hans’ voice cracked embarrassingly, still hoarse from tears. He was blushing harder than when Henry had pulled his braies down. He’d never been held like that before.
Henry snorted, a warm exhale against Hans’ neck. “Anything for you,” he said, a smile in his voice.
Henry hoisted himself up and over Hans’ back as Hans shuffled back towards the wall, still on his side. It was not a particularly graceful maneuver, but in the end they wound up with their positions reversed, Henry’s scarred back to his chest.
The position was more familiar to Hans, and he relaxed into it, bringing his arms around to hold Henry tight to his front. The closeness was a luxury he rarely allowed himself—never with a paid lover—and he was loath to admit how much he enjoyed it. Perhaps more than the sex itself.
Henry didn’t seem to mind their change in positions. He slumped against Hans immediately, baring his neck as he rested his head against Hans’ arm.
At last, Hans had Henry right where he wanted him. He’d hold on as long as he was allowed.
Hans lingered in the moment for a long, long while. The smell of Henry’s skin, musky with sweat and a long siege. The warmth passing between their skin where they touched. The scars on his back, earned from months of service, and the scars on his hands and arms, burned into him by the forge.
He traced a finger down Henry’s chest, noting all the vital organs. The liver, the kidneys, the lungs, the heart. The humors in his blood that kept his body functioning. So many fragile places.
The fire was dimming in the room, embers fading to a blood-red glow. Their time was dwindling.
Henry shifted in Hans’ arms, and he knew.
He closed his eyes against it as Henry pulled away, moving ever further to a place Hans couldn’t follow.
Water welled in his eyes again as he heard the muffled sounds of Henry pulling on his clothes. Redoing the ties he’d hastily undone. He didn’t speak. He must’ve thought Hans’ was nearly asleep.
The footsteps returned to Hans’ bedside, and he nearly startled at the feeling of a damp rag running down his side, wiping away the spend on his stomach and the sweat on his chest.
The floorboards creaked as Henry kneeled before him. A hand laid itself against his cheek.
“I’ll return to you, I promise.”
The only thing to do was wait and hope he wasn’t lying.
Footsteps retreated.
The quiet click of the door rang out into the near-silent room louder than a tower bell.
Hans didn’t move, didn’t roll over from his side, still feeling the warmth from where Henry had held him. The phantom heat of a bare back against his chest.
Behind his eyelids Henry had just gotten up to stoke the fire, or to fetch the rag to wipe Hans down again. He’d be there if he opened them, as long as his eyes remained closed.
As long as he didn’t look up, the sheets weren’t cooling in the spot Henry had lain, the latch had been closed from the inside, and Henry was standing by the window, or by the bed, looking at Hans fondly. He’d smile, and reach down to card his fingers through Hans’ hair. There was a creaking nearby, and Hans could easily imagine Henry’s gentle footsteps approaching the bed to rejoin him.
Bang!
The sound of a door slamming nearby startled him so badly that he sat up with a violent lurch, eyes anxiously scanning the doorway. Still closed, but the sound had been so close. Too close. Hans was still bare, hair mussed and chest littered with marks. If someone had walked in…
But they couldn’t have. Henry had closed the latch behind him, Hans noted with dull resignation. The room felt so much smaller without him in it, his absence filling the space like heady, suffocating smoke.
The window. He had to breathe something other than stale sweat and misery.
He stood from the bed, knees almost buckling as he stumbled on his way to the dim window.
A cramped trickle of moonlight peeked through the narrow opening in the wall. Clumsily, Hans pushed aside the table blocking him from getting closer, and crammed his upper body into the funnel-shaped opening that led to the outside air.
He heaved a shaky sigh when a faint breeze finally hit his face. Finally. He squinted into the night as his eyes struggled to adjust to darkness after the warm firelight of his room.
He knew his window didn’t look out over the battlement Henry and Samuel would escape down, only a grassy field and the road leading up to the fortress. It didn’t matter.
Out in that field, he could almost imagine a small figure stealing away into the unwelcoming dark, taking with him something fundamental. Something vital. The liver, the spleen, the gallbladder, the brain. Henry lived in all those places, in every humor, every organ, every inch of Hans’ still living flesh.
He was the font of blood forming in his liver and pumping through his heart and veins. The black bile that grounded him and the yellow that spurred his temper. The force that kept his lungs breathing and the phlegm in his chest balanced.
Once, as a boy, he had read an old Latin text about a man who’d given fire to humankind. Whose gods had punished him each day with an eagle sent to devour his liver. Again and again. Why the liver, the source of blood, the place where human emotion made its home?
Hans knew why. A punishment for his softness, for care and fondness growing in a place no God had directed.
He closed his eyes against the encroaching dark. Felt the breeze on his face.
He was only a mortal man. He would not survive the eagle.
I’ll return to you, I promise.
Hans would wait forever if he had to.