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"Careful, you'll spill!"
Hans raises his cup the heavens. "Then let it spill!" he crows, and downs the wine in one go, chin raised, eyes closed. His long throat bobs as he gulps and gulps and gulps, endlessly, impressively. Like he'd drown in it, if he could. But of course he doesn't; Hans finishes with a gasp and a flourish, dropping into a theatrical bow that demands applause.
Henry laughs as he collapses in a chair. "Where are you even putting all that?" he wonders philosophically, grunting with a stretch of his neck. He won't pretend it wasn't flattering, to be asked to dance by so many pretty girls—even girls he didn't know! Ladies from Kunstadt, giggling and glittering and rich, their eyes clever as they whispered in each other's ears, staring at him. Danger lurked there, he thought, so he kept all dealings to the dancefloor, and pays now the price for his good sense. "I swear I can hear you sloshing as you walk," he says, reaching down to knead his aching calves.
"My body is insatiable," Hans agrees, brimming with all the wisdom of the drunk. "And what I can't keep in, I'll just"—he hiccups—"I'll just piss out like a—like a HORSE!" he yells, then laughs, all of it too loud. A voice like that belongs to the feast happening behind him, to the racket and revelry of the well-lit hall. In this small and darkened room, it deafens.
Henry smiles, feeling stupidly, impossibly fond. He lets his head loll on the chair's back. "I don't doubt it."
"Good." Hans drops the cup and kicks the door closed with his heel. The sounds of celebration die off. "Never doubt me," he says, and sets off determinedly across the room.
Henry observes his approach. Even in banked candlelight Hans gleams: gold on white on even more white, his pourpoint embroidered beautifully with pheasants, pomegranates, leaves dancing in between. For his good fortune. The thread is made of real gold too—or so it seems to be, shining with luster, inviting the eye, the hand. Calling for a touch. Would it feel soft, to follow up those careful lines? The belt mars the pattern, cinching his waist, and the hose—the hose is white to match the rest of him, and it's shocking, the pure brilliance of it. By all rights it should have stained during the night, and yet here it is, pristine.
Hans comes close, then closer, not stopping when their shins collide. He straight up clambers on top of Henry, and the precarious pointiness of his knees spurs Henry into action. "Hey now," he warns, huffing a laugh. When he grabs Hans's sides to steady him his skin feels hot under the cloth, fever-warm. "You'll fall."
"I don't care," Hans says, and kisses him.
The wine on his tongue tastes rich. Henry licks after it, delves deeper. Hans cups both of Henry's cheeks to tilt his face up, bossy with the advantage of higher ground. Henry lets it happen, content to be drunk in, to bask in the warmth spreading bright and heady through his core.
Still. One of them should have sense. He pulls back—and his mouth gets to be chased after for its efforts. Henry bites Hans's lip in a reprimand he only half means. "Won't your lady wife be missing you?"
"Oh, leave me be! She's fine. Didn't you see her back there? She's having more fun than the rest of us combined." Hans takes hold of Henry's shoulders, runs his palms down until his long fingers are spread over Henry's chest. His eyes darken. "You looked good tonight."
The compliment lands more earnestly that perhaps either of them expected. Henry ducks his head. "Thanks," he says bashfully. Like this he can see his own clothes, expensive enough to belong to some other body, some other man. And yet they fit. The blue is a darker colour than he's used to, and the stitched patterns are appropriately restrained, but the quality is undeniable. He can feel it on his skin; the silken warmth, the easy smoothness adhering to his limbs. It's a decadence to even move in this.
Hans seems to agree. He rubs at the fabric with a drunk man's fascination for all sensation, distracted by this apparent novelty. His hands migrate from Henry's chest to his biceps, and there's nothing subtle about that fondling. "No wonder you were so popular out there. Did you dance with all the female population of Bohemia, or just the half?"
Henry grins, now on familiar territory. "That's just my humble peasant charm, sir. Can't help it."
"Piss! I'll show you what that charm is worth! No, it's definitely the clothes." Hans toys with the gambeson's buttons, circling the bronze nub like he's doing something much more vulgar. "I think you should thank whoever procured them for you."
"Is that right?"
"Yes, that's right. That's absolutely right." The button is finally delivered from its cruel torture, and Hans pulls the rest free one by one, a slow, coy procession. "In fact, you should let that person do whatever he wants right now. Including taking this thing off you."
Henry grabs Hans's wrist to stop him, not out of real protest but just to be bastard. "What if I want to keep it on?"
Hans sways where he stands—his weight on his shins, on Henry's seat, with his knees bracketing Henry's thighs, an absurd and mutual act of balance. He considers Henry thoughtfully. "Well, alright," he says, easy as a shrug, and slinks down to the floor.
"Wha—Hans!" For all that Henry was the one to start goading he's still shocked at the result. He gapes down at Hans's bowed, blond head, already focused on the mission ahead. "Your hose!"
"Your hose, he says," Hans grumbles, muttering to himself, or perhaps to Henry's crotch. "That's what he says. Unbelievable." Pale fingers fish out Henry's cock with remarkable dexterity. "The bustiest wench could offer up her cunt to you and you'd just gawp and stutter like an imbecile. Does this tool of yours even work?" he asks, even though he's holding the proof of it in his hand, red, hefty, burgeoning from soft to eager in seconds, in mere fucking seconds.
"Jesus Christ," Henry breathes out, spreading his legs. It's insane, the immediacy of his arousal, the way it hits him like a punch and leaves him dazed, worse than any drink. His mind scrambles to catch up while his hips thrust up. Then, belatedly, "and fuck off, I've been with more real, actual women than you."
"Hardly!"
"Hans," Henry grits out. "Can you be serious for a second?" He glances at the door, at the sliver of yellow light leaking in from outside. His hand shoots out on instinct—to stop him? to shield him?—and when it lands on Hans's own he grabs at it, crashes their fingers together and pins them to his thigh. "The feast isn't even over yet."
"They won't miss us," says the literal groom. Hans has completely liberated Henry's cock by now, and he's pumping it shamelessly from tip to base, his blue eyes dancing. "Afraid everyone will know just by looking? Then maybe you should take care not to spill all over yourself. Just think of it—that sordid, dirty white splattered on your expensive clothes."
Henry blushes so powerfully he feels dizzy from it. "Don't," he chokes out, one half of a don't you dare that gets lost somewhere in his straining lungs. He can't breathe. This is how he dies. "Hans," he pleads.
"No?" In a devastating move Hans takes Henry fully in his mouth, one quick and slick suck that ends before Henry can react. Hans unlatches with a pop and presses the cockhead to his lips—tantalizingly closed, damn him—while stroking the shaft. His eyes are too bright, too mesmerising. "Shall I swallow the evidence, then?"
Arousal spikes in Henry's belly—along with a murky irritation, a need to punch back. He grabs Hans's hair—hard, harder than he meant to—and pulls his head back, far enough to trap him in his grasp, long throat on display. "Or I could paint all over you instead," Henry says—growls, really, in a dark, thick voice he's never heard himself use before. "Smear my seed on Lord Capon's pretty little face, so you can go kiss your wife with my essence dripping from your cheek. How about that?"
Hans's breath hitches. This is the part where he's supposed to fight back—except he's saying nothing, doing nothing other than stare up at Henry, wide-eyed, slack-jawed, astonished. His wine-touched cheeks redden even more, the flush spreading up to his forehead and down his neck, probably even further down to his pale chest. He makes a tiny oh sound at the back of his throat. When he swallows the click of it is audible.
You can't, Henry tells himself, very sternly. Somewhat desperately. You absolutely can't. Maybe he needs to say it out loud to Hans as well, because he just sits there, docile, as if he's asking for it. As if he wants it. It'd suit him too: white streaks on his noble cheekbones, his chin, his hair. His open mouth. Henry lets go before they both lose their sanity—but keeps his palm close to Hans's skull, applying no pressure.
In the end even Hans has a kernel of good sense buried somewhere inside him. He braces both hands on Henry's thighs, bows his head, and wordlessly starts sucking him.
Henry lets out a long groan, leaning back in his chair. The image of Hans kneeling so sweetly between his legs, obedient in his labour, industrially bobbing his head—it adds to the heat spreading in Henry's loins, in the tightness of his hamstrings as he thrusts up. His hand is still on Hans's head, and he usually never does that, never bothers to encourage or guide. But he does now. He pushes down—not much, just enough to make his intentions known. To cut off all avenues of escape. He's crushed men's skulls in battle before, seen the red viscera burst around his sword pommel like overripe fruit. Hans's bones feel so fragile in his grasp; so delicate; so precious. He tightens his grip until soft hair prickles the inside of his palm.
Hans moans around his mouthful of cock. He speeds up, and he's been getting better at this—so much better, unfairly skilled, lips cushioning teeth, tongue playing tricks. He barely drools. A pity; the same dark instinct in Henry that keeps his hand heavy wants to see him shining with spit. He presses down, keeping time with his bucking hips. Hans allows it. It turns him sloppy, makes him choke, a wet, filthy sound.
Henry bites back his own sounds. The pleasure is overwhelming, pulsing in his cock, gathering dense and urgent in his core. He's sweating too much. His clothes feel tacky on his skin. Hans himself is starting to flag, inhaling loudly through his nose as his rhythm slips. But he's nothing if not determined—he keeps working his spit-slick lips, gasping when he can and slobbering when he can't, taking Henry deeper until—until—
It's now, it has to be now. Henry's climax reaches its crest, and he has time enough to call a warning but he—doesn't, just doesn't, and moans instead, and spills, right where he is, into that soft mouth, that molten heat. Hans gulps it all up; he swallows and chokes and works his throat, nose pressed to Henry's pubic hair because Henry is pushing down, still spilling. Henry whines deep in his own throat. He throbs; it hurts to come. It must hurt to drink it in.
They work at it together, until Hans has sucked the last drop with a hum, his eyelashes low and beautiful against his cheeks. Henry feels numb, oversensitised. His cock convulses in Hans's mouth, trembles even worse once it meets cool air. Hans laps at the softening chub like it's nothing, like he's enjoying the taste, and every swirl of his tongue on the sensitive cockhead makes Henry see stars.
It's over, somehow, finally. Hans sits back with a satisfied sigh, wiping his mouth. He laughs, a little shakily. "Well!" he exclaims, his voice bright despite its hoarseness. "How about that?"
Henry can't speak; his lungs are heaving too hard for it. At one point he grabbed both armrests, and now he clutches at them for support, needing the comfort of their stability. "Uh." He swallows to wetten his dry throat. "Yeah," he manages, too out of it to parse more words.
Hans doesn't seem to mind the lack of response. He neatens Henry up, tucking him back into his braies with nimble fingers, babbling along the way. "You know, Henry, I think I'm actually getting better at this. Not that it's a competition, of course—but I suppose it is a skill like any other, albeit a—well, uh, a niche one. Still! It's exciting, isn't it, to know there's improvement waiting for us in our futures?"
The words wash over Henry. He feels exhausted all of a sudden, his body heavy despite the aftereffects of pleasure still tingling on his skin. Maybe the drink is finally catching up to him. The room looms dark around them, the candlelight no longer an intimate thing but somehow gloomier, a seedy shadow. Henry's heart turns to lead. It's ridiculous—it makes no sense—but the sheer drop from high emotion to this bewildering, inexplicable depression is so abrupt it brings tears to his eyes.
"Henry?" Hans asks sharply. He looks up with a frown, then stands up, leaning forward to peer worriedly at Henry. "What is it, what's wrong?"
Henry shakes his head, still lacking words. He struggles through an inhale, wipes at his nose, and then just—hugs Hans, right where he's standing, burying his face into Hans's stomach. It's an awkward, stooping position; it makes his spine protest. He's entirely beyond caring. Hans's arms immediately wrap around him, filling him with warmth.
"Alright," Hans soothes, clearly not understanding everything but willing to comfort, always. His hands are steady as he strokes Henry's back. "It's alright now, Hal, hush."
Henry's breath shudders through him. A tear leaks out, and he rubs it off on Hans's pourpoint, letting it seep into the fabric. The golden thread scratches his cheek. "Sorry, I'm—" he swallows back the grief, feels it catch in his throat. "I don't understand why this is happening."
"That's fine, it's fine." Hans's hands migrate from Henry's back to his nape, up into his hair. He pets him so tenderly that for a second Henry feels like a child again, and a fresh wave of heartache washes over him. "It doesn't need to make sense," Hans keeps going, the calm pillar at the centre of it all. "It will pass."
It does pass; slowly, effortfully, with Henry's eyes aching and his head pounding from the tension, but it passes. Henry can breathe clearly. He's been clenching Hans's pourpoint in his fist, he realises. When he lets go the patterns leave their grooves on Henry's palm, a lingering ghost. His shoulders drop.
Only then does Hans speak up. "I'll come find you," he says, his voice decisive. "When I'm—when this is all over. I'll come to you."
"What?" It's enough to shake Henry out of his fugue, and he leans back far enough to frown at Hans. "Hans, it's your wedding night."
Hans suddenly looks fierce. "I don't care."
"What do you mean, you don't care? You have to care!"
"I don't have to do a fucking thing! So what if it's my—my wedding night? It's not like I need the whole bloody evening for it!" Hans grabs Henry's shoulders—then reconsiders and reaches up to cup Henry's face, as if he won't accept anything other than his full attention. "I'll talk to Jitka—and if that doesn't work I'll straight up sneak out of bed. I've done it a million times before, I can do it again."
Protesting would be the moral thing to do. The honourable path. Henry truly means to do it, he does, feels the words taking shape in his mouth—but something mean and petty and —jealous, he admits, has to admit—wrests control of his body. His palms slide on Hans's waist, down to his slim hips. His thumb rests on that hidden jut of bone, covered by cloth, only visible to those who know it's there. Henry knows; he knows what it looks like bared. His fingers dig in. "Alright. I'll wait for you."
Hans's whole face brightens with a smile. He looks so—pleased, genuinely happy, as if he's the one getting a favour instead of handing out a boon. "Leave your door unlatched," he instructs, bowing down to kiss Henry's brow, his mouth. "I'll take care of everything else."
No other choice for it. Henry feels viciously glad regardless. "I know you will," he says, and accepts the next kiss.