Chapter Text
Hans had been poring over books for a week straight in the Devil’s Den, in turns temperamental and just plain silent. He’d taken to wearing plain clothes, instead of the embroidered and rich fabrics Henry was used to seeing on him, and wearing a beautiful rosary about his neck.
Now and again he would pass by Henry on the stairs and he would be mumbling under his breath about Mary, in constant prayer. His eyes were forever downcast and he barely addressed Henry directly; if he did, it was in an overly polite tone about some mundane thing. Please pass the bread, and such. As if Henry was some yokel in a tavern he’d met once and would soon forget entirely.
It was such a sudden and drastic change that it had sent the bandit-thronged inn into borderline hysteria. The gang had taken to calling him ‘the novice’ behind his back, even Godwin, and one morning the Devil laughed so hard mid-explanation that Hans had ‘turned to God in a desperate attempt to take him to an early grave before the hellish ordeal of marriage’ that he had almost choked on the bones of his breakfast chicken wing.
So when Hanush appeared, grave in the face of Hans’ newfound piety, Henry wasn’t surprised in the slightest. They both knew him well enough to know that this was less a humorous adventure out of his usual character and more on the side of a terrifying break with reality.
Privately, Henry had wondered more than once if Hans had been driven mad altogether by the events of the previous months.
“Henry, my boy,” Hanush’s large hand had landed on his shoulder, his face clouded with confusion. “My nephew has just informed me that he can’t marry without first atoning for his sins. Which he’s told me are many, and that I very well believe.”
A big sigh came from Hanush, then, and it tailed off in a wheeze.
“He said something about the most holy sacrament of marriage. How he doesn’t think he can stand in front of the Lord and be joined in — perpetuity, something like that — without his repentance. His sins happen to be so large that he insists that only a pilgrimage to see the Holy Sephulcre and the Holy Land could make some room for forgiveness. And, well…” His eyes weren’t on Henry’s face, and hadn’t been for a while. Perhaps for the entire conversation.
A tiny spark of panic flared inside Henry’s chest when he realised. Does Hanush — surely not, he had soothed himself. I’d not be alive, if he knew.
“I think that — and I’m sure your father will, too — I think you’re the best choice for a companion. So you’ll accompany the young lord on his journey. Make sure he comes back in one piece.”
“Yes, Sir Hanush.” Henry’s mind reeled at the thought of accompanying the newly-minted Pious Hans for at least a year more through the increasingly dangerous lands around Jerusalem. Danger, and more danger, and he’d have to listen to constant fucking praying throughout.
They set off a few days later, seen safely off on their journey by the very amused remnants of the Devil’s Pack.
When they’d at last ridden round the bend and out of sight, Hans had turned his head and looked at Henry.
“Audentes fortuna iuvat.” He’d grinned with the callback to a more naïve time, and for a second his eyes sparkled with mischief, becoming the old Hans once again. But it was soon gone, and Henry had told himself it was a trick of the light. The last glowing ember of a bonfire throwing out light.
They’d holed up at an inn for the night, paying a reduced price, as was the right of pilgrims seeking Christian charity. Hans had neglected to mention he was a noble, Henry had noticed, though he suspected it was more to do with his diminished groschen and less to do with the saintly virtue of humility.
The beds in their shared room were serviceable, and they had taken to them almost immediately after arrival, because the new godly Hans didn’t wish to become drunk but instead merely sate his thirst with wine. Cheap wine, at that. Henry briefly wondered what Hans of a mere year ago would think of that development.
“Hal,” came a voice out of the dark. The candle had been extinguished hours before and they’d lain in silence since. “Henry. I can’t sleep.”
“Hm.” Henry made a noise in his throat, trapped halfway between an affirmative and an affected sound of disinterest.
“Can I…” Hans continued, hesitantly.
It was as if he felt ashamed to admit he had trouble sleeping these days, to admit he feared that every minute spent unconscious was hovering on the precipice of certain death, or being awakened to the sound of screaming, or stone crumbling above his head.
Henry knew he felt like this because he’d whispered it, that night they’d lain together in Suchdol. I’m afraid all of the time now. I’m too afraid to sleep properly. He’d mumbled it into Henry’s collarbone and shifted backward, the film of sweat on his upper lip shining in the firelight, eyes wide. He looked so small and scared that Henry’s stomach had clenched and he’d wanted to clutch him close, kiss him again until desire replaced the worry on his face and gave him back the smooth and easy mask Henry knew he wore for everyone else’s benefit.
Henry had ended up just whispering back. I told you I’d never let anything happen to you. I’ll always protect you.
“Can I come into your bed?”
Another thing his betrothal had taken from them, and another thing their ill-advised passion had, too. In the time before, Hans would have barged in without asking, all sharp jabbing elbows and complaints.
He hadn’t cared if he was only in his braies — after all, it was only his Henry. He’d always taken up the whole bed and taken the blanket, too, and whined the whole night long about how he didn’t have enough room, that he was too cold or too warm or the room was too drafty, how badly the inn stank of horseshit, how loud the patrons were, until he fell asleep at last and Henry could sweetly burn beside him for hours, petrified of getting hard and elated at his closeness at the same time; stealing into his senses the smell of his lord’s hair, the softness of his skin so unlike Henry’s own.
Henry missed it so terribly. The waking up before Hans did — he was always lazy — with their feet tangled together and arm pressed against his side, the sweet safe home smell of the bed warmed by their sleep. Precious minutes like those that he used to have to himself in the morning light, back in the Devil’s Den before, with the summer air streaming through the window and victory seeming close to guaranteed. He’d tilt his face into Hans’ neck and imagine kissing him where it met his shoulder, wrapping his hands around his waist, his thumb brushing the hair trailing down his stomach so blonde it almost looked white when the sun hit it…
At the tail end of those mornings he’d risen and talked shit with Kubyenka over bacon, listened to Adder’s odd Polish rants, listened to Janosh’s laugh and Brabant’s tall tales. Admired close-up the straw colour of Hans’ hair, the very shade of perfectly-heated metal in the forge of his childhood years.
Now Adder was dead. Kubyenka badly hurt. Janosh was miserable. Brabant was a traitor that Henry had slit the throat of— quite happily, he’d admit. And all of the mutual desire and love that pulled him and Hans together, like the motions of the heavens pulled the earth in their inescapable grasp, had festered like an open wound and putrefied, turning Hans to stone for weeks.
Fuck off, he wanted to say, childishly. Fuck you. I won’t be the dog you call back when it suits His Lordship. You jump away like I’ve burned you every time we touch.
“All right.” Henry found his mouth saying, and almost as soon as it was out, he felt the rough blanket pulled away and Hans’ shivering body sliding in beside him. Henry’s hand went to his hip automatically and he wanted to curse himself, a hunter who stepped on a twig without looking and spooked the deer he’d been pursuing.
Hans didn’t protest: in fact, he shifted closer, the side of his foot brushing Henry’s ankle.
So my bed suits you now, does it? Another traitorous thought that Henry wouldn’t voice.
“I’ve been trying,” The truth always seemed to come out in the dark, where there was no light to see Hans’ face. Henry wondered if it was on purpose, sometimes. Like a wounded animal hiding in its den, so a predator wouldn’t see the shattered and useless leg it dragged behind. “I’ve been trying not to think about what we…“
Hans cleared his throat. His skin was so hot — radiating heat, really — that the alchemist in Henry wanted to interrogate him, ask if he felt any symptoms: digestive upset, chest tightness, dizziness…
Henry forced himself to stay silent.
“What happened between us in Suchdol, is what I mean. I’ve been trying not to think about it.” Hans took another laboured breath. “I thought if I didn’t that it would leave me. The wanting.”
A heavy moment of silence stretched out into two, spooled endlessly like a bobbin streaming thread.
So have I died unsaid in Henry’s throat. Every time I see your face I think of how you looked underneath me. How your eyes were when I made you come and you said my name like it was a prayer, and how you caressed my face when I licked your seed off your belly. You loved me then. I know you loved me then. You called me your love.
In Henry’s mind, an endless dream ran on a loop of Hans’ expression in that moment; his eyes impossibly bright and blue, his face, glowing with sweat, tilted back into the bed and mouth open. The shine of his teeth beneath pretty pink lips and the redness of his mouth in the dark that made Henry think of raspberries, jam bubbling in a pot, in all its warm wet sweetness. Henry, my Henry, my love, his lord had moaned as his stomach pooled with pearly drops of white, quickly stolen by a greedy tongue.
I’ve been trying not to think about it too.
“Well,” Henry broke the silence at last. “Has it worked?”
He felt the soft touch of Hans’ lips on the corner of his mouth — something he feared he’d never feel again, and had in fact given up hope of it some time ago. Hans’ hands went to the sides of his face, pressing into his jaw, and Henry knew the stubble on his cheeks would be surely scratching their palms, still not calloused by work and age.
Hans’ kisses grew quicker and more desperate, closed-mouth pecks that transformed into desperate bids for more, his tongue running across the seam of Henry’s lips. For a few moments, they stayed stubbornly closed, chaste as a maiden: then, Henry relented and felt the heat of another tongue in his mouth, flooded with the faint taste of wine and, underneath that, the taste of Hans that he’d never been able to erase from his mind.
Their kiss was broken rather quickly, but Hans’ humid breath brushed across Henry’s lips: they were close enough to kiss again, if they wanted to.
“No, you fool,” Hans muttered, sliding his calf up to sit flush with Henry’s, pressing their bodies closer together. “I’m only going on this fucking pilgrimage to give us more time. More time to plan how we’ll stop the wedding. Do you think I’d be traipsing through every backwater from here to the Holy Land for anything else? I didn’t want you to give anything away to my uncle.”
That was more of the Hans he knew, not the shrinking violet that had asked demurely to share his bed.
“I suppose by we you mean that I’ll find a way to get you out of it,” Henry grumbled in response. “As always.”
I told you before that I couldn’t deny you anything, my lord. My love. He would have to forgive Hans his coldness. He already had.
In a few moments, they were themselves again, together and half-asleep.