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They’d been talking for some time. Henry’s gaze kept drifting to the corner of the Devil’s Den where Hans and John II of Lichtenstein were chatting animatedly. He had no memory of seeing Hans so engaged in conversation, and smiling so much, while talking with someone who wasn’t him. John had paid them all a visit after the success at Suchdol, never very far away when the Margrave was around. Although unlike Jobst he’d decided to stay to catch up, “with Sam, and maybe ride with him to Kolín, and of course I barely had the chance to congratulate Sir Hans on his engagement”, in his own words.
Henry thought the congratulations had gone on long enough, and that for someone who wanted to ride out with Sam, he hadn’t seen much of him yet. His mind made, Henry shifted to get up from his seat and walk over to them. But just as he was rising from the bench, a hand slammed over his forearm and pinned him in place.
“Sit down,” Zizka hissed, speaking out the corner of his mustache.
Henry stayed put, but didn’t hide his confusion. No one else at their table seemed to have noticed Zizka’s odd behaviour; too in their cups for it. The Devil was commanding their side of the room, putting on a pantomime of some past exploit that had all their company and assorted Devil’s Den patrons riveted.
“The two of you were always bad. But it’s gotten terrible since we got back. You can stand to let him talk to Lichtenstein without going over there.”
Henry forced out a dry chuckle through the lump in his throat. “What are you talking about?”
Zizka rolled his remaining eye at him. “Don’t play dumb, kid. It’s clear as day to anyone who’s spent any time commanding hundreds of men. I’ve seen it all before, you’ll get in trouble if you don’t learn to--”
Henry didn’t want to have this conversation, not now nor ever, so he wasn’t going to. He shifted out of Zizka’s grip and got up at last. He cast the man a smirk over his shoulder on his way across the room, and was met only with a disgruntled huff and a shake of the head. The problem though, was that once he went over to Hans and Lichtenstein he had no idea what to say to either of them.
“Henry!” John said, raising a tankard in his direction. “Have you come to join us? Have a drink.”
“Actually, my lord, I think Sam was looking for you.”
Lichtenstein cast a look about the room. “Where is he? He should join us as well.”
“Curious, he was just here,” Henry said, scrambling to find the quickest way out. “But I also need a word with Sir Hans.”
Hans looked up at him slowly, his gaze hazy with drink. “I love our talks.”
Henry clasped a hand over his shoulder and tried to lift him up from the bench. “We’ll be right back, my lord, please enjoy yourself.”
Lichtenstein spared them a good-natured wave and got up as well, likely going in search of Sam, who Henry hoped had gone for a ride and wouldn’t be back for some time. Long enough for Lichtenstein to get drunker and forget all about what Henry had told him. In the meantime, he steered Hans outside of the tavern floor and up the stairs to their room with only minimal difficulty, the drink made him buoyant, accommodating to a fault. On the short way to their room Henry managed to work himself into a temper at the state Hans was in, wondering if he would have gone up with any man who’d put his hands on him.
They stumbled inside and Henry locked the door; a gesture Hans was sober enough to notice with a leer.
“Are you going to have your way with me? Is that why you brought me here?”
“You made it easy,” Henry said, not sounding like he wasn’t accusing him of something.
Hans staggered to his bed and fell backwards on it with a chuckle, kicking off his boots as he went. “Bad blacksmith’s boy, you couldn’t wait a little longer, it had to be right now?” His eyes sparked with mischief, Henry realised that he had just gifted him a golden opportunity to be insufferable.
He recalculated. “You were making a spectacle of yourself, I just wanted to put you to bed before you were made a fool of.” He grinned, before adding, “Sir.”
Hans narrowed his eyes at him. “Is that so? I was having a very pleasant chat with John. He was telling me what delightful company I made just before you interrupted us.”
That might very well be true, but Henry couldn’t help noticing that Hans was sounding much more sober, the bastard. “He was as drunk as you, the two of you were talking so loudly half the tavern could hear your conversation.”
“What were we talking about?”
“I wasn’t paying attention, I just heard the sound of your voices. It carried.”
“Shame. If you were listening you’d have heard me tell John I love nothing more than to make you beg to take my cock.”
Henry stalked towards him with a grin, already undoing the ties of his hose. If that was how Hans wanted to play it he was going to take it out on his hide. “So you were lying to the poor man? Because if I recall correctly what you actually love most in the world is bouncing on mine. Can even spend from it alone, which gave me a fright the first time it happened because I thought I’d gone and finally fucked you stupid.”
Hans opened his mouth to retort but no words came out, he huffed and started working on his own hose, but Henry noticed the deepening flush on his cheeks and neck. Hans tried his best, but he was no match for Henry’s crass commoner’s tongue. Or the places it had been. The drink made Hans’ fingers clumsy, so Henry stepped out of his hose and joined him on the bed only in his braies, planting one knee between his legs, and slapping his hands away. “My lord has no practice taking off his own clothes.”
“High time you took to your duties as my servant. That’s what I keep you around for, isn’t it?”
Henry hummed, deftly untying the knots of Hans’ hose and sliding them down his legs. He cupped Hans’ knee in both hands and placed a kiss on its soft inside, smiling at the ticklish shiver it elicited. “I think it’s mostly to fuck your lordship stupid.”
Hans tried to kick him in the chest, but Henry caught his foot with a grin and kissed his sole, before biting down on the meat of his instep to make him yelp. He caught him around the waist after that and climbed up on the bed, boxing him down onto the mattress. “This is where I like you best.”
“Underneath you?” Hans rolled his eyes with a scoff.
“Within biting distance.” He opened his mouth over Hans’ neck, who went tense in anticipation of Henry’s teeth, but at the last moment Henry changed course and pecked him on the lips instead.
“Sentimental fool,” Hans’ whispered against Henry’s closed lips. He cupped the back of Henry’s neck and deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue into his mouth and nipping at his bottom lip. Henry could show his sharp teeth all he wanted, but it was Hans’ privilege to bite first, to draw blood, to offer himself up like a reward for Henry’s dogged loyalty.
And Hans was generous with his rewards. Two bows now, Hans had gifted him. One for besting him, another for loving him, even though neither of them had known at the time the depth of the feeling or the sincerity of the gesture. Hans laid his claim brazenly, he loved outfitting Henry in his colours. Mine was his favourite pronoun. Followed closely by, ours, and we, and us.
Henry had seen his only home destroyed, and everyone he’d ever loved murdered or scattered, he belonged nowhere. The greatest gift Hans had given him was a place at his side. But this was a fragile home, one Henry must protect at all costs, from much more than an invading army. It still stunned him that Hans who had so much would want him too. He could chalk it up to greed, if it weren’t for the fact that of all his possessions, Hans treasured him most.
They got out of their remaining clothes at four hands, stopping and starting to poke at each other’s naked skin, to tease and to taunt.
“Eager aren’t you?” Hans asked, wrapping a loose fist around Henry’s cock just to feel him harden in his palm. Outside of their desperate first time together, Hans liked to make it a challenge, the hunt got him going. Henry could play the prey when the mood suited him, but he was a better bloodhound than hare.
“Always, when I get to put my lord on his belly.” He wrapped his own fist around Hans’ hand on his cock. He slicked his thumb on the fluid beading at the tip and raised it to Hans’ mouth, smearing it on his lips. Hans sputtered indignantly for only a moment, before Henry held him in place by the hinge of his jaw and forced his mouth open. Then he went still as a lamb and allowed Henry to feed him his thumb, pressing down on his tongue until Hans’ lips closed around the finger. Eyes shut, he suckled.
“That’s it. Take what you need, I’ll never let you starve again.”
Hans whined, low in the back of his throat. Henry replaced his thumb with his lips and lowered Hans back onto the bad, blanketing him with his body. They kissed messily, Henry caught both their cocks in his fist and stroked lazily, using the their combined fluids to make it slick. Hans could be trusted to make a mess of himself, which Henry couldn’t help finding endearing, like he was overexcited, being touched for the first time every time. “As if Lichtenstein would know how to handle you. Jobst’s errand boy wouldn’t know his way ‘round you with a map and god’s guidance.”
Hans chuckled into the crook of Henry’s neck, gripping the short hair at the back of his head and pulling hard. “Crazy bastard. He had no such designs, although he might share the inclination.”
Henry spread Hans’ legs with his knee, making more room for himself between them. “As long as he keeps that inclination to himself. You are my lord, mine.”
And if he had his way, he’d leave a bright, purple bruise high up on Hans’ neck for all to see. As it stood he settled for sucking on the soft skin below his underarm, milky, smelling strongly of him, untouched even by the sun. Hans kept one arm placidly raised out of the way and his other hand on the back of Henry’s head, an overbearing hold that couldn’t hide that he was allowing Henry to do as he pleased with his body.
“What are you saying? Lichtenstein is a lord himself—”
“Exactly. That means you’ll never be a lord of him, and in turn he can never make demands of you.”
“Is that-- Is that what you think you’re doing?” Hans’ breath came out stuttered, he widened the angle of his hips in naked invitation. Henry’s teasing had driven him to impatience. Henry nuzzled the wiry hair of his armpit with a chuckle and slackened his hold around both their cocks, making Hans whine.
“How will you repay me for my fealty, Sir Hans?” Henry asked, tracing a path from Hans’ underarm to his lips. “You can’t offer your protection because that is my role, you wouldn’t cheapen the extent of my devotion by offering me coin, I am a noble’s bastard, so you can’t even offer me a minor title or land without risking offending my father. In order to preserve your honour as a nobleman the only thing you have left to reward me with is yourself.”
Hans let out a suffering chuckle, hips canting up into Henry’s fist in search of more friction, and the tighter grip that Henry kept refusing him. “The twists and turns of your mind, blacksmith…” And yet he agreed, Henry could tell by the delight in his eyes. Hans had always wanted to be someone’s favourite, a childish desire borne out of being an orphan at a young age, perhaps, even though it had taken Henry some time to notice the loneliness hiding beneath the choppy waters of his arrogance. For all his riches, his loved ones counted a dead father, a mother in need of remarrying and then dead herself. And an uncle all too happy to remind him that he was all he had left.
Now he had Henry too, for however long he saw fit to keep him.
Henry grazed his teeth against the grain of Hans’ stubble wishing again that he could leave a mark on him, something ugly and crass, and unmistakably his. The bow of his desire pulled taut, he was impatient to take aim. He released his grip around both his and Hans’ cock and lowered the fingers slick with their combined fluids between Hans’ thighs. Hans let out all the air trapped behind his teeth when the first wet finger tested the tight rim of his hole.
“Not even going to use spit?” He asked, but he didn’t stop Henry when he pushed the finger inside.
“Just testing how eager you are,” Henry said, adding a second finger before Hans could knee him in the chest.
“Less by the minute. You best hope you can make it worth my time, or I’ll be forced to find more suitable company.”
“That so?”
Henry tried to keep his tone teasing, but real bitterness bled through. He lived in fear of the day other people figured out how to read Hans as well as him, and found that he was immanently lovely. One day they would no longer be able to delay Hanush’s wedding plans and Henry would have to share him with some noble Lady who he’d have to swear loyalty to. His parents’ situation was enough to disabuse him of the idea that marriage equaled love, but if nothing else they had found companionship in their shared misery. Henry supposed he could tolerate it if Hans and Jitka had that, but love… he prayed he’d never have to find out. And yet, he could not find it in himself to resent the woman whose wishes had mattered even less than Hans’, and who’d be burdened with giving him an heir whether she loathed him or loved him. A boy with Henry’s name, god help them all.
It was safer to displace his jealousy to Lichtenstein, to a safe target, an easy win.
Hans cursed him under his breath. “There’s a tavern downstairs full of drunken louts who’d probably jump at the chance, and further on the baths where plenty of wenches—”
Henry interrupted him with a mean grin and meaner twist of his fingers. “Would also jump at the chance, provided you paid them first.”
He fingered Hans’ slowly, getting him used to the stretch, but mostly missing the spot that would give him the most pleasure just to tease him. He loved watching lust wreak havoc through Hans’ face and body; the blush that crept up from his chest all the way to his cheeks, to the red rims of his eyes; the straining muscles that jumped at every touch; the bitten off moans, the panting, slack mouth.
The punishing grip with which he held on to every part of Henry he could reach. “Bastard, what do you think you’re doing?”
Henry licked a teasing strip from where his fingers were buried, over the seam of Hans’ balls and to the tip of his cock, denying him the satisfaction of either his tongue or his mouth before pulling away. “Showing you that I’m not so easily replaced. Someone else might give you what you’re asking for. But I know the waiting sharpens the flavour, and that this is the only place you’re free to beg.”
Hans tried to roll his hips to get Henry’s fingers in deeper, but Henry stilled him with a hand on the abdomen, pinning him to the bed while he hovered above him, keeping the thrusting of his fingers shallow and brisk. His attention focused on Hans’ heaving chest, on his face turned to the side and hidden in his bicep, taut from gripping his own hair in thwarted desire.
From that first day when they crossed paths in the archery range, Hans smug and cruel while Henry struggled to hold a bow for the first time in his life, a weapon that to this day he didn’t quite master as well as Hans, he’d known he wanted to see Hans on his back. He hadn’t known the specifics, but the desire was there. To ruffle the fine hair that shone like spun gold in the morning sun, to stain the fine clothes that cost more than everything Henry had ever owned, to bruise the long proud throat with the shape of his fingers. He had wanted to pour some of his pain and anger into the spoiled brat trying to goad him into a competition that against all odds he ended up winning.
But besting Hans did nothing to quiet the howling of his appetite. For the longest time he hadn’t known why he felt like a restless dog in Hans’ presence, even after the animosity had vanished. It wasn’t anything as simple as lust, and it took Henry, who had never been in love, the terror of nearly losing him to realize it.
Now he’d spend the rest of his life trying to keep him, a thankless task like many he had endured. But pain was glad company when you didn’t fight it, when you just let is pass through like a cold wind, allowing it to carry you where it may.
For now, he could delight in the pained, frustrated, whimpers he was coaxing out of Hans with the slow rhythm of his fingers. He was eager for his own release, the pressure in his balls threatened to distract him, but he could ignore his own desire by focusing on Hans’ desperation, on his twitching, begging hole, on his reddened cock, laid flat against his heaving stomach and weeping copiously.
“I’m more familiar with begging than you know.” Hans said, face half-hidden behind his forearm, his voice sounded rough, on the verge of tears. “I’ve done much of it on my knees in chapels, and in the mud on the roads in front of roadside temples, praying for your health, for your safe return, as many times as you’ve left my side since we first came to the Devil’s Den. Don’t speak to me of begging. I’ve done my share of it.”
Henry’s heart seized painfully inside his chest, all he could think to do was kiss Hans’ thigh, then the valley of his hip, and the jutting hipbone itself, before changing directions and taking the tip of Hans’ cock into his mouth, nursing it softly like a cruel apology, since it only made Hans’ squirm harder. He was so tense, every muscle in his body strained. Henry pulled away and looked up at Hans, who looked back at him from below his forearm, eyes rimmed with tears of desperation.
“Beg again, not God, this time beg me,” Henry said, fucking his fingers inside at the angle that had Hans’ back arching off the bed and his hand falling away from his face and clutching the sheets.
“Please, Henry, my Henry, fuck me.”
Like an arrow through the heart. Hans had always been a master marksman. Henry pulled his fingers out of him, placing one last kiss on the inside of his quivering thigh before climbing up his body. “As my lord wishes,” he said, hooking his thumb on the hollow of Hans’ throat where his pulse was as frantic as a hare’s, and wrapping his fingers around his neck, holding him in place to kiss. His breath was flavoured with the wine he’d drunk, he returned the kiss with sluggish intent but eager noises, his grip on Henry’s shoulder was as weak as a kitten’s. It filled him with fondness, to have brought Hans to such a state. He would endeavor to do it again.
He left the bed only to retrieve the oil and made brisk work of slicking himself and Hans who whined impatiently at each pass of his fingers. “Don’t complain if it hurts then,” Henry said, replacing his fingers with his cock at Hans’ entrance.
“How could it? You’ve been at it for hours.”
Henry grinned at him, delighted. “No need to pace myself then.” He gripped Hans’ by the waist and thrust himself inside him to the hilt. Hans’ mouth fell open but no sound came out, his legs hitched up around Henry’s middle, ankles loosely wrapped behind his back, because that was all he had the strength for. It felt like bullying, like taking advantage, Henry held still, to keep himself from coming in seconds. Hans was feverish inside, hotter than normal, but perhaps that was just Henry’s imagination, wishful thinking.
He rocked slowly into him, delighting in the welcoming grip of his body. It seemed a dream they had done this enough for it to grow familiar. Henry had really thought the first time would be the last, and would have been happier with that send off than many people were with full and rich lives. The problem was that now he’d grown covetous, greedy to the point of sin. It clouded his thoughts day and night. He was always thinking about the next opportunity to have Hans for himself, evaluating dark corners to steal kisses in, finding excuses for him and Hans to disappear into the woods so he could suck his cock against a tree; coming up with excuses for the bark scratches on the back of Hans’ purpoint while he pulled on his hair and shoved his cock further down Henry’s throat.
“Harder,” Hans’ grit out, his fingers digging into the meat of Henry’s shoulders. “Stop fucking teasing.”
Henry snapped his hips into him, finding a punishing pace that had each thrust dragging out bitten off ‘ah ah ah’s from Hans’ raw throat. “Insatiable,” Henry groaned, grinning down at Hans’ glazed eyes. They didn’t often fuck face to face, Henry suspected that the vulnerability made Hans uncomfortable. His face revealed much. Awash with pleasure, it was clearer than an illuminated book, showing Henry how every minute shift of his cock affected him. His pupils spilled over the blue of his irises until only a thin circle remained. In this state, Henry only needed to look at Hans to know no one had ever made him feel like this.
“Can you do it again? Come without a hand on you, just from my cock in you?”
Hans tried to glare at him, the effort somewhat spoiled by the tears clinging to the corners of his eyes. “You want me to do tricks for you?”
“Just the one,” Henry said, letting go of Hans’ waist to brace his elbows by his head, flattening him in half on the bed. “Flattering, isn’t it?” he said nuzzling the words into Hans’ neck, “you could stand to flatter me a little.”
“I flatter you plenty, blacksmith.” He punctuated his words with a bite to Henry’s jaw that turned into a kiss, liable to leave a mark.
Henry slipped the fingers of one hand into Hans’ sweaty hair and combed it away from his forehead. “Come on, Birdie, sing for me.”
He thrust into Hans at speed, chasing his own pleasure in the squeezing heat of his hole. Hans’ trapped cock leaked a steady stream where it was pressed on Henry’s abdomen, he could feel it pulse against his skin, he knew, despite his words, that Hans was close. He could feel the telltale tightening of his insides, a relentless squeeze as the pressure built. Hans’ himself was letting out more of those delicious fucked out noises; the kind he only allowed himself when all good sense had deserted him.
He thrashed beneath Henry, raising his hips to meet his thrusts, clamping his thighs around him as if he feared Henry might spill anywhere but inside.
One of his hands slid from Henry’s shoulder to the mattress and Henry locked their fingers together, panting into Hans’ open mouth as he struggled to hold off. Henry looked into Hans eyes and shifted the angle of his thrusts, drinking in the sight of his surprise as orgasm hit him and he came between them with a shout, slicking up their abdomens with a flood of seed. The vicious, rhythmic squeeze of his fluttering insides pushed Henry over the edge. All he could do was muffle his moans into Hans’ mouth so that they wouldn’t be heard downstairs.
They kept trading sipping kisses while catching their breaths. Hans lowered his stiff legs onto the bed with a pained hiss and Henry tangled their shins together, the hair on their legs catching as they shuffled on the sheet.
“I’m going to be sore tomorrow,” Hans grumbled, massaging his right-shoulder one-handed. “You kept me on the edge too long, everything locked up.”
“You’ll survive it,” Henry said, nuzzling Hans’ throat and banding one arm around his ribcage. “I’ll give you a massage tomorrow.”
“You better! A foot massage.”
Henry rubbed his heel over the bridge of Hans foot, the skin was smooth and fine, devoid of any hair which Henry found charming. “Your feet usually involved when you cum, are they?”
Hans glared at him but didn’t dignify him with an answer, opting instead to play with the hair at the back of Henry’s head in silence. It put him in such a relaxed state that he debated falling asleep like that, growing soft inside of Hans, all the better to fuck him again in the morning.
Hans’ voice cut through his drowsy thoughts. “Do you think we were too loud? I feel like I lost my grip on it for a while there.”
“You did,” Henry said, grinning, nearly puffing out his chest. “Brought the whole tavern down almost. Lucky for us I’m hearing music from downstairs so it hopefully drowned us out.”
Hans hummed, resuming his petting of Henry’s head.
“Zizka knows, though.”
Hans hummed again, and then the words registered and he smacked Henry upside the head with a jolt. “What do you mean Zizka knows? Have you gone completely mad?”
Henry buried his face in Hans’ neck with a sigh, wishing he’d said nothing and just gone to sleep. “Hit me again, I’m sure that will make Zizka forget.”
“Don’t tempt me.” But he did nothing of the sort.
Henry tucked a pleased smile into the crook of his neck and closed his eyes.