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They had made a promise to one another as they watched Hanush ride off, with his black-and-yellow entourage in tow. They promised to find some time for themselves. Enough time to properly appreciate one another. Their first opportunity came upon them that very night, after the celebrations had begun to die down.
They had their fill of wine. They had their fill of food.
And when the music had gotten louder with the exuberance of survival, and the singers had grown garbled with drink, they found themselves in a corner to have their fill of one another.
It was their corner for that brief moment in time — a stall in the stables, half hidden away by a fallen beam and a pile of ruined stone.
Pressed against the cold wall, their thighs were woven between their legs while their hips moved together in a desperate dance. A dance that cared not for the tempo set by the music flowing in from the courtyard.
Their hearts set the pace, and their haggard breaths kept the rhythm.
Heat and sweat bled through their hose, where hardened cocks ground into thick thighs.
Bracketed between Henry’s arms, each thrust pressed Hans harder against the stone wall, and he clung to every bit of his Hal he could manage—his arms, his back, his shoulders.
And while Henry’s grunts filled his head like the steady beat of a drum, Hans dragged his mouth across his jaw to sing so sweetly in his ear.
“If we had the time, I would have you properly.” He had whispered. “I’d drag you up the stairs to the battlements. Drop your braies and bend you over the merlons. Fuck you proper right there on the embrasure.”
“Would you, now?” Henry grunted in response.
“I would — I’d fuck you so hard, your cries would echo off the fortress walls. The village yokels will think this place haunted.”
Henry’s laugh resonated through them both above even the pounding of the courtyard drums. His palms scraped against the stone as they fell away from the wall, and his hands found new lodging beneath the swell of Hans’s arse. He hefted him up — not enough to lose his footing, but enough that only the point of Hans’s shoes scraped along the ground.
Still, Hans remained unperturbed in his tale-telling.
“I’d fuck you so hard that every trot of that damned nag of yours will make you think of me.”
“I do, anyway,” Henry confessed between his grunts as he rutted desperately across his hip. “Always.”
“Then it’ll be my cock that you remember,” was Hans’s response, that tireless tongue sweeping over Henry’s ear.
Henry shuddered beneath his touch, his voice catching with a loss of breath as he came within his braies, the wet and heat seeping through to Hans’s hose. His thigh remained wedged between Hans’s legs, and his firm hands guided Hans in his free use of the limb to chase his own release.
Hans followed not long after — his cracked cry drowned out by the cheers of the revelers in the courtyard beyond.
Their second opportunity came about some days later, on a quiet evening on the road to the Devil’s Den, somewhere between Rabosrch and Bohunowitz. They had made camp in a small clearing hidden among the trees, drank and ate from their stores, and then retired to their bedrolls as the campfire died down.
Lying on their backs, crown to crown like the opposite ends of a compass, the two of them talked late into the night.
Henry traced shapes among the stars: a cluster in the southern sky that reminded him of a hare, another that resembled a small bird, and one he insisted that—if he turned his head just right—greatly resembled Mutt.
Hans answered in kind, gesturing to a set of stars above the northern trees, and told him the story of Perseus, who slew the Gorgon Medusa, and married Andromeda after rescuing her from a sea-serpent. He pointed out brave Heracles, stretched across the sky directly above them. As he spoke of lions, hydras, and some business with a hind, Henry drifted into peaceful sleep, lulled by the sound of his friend’s voice.
Incessant shuffling just above his head disrupted the sanctity of his dreams some hours later. He cracked an eye open just in time to see a ruffled shock of blond hair flop against his shoulder, and a pair of devilishly curved lips press into his ear.
“Are you awake, Hal?”
“I am now,” He groused.
Henry turned to find those lips at the level of his eyes, flicking his gaze down to see his friend’s eyes lower still — bright and sparkling with mischief, like the stars fading into the morning light overhead.
“Good.”
Further shushing of fabric had him straining his neck back to find that Hans had pulled his tunic up past his belly and scrunched it beneath his chin. Beyond the expanse of his chest and firm belly, fished from his braies and standing proud and true, was his cock — its head glistening in the dim morning light as he fisted the root of it and dragged his thumb up along the shaft.
“I had the most wonderful dream,” Hans told him.
Dreadfully curious as to where this might lead, Henry responded, “Tell me about it.”
A dark chuckle pervaded the air around him, raising the fine hairs on his arm like a thunderstorm on the horizon. Henry exhaled, contented, as he settled in, and Hans pressed his lips to his ear once more, his breath soft and warm across his skin.
“You had me naked, bound, pinned, and helpless against a wall."
Hans’s left hand found his cheek to hold him in place as teeth caught the pointed tip of his ear.
“You were fucking me like a rutting stag.”
A steady rhythm shook them both, and Henry knew Hans was stroking himself to the thought of it. Henry shifted on his bedroll, the light drag of his braies along his cock enough to let him know that his constant companion was wide awake as well.
“If we had the time, I’d demand you fucked me in such a manner—my arms tied behind my back, your hand at my throat,” Hans whispered, his voice growing hoarse with exertion.
“Take me, claim me, till I can no longer walk—no longer ride. Till every step is a sharp reminder of you and your long—girthy—magnificent cock.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on him, but Henry was beyond caring, not with the lewd sounds punching the air, the heat of his breath along his cheek. As if of its own will, Henry’s left hand crept up and fisted into Hans’s hair. Fingers tangled within the golden strands, dragging him closer, and Henry shivered at the moan it elicited from his friend’s throat.
“And that hand of yours,” Hans continued, breathless now, “Resting gently on my neck. How easily you could squeeze, choke the life from me if you so wished. Feel every panicked gulp, and wheezing breath beneath your touch.”
His grip on Hans’s hair tightened, and he felt his body shudder.
“I would let you, you know. You’re the only one I trust. The only one—” Hans moaned softly, and his pace quickened, “The one I’d let hold me there.”
Henry took hold of the hand pressed to his right cheek, dragging his lips across each knuckle as the slick work of its twin pervaded the air. He dug his heels into the ground, hips thrusting fruitlessly to chase what little satisfaction his braies can offer.
“You’d have me in ways no other person ever will,” Hans hissed, taking the soft lobe of his ear between his teeth once more, “Claim something that will be wholly yours.”
With one final thrust into the air, Henry’s sudden moan startled the horses as his release rushed through him, and he spilled into his braies, the cloth growing damp with his filth as it seeped beneath the fabric.
Hans laughed—a sharp and sudden howl that made Henry’s face grow hot with mortification, until a gentle kiss pressed into his cheek.
“Did you come without me touching you?”
“Mm…” A grunt was all he offered in response.
“Just the thought of fucking me is enough for you?”
“Your filthy fucking mouth had a hand in the matter.”
Hans laughed again, warm with fondness and pride, but soon he too began to come undone.
Henry listened — noting the way his friend’s breathing changed, the soft punches of sound rattling in his throat as he drew near, the way he pressed his head against his shoulder. Ragged breaths filled his ear when Hans turned his face to him, and beneath the sound of his unraveling, spilling copiously across his panting stomach, Henry swore he heard his name upon a whisper.
They lay together as the sky above them brightened and the heroic figures made of stars faded beneath the light of dawn, Henry growing increasingly uncomfortable as the mess in his braies cooled.
He was the first to break the silence.
“Right then. We should start getting ready to go.”
“Mm… right…” Hans lamented, dragging his hand over his stomach before wiping his palm clean on the grass. “I don’t suppose you brought a change of braies.”
“I did not.”
“Hah! Well, today’s ride is going to be miserable,” Hans declared, pecking a kiss upon his cheek as he sat up, “because I am not lending you mine.”
They found another moment some days following their arrival at the Devil’s Den. After eating and drinking their fill, the lot of them grew restless. And when men of the Den grew restless, they would inevitably make their way toward the fighting pit.
Such was the case on this particular summer day.
They took their turns in the ring.
Hynek and Zizka were the first to have a go at it, grappling one another into the cracked mud floor. Zizka took the first round against the Devil, and was on the verge of winning the second—until Hynek kicked dirt into his one good eye and brought him down to tie it. In the next round, Hynek took advantage of his blind spot and took him down with a wild swing to the side of his head. While Katherine and a grinning Devil helped the captain into a nearby bench, Hans and Henry took to the ring.
The pair were well-matched, each one taking their equal turn hitting the dirt. In the second match, a right hook to Hans’s jaw had his ears ringing through the next round, but he repaid Henry in kind with a blow to the gut that had him double over.
Their heated brawl dissolved into a clumsy tangle of limbs writhing on the ground—a game of who could pin the other down the longest. Sweat and spit mixed with dirt to streak fresh mud across their arms, marking them with filth as their backs hit the ground.
Cheek grinding to the earth, Henry’s bulk keeping his legs pinned and his arms locked behind his back, Hans felt the unmistakable press of a cock against him. The slick of their sweat worked in Hans’s favor, and the blacksmith’s iron grip on his wrist faltered. Like a snake, he twisted free from beneath him, wedging a knee between his legs to heft his friend’s bulk off of him.
The fight ended when Kubyenka announced a fresh keg, leaving both men without a victory.
While the crowd shuffled its way to the taproom, lured by the prospect of fresh beer and respite from the sun, Hans sat up and brushed off the worst of the caked mud. As he moved to stand, a hand appeared in his vision. His eyes trailed up its length, over strong fingers and callused palms, across a thick wrist whose soft underside pulsed in time with Henry’s racing heartbeat.
Hans’s gaze followed the length of his arm, until—blinded by the sun—he could only see Henry’s breathless silhouette towering over him. He took the proffered hand, but as soon as he clasped his arm, Hans found himself pulled from the floor and dragged into the ruined house beside the training pit, his face pressed against the cool stone wall.
“Mean little trick you did there, with your knee in my crotch,” Henry growled in his ear.
“Figured that’d get your attention.” Hans grinned, feeling the full extent of Henry’s attention pressed firmly between his arse cheeks.
“I’d have won that round if you hadn’t,” Henry snorted in his ear, grinding his cock into him.
Hans pushed against him, only to have the full brunt of Henry’s weight crash upon him. He relished the way his sweat-damp chest slid along his back.
“Do you plan to finish out the match here, then?” Hans teased, hoping—praying that Henry would rise to the challenge.
Henry grunted, shaking his head. “They’ll start to wonder if we don’t follow them to the tavern, or find us among the bathmaids.”
Rearing his head to rest on Henry’s shoulder, Hans whispered huskily.
“Then you’ll need to be quick.”
The slow grind of Henry’s cock came to a stop, as if uncertainty was beginning to weaken his resolve.
“Come on, Hal. Don’t stop now.” Hans dropped his voice, sultry and low, rolling his hips to meet Henry’s. “If we had the time… what would you do to me?”
Whatever doubt had been plaguing him, he quickly forgot as he matched the roll of Hans’s hips.
“I’d drag you back into that pen,” He groaned, “Get your face in the dirt and fuck you till I’m sure you won’t ever forget the shape of my cock.”
“Such a discourtesy to your lord.”
“It’s what he deserves for being a right cheeky fuck.”
Dirt-caked fingers hooked into the hem of Hans’s hose and dragged them down roughly, exposing his arse to the open sky. Rough hands spread his cheeks as he felt Henry lean away from him, the heat of his chest replaced with the cooler air around them.
A swift pull of his hips had him falling forward, his fingers scraping for purchase against the stone ahead of him. Hans bit his lip. Something hard slipped between the mounds of his arse and dragged roughly against him. Henry’s cock, Hans realized, when the man’s hips snapped into the backs of his thighs.
“I’d take my claim for winning two of three.”
He heard Henry spit, followed by something warm and wet dribbling down the cleft of his arse, smoothing the rough drag of Henry’s cock.
“Ugh, you animal,” Hans uttered with a curl of his lip.
“You like it.” Henry laughed. There was no denying it as Hans’s cock twitched, and his balls tensed. “I’d get dirt in your fine hair, muddy up that handsome face.”
“You think I’m handsome?” Hans grinned, straining his neck to peer at Henry’s darkened face.
“Aye, but not enough that it’ll get you out of work.” There was a sort of amusement threaded in his words as his hands left Hans’s hips and grabbed his wrists, pulling his arms back to flatten his palms against his arse cheeks and press them together. “Hold these, will ya?”
One sweat-slick and dirt-caked arm came to rest on the wall beside Hans’s head, the other snaked around his waist, up to his chest, where rough fingers came to rest gently at the base of his neck. Hans felt his heart beat in his throat as a thumb traced between the swell of his shoulder and the column of his neck, following the line where rope had once been.
Yet, instead of fear or panic, all Hans felt was a dark thrill, spiraling him higher when Henry pulled him against him and pressed his lips to his ear.
“Once I’ve filled you, I’d drag you to the baths for another round. Have you in the tub, I would. Nice smelling water splashing everywhere while you’re riding my cock like it’s a race to the finish.”
Hans groaned when Henry dragged his tongue along his neck, lapping at the salt of sweat and dirt. Cried when he dug his teeth into the mound of muscle at its base — no doubt intended to leave a lasting mark that Hans would need to explain later.
“Fuck, that’d make for a pretty sight. The pompous lord of Pirkstein, moaning like a bathmaid earning her keep.”
Hans pressed his thighs together, his hips moving in tandem with Henry’s, the faint drag at the root of his cock between his legs edging him ever closer.
Henry pressed his lips to the mark he made, possessively, affectionately, and Hans’s heart caught in his throat.
“You’d look so beautiful skewered on my cock.”
Their pace began to fall apart then, as Henry’s lips scattered kisses along the length of his neck, until he was unwound completely with a stilted moan. Wet heat splattered across Hans’s lower back, dripping down his waist to the swell of his arse.
Henry took hold of Hans’s neglected cock and pumped him rough—once, twice, a third time—until he too had splattered his desperate release upon the stone walls of their ruined hideaway.
The hand at his neck released its hold, palm spread wide as it slid down to his chest, keeping him close as their breaths slowed in tandem.
“I—er… was that all right, Hans?”
“Yes…” Hans breathed, turning his head to cast a look over his shoulder, grinning at his friend’s concerned expression. “That was perfect, Hal.”
“Good,” Henry looked away with a bashful smile. He busied himself by wiping at the mess he’d made across Hans’s back before he helped him redress his braies and hose.
When Hans was steady on his feet, Henry backed off and refastened his own braies, keeping his flustered gaze to the ground at his feet.
“Right. Well.” Henry took in the state of them and laughed, “I suppose we really should get ourselves to the baths.”
“Without a doubt. We’d never hear the end of it if I walked into that tavern with your bastards smeared across my backside.”
Fortune favored them with another opportunity on a visit to Kuttenberg, in a dingy taproom in Hoprink on the eastern end of the city. The pair of them were downing drinks in the Hole in the Wall, trading stories with anyone willing to listen.
After running dry of stories to tell of their adventures through Trosky and surviving a month-long siege, Hans began bragging about his more intimate exploits — the girls at the bathhouse in Rattay and the time Henry distracted the butcher with a song, so that Hans could rendezvous with the man’s lovely daughter.
But this latest girl to catch his lordship’s fancy certainly piqued Henry’s interest.
“A brown-haired lass, with big blue eyes — the kind that’d convince you to face off against a garrison wearing just your braies, if she batted them your way.” Hans slurred over a half-finished tankard, “And such tits! My fine gentlemen, such fine tits you’d best be careful lest you drown within their glory.”
He paused only to take a swig of his beer, wiping the excess from his lips before he went on.
“Not to mention the sweetest cunny this side of the Sasau river.” Hans flashed a grin in Henry’s direction and winked. “She’s not the brightest girl, but she’s loyal, and she won’t say no to anything I ask.”
Rowdy calls erupted around Henry as heat rose to his cheeks and he buried his face in his tankard. Goliath’s laugh rang out over the lot of them as the man’s broad hand swatted him between his shoulders mid-drink, a cascade of beer dribbling down his chin and down the front of his coat.
“And what about you, Henry?” Chenyek grinned and leaned over the sticky wooden table, “Any ladies waiting on your return?”
“Oh, aye…” Henry said, brushing off the front of his coat before leaning over and quieting his voice, as to let them in on the filthiest of secrets. The men gathered at the table followed suit. “You see, there’s this girl I met recently, in Rattay. Her name’s Jana. Golden-haired, sharp-tongued Jana, whose mouth is good for more than just talking.”
He cast a quick look at Hans, satisfied to find that his cheeky fucking grin was fading. “Fellas, you haven’t lived till you’ve had a sweet-mouthed lass lapping like a dog at your back door.”
From the corner of his vision, he saw Hans’s face grow a fierce shade of red, the man looking more like a beet than a lord now.
Lewd whistles pierced the air, and the barmaid, setting down fresh drinks, curled her nose in disgust.
Grabbing a tankard, Henry pressed on.
“And the mewling sound she makes when a cock is shoved up her—”
Hans slammed his hands upon the table and stood up abruptly, startling everyone at the table, and nearly making Henry topple from the bench.
“I need to take a piss!” Hans announced, turning sharply to Henry and giggling, fucking giggling, as he swayed where he stood. “Squire! Help me outside, will you?”
“Fine!” Henry got to his feet, the suddenness of it making his head swim with more than just the drink. “But you’ll need to hold your own damn pizzle.”
The conversation at the table continued without them as his friend made a show of stumbling for the door. Henry staggered after, managing to catch up and steady the man before he took an unfortunate stumble into a stale horse trough.
Still, Hans managed to lead him away from the raucous taproom, across the darkened green, humming merrily all the while. He disappeared into the shadows of the barn that housed the Hole’s brawling pit, with its straw-covered floor that Henry had been face-to-face with on more than one occasion.
“Hans..?” Henry stumbled in after him, looking about frantically for a sign of his friend.
Elegant fingers found the collar of his coat and curled around it with a hunter’s grip, dragging Henry into the shadows. All evidence of drunkenness vanished in Hans as he proved to be more sober than Henry in that moment, pushing him up against the wall and crushing their mouths together as he pinned him in place with his hips.
Any question of his friend’s intentions vanished when he felt Hans’s hands crushed between them, working at the ties of his braies, followed by a firm cock pressed to the fabric on his thigh.
When Hans pulled away to breathe, Henry gasped.
“I thought you needed to piss.”
“That was a lie, my dear turnip puller,” Hans whispered harshly, hands pawing Henry’s beer-stained coat up under his chin and fumbling with his braies in the darkness. “I needed you to stop talking.”
“You could’ve just bought another round, you twat.” Henry shivered when he was exposed to the cool night air.
“This is far more fun.” The grin on Hans’s face was lost in the dark, but an unmistakable lilt in his voice spoke to his delight as he fished Henry’s cock from his braies. “And far more lenient on my purse.”
It took little effort for Henry to match Hans’s state, the nobleman’s nimble fingers gathering both their cocks and stroking them in tandem.
Henry moaned, trying to swallow the sound behind the bite of his lip.
“Mewling, he says,” Hans lamented. “Mewling. A nobleman doesn’t mewl, Henry.”
“Then what would you call that sound you make when I fuck you?”
In revenge, Hans dragged his lips across Henry’s jaw as a sharp twist of his hand beneath the head of his cock tore a strangled cry from Henry.
“A vocal appreciation of your endowment and the skill with which you wield it.” Hans prattled, “Like a mule in a mare’s stable.”
“Fuck you,” Henry laughed.
“Not right now, my precious nettle leaf.” Hans laughed. “Can’t have the innkeeper thinking we’ve absconded without paying.”
“Especially since he knows where my forge is,” Henry added.
“Right—then let’s be quick about this, shall we?”
Henry dropped his head back against the wall with a hollow thud as Hans’s strokes settled into a hurried pace. One hand settled on Hans’s hip to keep himself steady, the other held his coat and tunic crumpled beneath his chin.
Even in the darkness, he spotted a glimmer of mischief in Hans’s eyes as he leaned in and dragged his tongue over his breast to take a tender teat between his teeth. The man dragged his nose through the thicket of dark hair spattered across his chest to turn his attention to the other.
A hum of appreciation thrummed in Hans’s throat as he flicked his gaze up towards Henry’s face.
“Christ, if we had the time…” A hand skated over Henry’s side, along ribs that still jutted out beneath his skin despite his gluttony over the past fortnight. “We wouldn’t need to fumble around in the dark in this manner.”
Lips found the hollow of his throat, and a suckling kiss was placed there.
“I’d have you in bed, spread out before me like some grand banquet—a feast for my eyes and mine alone.”
Teeth dragged along his pulse.
“Map out every inch of your body with my hands. Then explore it again with my mouth.”
Henry’s head swam, and he dazedly asked, “Every inch?”
“Well…” Hans hummed, “Perhaps I won’t go knocking on your back door if you plan to brag about it.”
Henry’s laugh was swallowed when Hans kissed him, biting at his lower lip as if to reprimand him for his boasts within the tavern. Pulling away, Hans passed through a shaft of light, and for a brief moment, Henry caught a glimpse of his friend’s kiss-bruised lips and glassy eyes.
“I’d make you tell me the story of every mark, every scar.”
A hand ghosts across Henry’s belly, brushing along the hairs and making his stomach flutter. Fingers stop at a gnarl of scarred skin at his flank, and with a delicate touch, gently trace over the knotted flesh.
“Tell me the stories I know. Tell me the ones you’re afraid to share. The ones you’ve never told another soul.”
Hans’s fingers find a particularly fresh scar, the gentle caress of his fingers sending a jolt across Henry’s skin.
“I want to know it all.”
Another caress, this one a little rougher than before, drew out a low whine from Henry.
“Fuck…” Hans breathed, “Fuck, I want to see you. Here—lean back.”
Henry pressed his shoulders against the wall for support as Hans took hold of his hip and dragged him forward till the shaft of light fell over them both, their cocks glistening together in Hans’s clenched fist.
“Come for me,” Hans commands of him, his voice hoarse with want.
Henry clenched the rumpled mess of his coat and tunic, holding them tight as he watched him work from beyond his panting chest and quivering stomach, their hushed and frenzied breaths punctuated with the wet sounds coming from between them.
On trembling legs, Henry whimpered as he came, spurting across his stomach. Hans remained transfixed upon the sight, his fist faltering as his hips stuttered through their own broken rhythm. He followed soon after, with a throttled sound as ropes of his release joined Henry’s now cooling upon his chest.
Sense returned to Henry only for him to find that Hans had taken leave of his, dragging his fingers through the filth on Henry’s belly and bringing it to his lips—that clever tongue darting out for a taste.
“Plan to clean up the mess you made?” Henry teased.
For a moment, the look on Hans’s face would confirm these intentions, but Henry’s voice snapped him from whatever trance he’d fallen under.
“What? So some drunk can stumble in and find me on my knees?” Hans asked incredulously, wiping away the evidence of their tryst and smearing it against the wall behind Henry. “Don’t be so crass, Hal.”
Hans tucked himself back into his hose before helping Henry fix his braies and retie them around his waist. As Henry was straightening his coat, he could practically hear the grin creep across Hans’s lips.
“Besides, you mentioned there was a bathhouse not far, yes?”
“The Kingfisher. They’d be closed by now.”
“You forget, Henry—my name can open any door!”
“Aye? How’d that work out for us in Trosky?”
“Hush. Not another word from you.”
The proprietress of the Kingfisher bathhouse did not seem to appreciate Hans’s presence at her door so late past Compline. A dour woman, Hans was sure, but her expression softened when he hefted a bag of groschen into her hand, and she even smiled when she spotted Henry swaying behind him, looking wistfully drunk in the light pouring out from the bathhouse door.
They asked for a bath and a room with two beds for the remainder of the night.
“There’s a room for you here, yes, but we have only one tub upstairs that’s filled. Most of my girls are asleep, and that bathhands are gone for the day, so you’d have to contend with a lukewarm bath.” The woman—Betty, Henry called her—whispered over her shoulder as she waved them inside and led them up the stairs.
“It is quite all right, good madam, we needn’t your girls’ services tonight.”
Stopping by the open doorway to a room lined with tubs, Betty cast them both a strange look.
“Well, I can probably go wake Rudlen to haul up water for a second tub—"
“You needn’t trouble him!” Hans interjected, “One’ll do just fine! It’ll be enough to sober up poor Henry here.”
With his hands on Henry’s shoulders, Hans guided him through the doorway past the woman, smiling his most charming of smiles.
“In fact,” Hans added, nudging Henry further into the room before pivoting towards the woman, “Henry and I should do just fine on our own—no need to wait around for us.”
“Oh, trust me when I say that I had no plans for that. I’m heading to bed, but can Klara—”
“Again—no need!” Hans grabbed the door handle and closed it as fast as politeness allowed, “Good night, madam!”
“G’night, Betty!” Henry called out as the door shut.
Hans bolted the lock and listened as Betty’s footsteps retreated down the stairs. He had barely bolted the second door shut before Henry hooked an arm around his waist and pulled him into a kiss.
It was sloppy, inelegant, with a clumsy tongue and rough teeth. Nothing that the bards would write ballads for, and yet it left Hans so weak in the knees that he fell into it, sliding his hands over Henry’s shoulders and wrapping them around his neck.
They refused to part from one another and stumbled their way through the room, stepping over a bench and narrowly avoiding colliding with an empty tub. Blind hands made careless work of their clothing—a ripped stitch here, a lost button there—leaving a trail of garments strewn across the bathhouse floor in their wake.
They managed to make it the full length of the room before Henry broke away, scrutinizing the ties of Hans’s braies with a sort of sorrow typically reserved for the mourning of a loved one, as the knot refused his bungling efforts to loosen. Suddenly feeling rather fond of the furrow in Henry’s prominent brow, Hans planted a kiss there and helped the man, removing his braies with ease before assisting Henry with his.
Hans guided Henry into the tub and helped him settle in before he followed after, slipping into the water to stretch along the length of Henry’s body and settle in between his legs. He pressed a kiss to his brow, his nose, one atop each cheek, before Hans found his mouth—and then scattered kisses across there too.
Determined to take his time, Hans was secure in the knowledge that they had until sleep claimed them to do what they pleased with one another. As he contented himself in grinding against the solid body beneath him, a set of hands snaked down his back, Henry’s rough fingers digging into the muscles till they found Hans’s hips.
To his surprise, Henry hefted him up, lifting him from the water and setting him down on the rim of the tub. Hans caught the edge just in time to keep from toppling backwards, as Henry’s hands slid down to his knees and spread his legs open.
“Henry! What are you—!”
“Hush now, you’ll wake the girls,” Henry mumbled as he dotted kisses from Hans’s knee, up his inner thigh. “Don’t need ‘em pounding on the door.”
“Right…” A laugh hiccuped from his throat as he watched Henry lap at the moisture on his skin. He shuddered when he nipped at the soft skin at the top of his thigh, swallowed a groan when he dragged his warm tongue across his stirring cock, and choked on his affection when the man looked up at him through heavy lids and long lashes.
An ambivalent hand left the edge of the tub, and unsteady fingers carded through damp brown waves.
“You spoil me,” Hans stated warmly, rolling a stray lock between his thumb and forefinger, enjoying the softness of the strands as they slipped from his grip. “A man could get used to this.”
“As if you weren’t already spoiled enough…” Henry hummed, pursing a kiss to the head of Hans’s cock before drawing it between his lips.
Henry’s eyes fluttered shut as he swallowed him slowly, supping in inch by excruciating inch. Hans groaned, appreciative, and pressed his fingers into Henry’s scalp, not so much commanding the pace but instead allowing them to be carried along. Once Hans was fully seated, Henry stilled, his nose buried in the dark strands beneath his navel, his nostrils flaring with every breath as Hans’s cock thickened on his tongue.
Any clever remarks withered in Hans’s throat as Henry swallowed around his girth. He pulled back, slowly, curling his lips to guard against the scrape of teeth, and his tongue probed every ridge and vein along Hans’s shaft, as if to commit it all to memory.
The languid pace was torture, with Henry swallowing him with just as much diligence with which he withdrew. Even when Hans’s breath quickened and his legs trembled on either side of Henry, he allowed his friend to bide his time.
Hans distracted himself from the torment in the only way he knew how.
“You know, if we had the time…” He began, and he swore he felt Henry snerk beneath his breath. “Hey, no laughing, you oaf!”
Hans lightly flicked the pointed tip of Henry’s ear before starting again.
”If we had the time, I’d commission the most talented tailor in Kuttenburg to make you the finest clothes.”
His finger danced over Henry’s ear and tucked a stray lock behind it. He traced the rim of it down to his jaw and along its stubbled length, relishing each sharp catch upon the coarse hair.
“Silken brocades and luxurious velvet from Florence. The softest wool from Spain.”
Fingertips brushed lightly over his cheek before Hans flattened his palm against it, thumb lightly tracing the ridge of Henry’s brow.
“I would swathe you in black and gold and scarlet. Adorn you in gemstones and finery. Don you in armor emblazoned with my colors— My crest— My name.” Hans couldn’t help himself. He punctuated each point with a thrust into Henry’s willing mouth. “All the world would know that you belong to me.”
Henry pulled away, his eyes opening to reveal blue pools as glassy as the waters around his waist. He let Hans’s cock spring free from his mouth, taking with it a gossamer strand of spittle and spend that clung to Henry’s reddened lips. He smirked slyly, dragging the top of his hand across his mouth.
“How about you quit your yapping and show me that I belong to you.” He drawled, “Or are you all talk?”
“You cheeky little git,” Hans grumbled, but did little to mask his amusement.
Not one to stand down from a challenge, Hans stood despite the weakness in his knees and guided Henry back to the other side of the tub with a firm hand.
“Open your mouth,” he commanded on a hushed breath, dragging his thumb across Henry’s lips, “And keep it open.”
Henry obeyed, his lips parting at the lightest press of Hans’s finger, his eyes fixated on the flushed cock presented to him.
With a hand anchored to the rim of the tub behind Henry, Hans pressed in. He fucked his mouth as slow as desperation would allow at first, each measured surge of his hips drawn out for Henry’s comfort—until restless hands gripped his thighs and spurred him on.
At his friend’s insistence, Hans settled into a hurried pace, one that left Henry’s eyes glimmering as obscene noises tore from his throat.
“Fuck—I’d have you like this more often…” He rasped between breaths, bringing a hand to support the crown of Henry’s head as he pounded into him. “Excuse myself—from whatever petty squabble—I’d be forced to listen in on—take my bodyguard with me.”
He saw it in his mind—absconding from his castle’s main hall to the scandalized look of his petitioners, Henry loyally in tow. Henry, handsome and proud, in armor embossed with the heraldry of the Lords of Leipa, embellished with birds and boars, hounds and hares, little symbols whose meanings were known only to the pair of them.
“Get you on your knees—in some darkened hall—taking my cock—” A sharp thrust of his hips accompanied the word, breaking his rhythm to hold Henry still. Hans caught his breath a moment, watching as Henry adjusted around the twitching cock in his mouth before he began thrusting once more, “As if it were your daily bread—starving for it.”
A hand wandered away from his thigh before Hans felt the pressure of probing fingers pressed into the flesh behind his stones. The press slid further, up through the cleft of his arse. Still, Hans did not falter, and he clenched his fist in Henry’s hair.
“I’d keep you well fed, my dear Hal—sacrificing my heirs to your insatiable hunger.”
Henry’s eyes gazed up at him in warmth, amusement, and something Hans recognized as anticipation. Watching and waiting for the moment that Hans barreled over the precipice upon which he climbed.
Hans was thwarted by a single, invading finger, slipped to the first knuckle, and hooked cruelly to tug at the puckered ring of his entrance. Catching himself before he could collapse onto Henry, fist clenched in his friend’s hair, Hans spilled deep into his throat, each surge accompanied by a jerk of his hips.
His cock hadn’t even stopped twitching when Hans slipped from Henry’s mouth, the last few pearls of his release catching on his chin and dripping onto his chest.
Hans sank into the water, falling into Henry’s waiting arms and melting into his embrace. Their lips found one another, and Hans chased the salt of his own release as his hands descended into the clouded water between them to help Henry find his.
It took only a few rough pulls for Henry to whimper softly against his lips, tongue driving into Hans’s mouth at the same pace he thrust into his grip. Henry shuddered as he came, clinging tightly to Hans till they finally ceased.
They lay there in the aftermath of their affections, in the comfort of light touches, shared heat, and mingled breaths, until a sharp rap at the door startled them both from their shared reverie.
“You boys doing all right in there?”
Henry bolted upright to stare at the door.
“We’re—!” His voice cracked like a pubescent boy as he called out, and he coughed raggedly before calling out again. “We’re fine, Klara! Just finishing up!”
Muffled giggles from beyond the door suggested it might not have just been Klara outside.
“Okay! I’ll be up a little longer yet if you need anything!”
“All right! Thank you!”
Both of them stared at the door, straining their hearing to listen as the stairs creaked with retreating footsteps. Just before they faded, a different voice piped up, “I told you he was an ass-man.”
Hans turned back to Henry to ask what she had meant, and he found that a blush had spread from the tips of his ears to the top of his chest.
“And what would she know of your preferences, Henry?” Hans said through smothered laughter.
“Nothin’, just silly gossip,” Henry coughed again, turning away to survey the scattered mess of clothes across the floor.
“Come on, then.” With a light shove, Henry pushed Hans off him. “We’d better finish up before we prune, Hans.”
It was just before dawn when they snuck out of the Kingfisher—early enough to avoid any probing questions from the bathmaids, yet not early enough to avoid Betty’s knowing look from the bench just outside the main doorway.
They sought refuge in Henry’s forge, where they happened upon Standa and Magdalena beside a cart loaded with armor and weapons to sell. There was little time for Henry to properly introduce Hans.
And order for Kolin, Magdalena explained, no sooner had Henry greeted her, adding that they should not expect them back till late into the following day.
Before Hans and Henry knew it, they were waving the pair of them off as their old wagon teetered down the road. Once they were out of sight, Hans turned to him with a beaming smile, delighted in the idea of having the place to themselves.
With no responsibilities to fret over, or risk of interruption, the lordling’s first command of his squire—
Was a tour.
Henry was happy enough to oblige, leading Hans through the main gate and shutting the door behind them. He took him by the hand and led him from workshop to workshop, growing giddy as he explained to Hans that his father had once worked these forges too.
As he was pointing to a fresco painted on the wall, displaying a master blacksmith working alongside his apprentice, Henry found that Hans was not paying attention to his words or to where he was pointing.
Instead, the man was regarding Henry in a way that made him feel as if he was drunk on the sweetest of honey wines.
“What’re you lookin’ at, Sir Hans?”
Hans blinked owlishly.
“Nothing,” He said with a shake of his head, turning his attention back to the mural. “Let’s continue.”
They broke their fast with some salted pork, eggs, and a loaf of day-old bread. Afterwards, they played dice until, after one too many wins, Hans accused Henry of cheating. The defense of his honor was negligible, at best, but it was enough for Hans to leap across the table and wrestle Henry to the ground to snag the weighted dice from his hands.
Their tussle ended with breathless laughs and kisses pressed to grinning lips.
The afternoon was spent in each other’s quiet company, Hans settling in to leaf through a book in the corner of the forge, while Henry tinkered with some half-finished pieces.
It’s not until sunset that Henry catches the sly way Hans watches him wash up. Perhaps it’s when Henry rolls up his sleeves just below his elbows and dunks his forearm into the trough of clean water that the nobleman decides that he has shown enough restraint for one day and decides to drag Henry up to his quarters.
They tumble into bed together in a tangle of limbs and half-shed garments, Hans hurriedly yanking at Henry’s hose, his tunic, his braies. There’s desperation in his actions, like a starving dog gorging itself on the leftover scraps of a banquet, frantic in the need to have its fill for the uncertainty of when it will next eat.
And so frenzied is Hans to have his fill of Henry that there are no words between them, his mouth twisted into a scowl, his brows knitted together into a knot.
Henry tries to calm his rushed movements, catching Hans’s frantic hands by the wrist and bringing them to his lips to place a careful and measured kiss upon each fingertip. It does little to temper the fires fueling him, burning like wildfire behind eyes the color of cornflowers, following Henry as a hawk would track a mouse through a grain field.
No sooner than Henry pecks the final kiss upon Hans’s pinky does his friend tear his hands away, pushing Henry into the pillow as he fumbles blindly for the oil let out on the bedside table. Despite his rush, Hans takes his time to work Henry open, expressing no desire to hurt him, but his fingers tremble with every passing minute, and his cock smears a slow release upon his thigh.
There’s a flood of relief apparent across Hans’s demeanor when Henry announces that he’s ready enough.
He takes Henry on his side, plastering his chest to his back and pressing his cock into his ass with a control that threatened to shatter at any moment. That break comes the moment Hans pulls out and snaps his hips forward.
They have the room, the forge, the night to themselves, and yet still, Hans’s pace is hurried, whimpering softly between panted breaths as he rocks into Henry. Molded against his body, Hans presses a kiss to Henry’s sweat-slick neck and whispers,
“If we had the time, I’d take you with me to every corner of the empire, and beyond.” He’s breathless, his words hot against the nape of Henry’s neck, and all Henry can do is moan when the hand steadying his hip falls away and takes hold of his weeping cock.
With the quickening snap-snap-snap of his hips against his backside, he speaks of Constantinople and of taking him to see the sea. He promises to teach him how to swim in the waters of the Mediterranean, and to make love to him upon its shores.
“I will take you anywhere you wish to go,” his lover promises him. “Just ask it of me, Henry. Ask it. Ask it. Ask it, please.”
“I’d rather you be here—with me—right now—just like this.” Henry pants. “Not in some distant fancy that we may never see.”
Hans stills—suddenly—a broken sound rattling deep in his chest. It takes a moment for Henry to even realize it.
“Hans?” Henry breathes his name as he turns his head, catching a brief glimpse of his lover’s face before it is buried into his hair.
“There isn’t enough time.” The words are a shaken sob.
“We have the whole night.” Henry reassures, “And most of tomor—”
“No,” Hans says with a shake of his head, pressing his face into Henry. “There isn’t enough time before—before the fall. Th—the w…”
Hans chokes on the next word, but Henry knows full well what he means to say.
Wedding.
Hans’s breath comes quick, his next words quicker, and Henry knows he is fighting against his tears.
“There isn’t enough time to do all that I wanted to do. There isn’t enough time in a whole lifetime—two—ten—a thousand—for me to love you as I want to love you.” Hans presses his trembling lips once again to Henry’s neck and lowers his voice to whisper, “As you deserve to be loved.”
Henry laughs. It is warm and soft, and Hans freezes.
“My silly little lord.” Henry rasps, working to weave affection through every word from his mouth—for fear that any hint of mockery would shine doubt on his adoration. “This is enough.” He reaches behind him, dragging a hand through Hans’s sweat-damp hair to rest upon his neck and hold him close, as with a roll of his hips he assures him, “You are enough.”
There is fear bubbling uncomfortably in Hans’s belly when Henry pulls away, when his cock slips from the warmth of his body and leaves him cold and alone. But it settles when his friend turns to him, guides him, lays him atop his feathered pillows and linen sheets, and presses a kiss upon his worried brow.
Hans watches, entranced, as Henry sets one of his legs atop his shoulder, fingers playing delicately across the bones and tendons of his ankle as he reaches for the oil.
“We have this summer together…” Henry says, and the sound of his voice is a salve for Hans’s raw nerves. “And each day we’ll do whatever suits our fancy.”
A slickened finger is pressed into him then, mindful and unhurried, but Henry’s focus never leaves his face, his gaze alone keeping Hans pinned to the mattress.
“We’ll drink in every tavern and visit every bathhouse from here to Raborsch,” He purrs, “Gambling away what coin we have left.”
As the tension bleeds from his limbs, a second finger is added beside the first, thrusting into him with tender care and curling into his core with every slow drag toward his entrance.
“We’ll get lost in the woods, and hunt to our heart’s content.”
A third finger has Hans moving in time with Henry, his neglected cock in peril of spilling filth and seed across his belly with every delicious stroke.
“I don’t need the sea; any lake or pond will do for swimming—” Henry runs his free hand up Hans’s leg, brushing along the muscle of his calf as he presses a kiss to his ankle and winks playfully down at him. “—if you’re there to teach me. There’s time for all of that and more.”
“Henry—please…” Hans speaks, the desperation in his voice pitiful to his own ears, but the way Henry looks at him then, with awestruck reverence, makes Hans feel anything but shame.
Henry hooks Hans’s legs over his hips as he leans over him. Gingerly, he slips into his tight heat.
“Relax, we have all night…” Henry shushes when Hans tenses, pausing his encroachment at every breath till Hans grows accustomed to his cock. “This night, and so many more.”
Henry envelops him fully when he is sheathed to the hilt, their foreheads pressed together as he encloses his arms around Hans. He kisses away the tears, licks away the salt of his anxieties, and nuzzles affection into his red-blotched cheeks.
“We needn’t rush.”
And when the sting of being filled dulls, and Hans’s breathing slows, Henry moves—a slow grind of his hips against the back of Hans’s thighs.
“And when the summer’s over, we’ll return home—together.”
Drunk on the sweltering heat between them, head drowning in thoughts of playful games and thrilling hunts and humid nights spent with Henry, Hans throws his arms around Henry’s neck and asks in his delirium, “Will I keep you? Always?”
Henry’s laugh rumbles over him, through him, into somewhere far beyond all sense.
“Aye.” A kiss is pressed to blond strands plastered to his temple, “You’ll never be rid of me.”
His thrusts become proper now, pulling away just enough for the room’s cooler air to spill across their panting chests for a brief moment before they come together once more. All the while, Henry continues to whisper promises into his ear.
“I’ll introduce you to Tess. To Jo and Mathias. Matthew and Fritz.”
“They’ll hate me,” Hans laments with some manner of subtle levity. “They’ll hate me for taking you away from them.”
“No, no, not at all,” Henry reassures him, adding with a bit of cheek, “They’ll hate you ‘cause you’re a pompous brat.”
Hans’s laugh hiccups into a moan when a grinding thrust drags his cock across the coarse hair beneath Henry’s navel. He chases the sensation, rolling his hips in tandem with Henry’s.
“You and I…” Henry starts again, his tone shifting to something more somber and distant. “We’ll go together to Skalitz. I’ll take you to the linden tree behind my home, to where my ma and pa are buried. I’ll take your hand and introduce you to them, too.”
There’s a tremble in his voice now—an echo of the boy his Hal had once been, finding its way to the surface and revealing himself to Hans.
“I’ll tell them that you are Sir Hans Capon of Pirkstein, my lord—” Henry’s pace quickens, “And my lover—” His voice falters, “And my friend.”
A sniffled breath against his neck compels Hans to pull away, to turn, to try and look Henry in those foolish, down-turned eyes.
“Oh…” He brings a hand to his cheek and kisses him fully, drawing a whimper from his throat. “Oh, Hal…”
He hooks his ankles together in the small of Henry’s back, stilling his frantic rutting in favor of something closer, deeper. Henry falls into him, resting his full weight upon his chest, like a sun-warmed stone.
“I’ll tell them that—that I am happy. That I am loved. That I…. that I will be fine.”
His confession concludes with a fitful snap of his hips, and Hans knows that Henry’s reached his peak. It’s nothing grandious or ostentatious, no dramatic bucking or performative moans. Instead, it’s a quiet surrender ushered in with a withering groan muffled into the pillow beside Hans’s ear.
Hans holds him close, listening to his labored breath as his fingers dance in the crevice between Henry’s broad shoulders. When he finally moves, it is only to slip a hand between them, to attend to the matter of Hans’s release.
“I love you,” Henry professes into his shoulder, quiet enough for him to hear and yet still doubt it had been said at all until he repeated it. “I love you.”
He says it, again and again, as if hoping repetition could etch the sentiment into Hans’s very foundation—a persistent river cutting through stone. Henry says it until Hans came with a stifled gasp — a sudden spurt across his stomach, succeeded by a slow dribble that oozes over Henry’s knuckles.
Hans collapses back into the mattress, lulled into a dreamlike stupor by the pounding of Henry’s heart against his chest. Somewhere between consciousness and torpid trance, he utters the words, “I love you too, Henry,” uncertain if they’d even be heard.
The heated weight that was Henry collapses into the bed at his side, leaving him empty save for the filth of his release trickling down the swell of his arse to pool on the sheets beneath them. There is some hesitation when he turns his head to look at Henry, unsure of what he’d find there.
There is relief when he finds his friend watching him, with sleepy eyes and a sleepier smile.
“Can you say it again?”
“That I love you?”
“Aye.”
“I love you, Hal.” A gentle smile pulls at his lips, and it draws Henry’s attention away from his eyes for the briefest of moments. “I love you, now and always.”
Henry’s eyes meet his once more, and his smile turns into a foolish grin.
“Look at the mushy milksops we turned out to be.” He mumbles genially.
“A fine pair we make.” Hans laughs.
“What are we to do tomorrow, Sir Hans?”
“I do not know…” Hans answers, “I only know that there is time still tonight. So, let us make the most of what we have and enjoy it.”