occasionally, i write.

cw: blood, canon-typical violence, ptsd, and something like a mild panic attack

The awkward flailing of the last Praguer as Capon throws him off the battlements looks almost comical; by contrast, the disgusting sound of metal and meat hitting the dense ground of the dried-out moat is anything but.

For a single moment thereafter, everything is eerily silent.

The world, suspending its breath.

But then, the roar of tens of feet hitting creaking wooden platforms shatters the quiet. Lungs fill up again with fresh air that stinks of death, and Frenzel’s men rush past on the narrow wall walk, tossing the dead and dying Praguers down into the moat while hauling their own dead and injured down into the inner bailey’s courtyard.

“Fuck,” breathes Capon, ducking behind a crenel before roughly running a gauntleted hand across his face. His fingers smear blood and viscera into his skin.

Henry presses himself up to the crenel to his right, making as much space as possible for the soldiers bustling around them. He can’t tear his eyes away from the browning, flaking smudges on his lord’s face. Wonders if his looks any better.

“They’ve let up.”

“For now,” replies Capon. His chest still rises and falls rapidly, jostling his cuirass. Everything has become more exhausting since the food reserves have begun running low.

Beside the large, thumb-shaped smudge of blood low on Capon’s right cheek, a smattering of small bloodstains almost gets lost amidst the stubble of his still neatly razored-down beard. Henry blinks.

“You fought with your visor up,” he says.

Capon looks at him, uncomprehending. Then shrugs, aventail rustling. “And what of it? It’s hot out, Henry, in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t want to get boiled in my own steam.”

Something sour settles in Herny’s empty stomach. He purses his lips as if that could hold back the urge to chew Capon out. “They have archers, Sir,” he says, all but spitting the title, “stationed all along the walls down there. And all they have to do all day is shoot at us whenever we’re up here on the ramparts. One stray arrow, and you’d be—”

“Watch your tone,” Capon cuts him off, bristling, and stands up straighter. He likes to leverage the hand’s breadth he has on Henry whenever he finds himself on the backfoot in an argument. “And besides,” he goes on, “you’ve some nerve, to give me shit for not putting down my visor while you’re wearing that thing.”

His blood-stained index finger trembles as he points it accusingly at Henry’s kettle hat.

Henry’s breath hitches. “Well, but that’s different,” he says, tapping a finger against the brim. “These don’t have a visor in the first place.”

“But I know you can afford a better helmet than that.”

The back of Henry’s neck grows clammy. He knows how unreasonable and petulant he sounds when he says, “But I don’t need a visor.”

Capon, predictably, hones in on his hypocrisy. “Oh, and I do?”

Yes, because your life is more important than mine, Henry wants to say, though he knows it would only upset his lord and dearest friend more, no matter how true it might be. And even then, it would be dishonest to pretend it was the only reason.

Henry darts a few quick glances around the ramparts, finding that most of Suchdol’s garrison has either moved on from where they are standing or left for the courtyard below. Only a lone guard lingers around the very end of their part of the wall walk, far enough not to hear them.

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Henry looks back at Capon. “It’s bad if I wear a visor, Sir. I—I can’t stand the feeling of having my head stuck in a tight space,” he confesses, rushed and quiet with shame. His hands tremble, sweaty inside his gauntlets. “I got a bucket stuck on my head as a lad, see, and we couldn’t get it off for hours until Pa finally took an axe to it. And ever since—”

Even just remembering it has Henry’s breaths coming quicker. The darkness. The muffled sounds. The blood rushing in his ears. The panic. The thinning air, wet and hard to take in.

Christ, the hunger must be eating away at his nerves, too.

But then, a gentle, bloodied hand settles carefully on his shoulder. Slowly, as if dealing with a spooked animal, Capon steps in front of him. “It’s alright, Hal,” he says, all indignation gone. His eyes are terribly soft. “Just breathe. I didn’t know.”

“Aye, well,” Henry says, and drops his gaze to his feet. His breaths slowly steady under the grounding weight of Capon’s hand, and for a few fleeting moments, neither of them says anything else.

Eventually, Capon breaks the silence. “Were you embarrassed to tell me?” he asks, and Henry can only nod. A scoff, then. “Seriously, Hal, did you forget who you’re speaking to? Do you think I, of all people, would judge you for being scared of tight spaces? I’ve half a mind to be offended, really!”

And—well, it does sound rather silly when he puts it like that. “But it’s for such a dumb reason,” he says.

Capon’s fingers clench around his shoulder in what might be a suppressed urge to give him a shake.  “It’s no dumber than a tower falling on top of you,” he replies, firm. And then, very quietly, adds, “Fuck, why do you think I avoid putting it down?”

Oh, Lord, but Henry’s a fool.

He settles a hand atop Capon’s and gives his friend’s fingers a squeeze. He may not even feel it through layers of leather and plate, but it doesn’t matter. “I’m sorry, Hans. I should have… should have thought of that. Especially knowing what it’s like.”

Capon’s hand drops away from Henry’s shoulder as Henry lifts his own. “Well, I have gotten better about it.”

“Aye,” Henry says and, surprisingly, feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “But this sort of thing seems to linger.”

“I’ll say,” Capon sighs. The look he fixes Henry with is almost disbelieving. “But really, since childhood?”

Henry shrugs. “Can’t help it. When Sir Hanush awarded me that nice helmet for winning the Tourney back home, I was excited to put it on, you know? And then I almost lost my mind when the visor fell down, and I had to keep it together in front of the audience.”

Capon’s mouth twists into a wry smile. A dried-up smudge of blood on his cheek cracks under its pull. None of this is funny. “And it’s been kettle hats since?”

Henry knocks a fist against the brim of the helmet in question. It clunks with the sound of metal hitting metal. “They’re fine, aren’t they?”

A brief moment of hesitation; as quickly as it had come, Capon’s smile drops. “I’d rather you wore something that kept you safer, too, you know,” he says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His eyes trail along the floorboards before snapping back to Henry’s. “That’s what got you worked up earlier, wasn’t it?”

There’s no point in denying it, Henry supposes. “I can’t always protect you. If a stray arrow took you out because it hit you right in the eye while I wasn’t looking…”

Capon nods. Sighs. Says, “Aye,” and Henry knows that he feels just the same.

The sour thing in Henry’s stomach shrivels, grows warmer. They’re both fools.

“Will you put the visor down if you can stand it?” Henry asks. Almost adds, for me?

Perhaps Capon hears the unspoken part, anyways. “You old mother hen,” he scoffs. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll try. Though I can’t make you promise the same, can I?”

“Well, His Lordship could always switch to a kettle hat, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” Henry suggests. The remark has Capon grinning properly again at long last; it loosens something in Henry’s chest and makes him grin in turn. “And at least the brim might stop a sword from immediately paring your turnip.”

“It is not so bad,” Arne has the gall to insist, even as his swollen wrist turns more and more purple by the minute. Henry has half a mind to give him a matching bruise on the head.

“It absolutely is,” he says while carefully moving each of Arne’s fingers to check their mobility. Only moving the thumb has his German guildbrother hissing, which, considering the extent of the bruising on his wrist, is probably a blessing. Though, upon closer examination, it would seem that the bruising simply spreads down to the ball of his hand. Henry sighs. “Well, I don’t think it’s broken.”

Arne lights up. “So it is fine.”

“I didn’t say that,” Henry immediately cuts him off. He carefully turns Arne’s hand over, watching him flinch as his wrist is rotated. “It looks like it’s sprained something nasty. Might’ve also bruised the bone.”

“Das heißt…?”

Henry isn’t entirely sure if Arne is asking him to translate his diagnosis or bracing for Henry to tell him how long he will be out of commission for, but he certainly doesn’t know how to say any of this in German. “You shouldn’t move your wrist at all, ideally. At least until the swelling and bruising are better.”

Arne’s eyes flicker down to his wrist, a look of utmost betrayal on his face. “But it was just a… a Schlag auf die Hand,” he says, sounding more distraught than Henry has ever heard him. Hell, nearly losing an eye hadn’t bothered him as much as this seems to.

“It often doesn’t take a lot,” he says, and slowly lets go of Arne’s hand, careful not to jostle it needlessly.

In a way, Henry might be the one to blame for this happening in the first place. He’d thought it could be fun to take Arne along for one of the blacksmiths’ guild’s duels, after all. And he’d also suggested Arne try his mettle against Matthias von Saaz, even though Henry himself had found the man a bit too wily since they’d crossed blades for the first time. Arne, who was used to trained and honourable opponents, hadn’t been prepared for an underhanded hit like the one that ended up wrecking his wrist.

Now, still sat in the shade of a barn in Hoprink with the duelling grounds abandoned, there’s no helping it either way. Accidents happen, even though it’s tempting to feel guilty about it.

“I can stabilise it with some bandages for now,” Henry says, “but you’ll have to keep it still for a few days at least.”

“But training—”

“I’ll tell Menhard to chop off your hand for good if he catches you with a sword.”

Arne’s mouth snaps shut, brows furrowing. If looks could kill, Henry supposes that he should make a run for the priest. “Und täte ich’s im Geheimen?” Arne asks, tilting his chin up in challenge, and though Henry doesn’t understand all the words, he just knows Arne is being a brat about this.

“Arne, I swear to God, I’ll put that sprain in a splint if I have to. At least then I’d know you won’t overdo it.”

Somehow, that seems to make something click for Arne. His face falls, chin dipping back down. “Ist es wirklich so schlimm?” he asks, the severity of his injury apparently only now beginning to sink in. A wonder, really, considering how nasty his swollen and discoloured wrist looks.

“Aye,” Henry says, and gets to his feet. He doesn’t offer Arne a hand up, too afraid that force of habit will have him reaching for him with his injured hand. The sun is slowly dipping below the city walls, and daylight suddenly feels acutely fleeting. “Come on, I can wrap and immobilise it properly at the smithy.”

“Immobilise,” Arne echoes faintly, staring down at his wrist as though it has somehow wronged him. “And it will be nur für ein paar Tage?”

“If you actually keep it still, I think it should be,” Henry reassures him. “I can also give you some decoctions to help with the pain.”

Huffing through his nose like an exhausted carthorse, Arne at last gets up, his shoulders drooping lower than usual. “Danke, Heinrich,” he says, though he manages to make it sound like he’s just admitted defeat.

They make their way through the quarter a little more slowly than Henry would have expected, but Arne’s barely stifled noises of pain whenever he jostles his wrist make him slow down. The passerby are beginning to light their torches by the time they pass the Hole, and as they enter the smithy’s garden, the walls surrounding the property cast everything in pitch-black shadow.

“Come on,” Henry says, motioning for Arne to follow him as he pushes open the door to the forge.

“You work here?” Arne asks, head swivelling around to take in the room as Henry hunts down flint to light some lamps with. “And you make Schwerter?”

“Aye, though people tend to need nails and wardrobe hooks far more often,” he replies, finally locating what he’s looking for at the far edge of a table. Blame the darkness; at least he makes quick work of those lamps. “They also need their rotten teeth pulled and their broken bones splinted, for that matter. Sit down, Arne.”

Surprisingly, his German friend does so without complaint, gingerly sitting down on the seat of the sharpening wheel. Perhaps, Henry realises, he is still too mesmerised by the room to remember that he is about to have his sword arm immobilised.

It might be for the best, really.

Henry retrieves two short blocks of wood from a workbench – would-be sword hilts, now finding a different purpose – and grabs a few firm bandages before coming back to Arne. He kneels down between Arne’s legs, setting his makeshift splint down on the ground beside him. “Come on, let’s have another look at that wrist.”

With a moue to put Hans Capon himself to shame, Arne extends his arm and carefully sets his hand down on his own knee. His wrist has turned an awful, deep purple by now, the dim light making the unhealthy colour stand out even further. Henry can’t help but hiss in sympathy. “Maybe I should have gotten some salve, too. Christ, this looks nasty.”

“You said it was only für ein paar Tage,” Arne reminds him, as if Henry has any authority over the severity of his injury.

“I think the worst will be over in a few days,” he assures him, picking up the first of the wooden blocks. “But you should probably take it easy for another week or two, after.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“I know, but it wasn’t this purple earlier,” Henry says, gently lifting Arne’s hand to place the block lengthwise against his inner wrist. “Hold it there for a moment.”

Arne obeys, his left hand pressing the block against his arm while Henry picks up its twin, alongside a roll of bandages. “How will I do anything, wenn ich meine Hand doch nicht benutzen kann? If I… can’t use my hand?”

Henry presses the other block to the outside of Arne’s wrist, the upper edge just reaching the back of his hand to immobilise it. Only once he has begun fixing the blocks in place with the first few rounds of bandages does he reply, “Well, you can take it off and have someone put it back on if you really must. If you go to the baths, I’m sure the girls there will know exactly how to redo it.”

“And if I…”

When he doesn’t finish the sentence, Henry chances a glance upwards. Even in the low light, turned to the side to avoid Henry’s eye, he can tell that Arne’s face is bright red. He picks up the next wad of bandages to try and hide his bemused grin. “I’m sure you can piss and wipe your arse with your left.”

“Das ist nicht—”

Arne’s lips clamp shut when he looks down to see Henry grinning up at him, working the first bit of the bandage free. His eyes narrow, air puffing out of his nostrils.

Henry resumes the wrapping of Arne’s wrist, giving himself an excuse to look away. In the privacy of the smithy, he figures there’s no harm in acknowledging the sorts of people Arne fancies, or what transpired between them that one night in the guild’s courtyard. “I’m sure there’s many handsome young men around Kuttenberg who will gladly help you with… other matters.”

As Henry nears the end of the bandage, his little quasi-splint is starting to look solid enough already. Fewer layers will make it easier to take off and redo; it’s nothing if not practical. But when he looks back up at Arne, mouth already open to ask if the wrapping is comfortable, the extremely flustered expression that greets him makes the words die on his tongue.

“Heinrich,” Arne says, almost breathlessly. His eyes glisten in the low light, and Henry suddenly finds himself worried that he’s wrapped his wrist too tightly. But then Arne uses his good hand to guide the hand Henry had just been wrapping his injury with between his parted legs, and—

“I didn’t mean you had to start looking for help getting off immediately,” Henry says, but nevertheless lets his palm cup Arne’s half-hard cock through his braies.

Well, perhaps this is on him for getting on his knees between Arne’s legs in the first place.

“Du musst nicht,” Arne says, somehow, impossibly, growing more flustered still. “You—don’t have to.”

Despite his words, his prick stiffens further in Henry’s grasp. He has to bite down on his bottom lip to stifle a laugh. “Can I trust you to keep your hand still?”

Arne looks down at his wrapped, immobilised wrist as if he’d already forgotten about why they came here in the first place. But then a flash of steely resolve crosses his face, and he moves his injured hand off his lap, letting the arm dangle beside him. “You can.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to have to rewrap it,” Henry says, slipping his hand upwards to undo the laces of Arne’s braies. “Is it comfortable, or did I wrap it too tightly?”

“Nein, it’s—it’s good.”

Henry hums, using his other hand to untie the bottommost laces of Arne’s gambeson. “And did you give this” —he gives Arne’s cock a light squeeze for emphasis— “any thought yet? Seems to me that you’ve been a bit affected for a while.”

Much to his surprise, Arne just swallows and then says, “Ich dachte… naja, you’re already da unten.” He lifts his left hand to indicate to where Henry is kneeling between his spread legs, before – rather deftly – using it to unbuckle his belts, one after the other. “You could…”

“You want my mouth?” Henry chances a guess, parting the gambeson until it reveals Arne’s stiffened, linen-clad prick. He didn’t have the opportunity to look his fill last time; now, he finds himself oddly careful as he tugs the waistband of Arne’s braies loose enough to push it down, revealing his rigid cock. It’s modest in size and already flushed almost as purple as the bruise on Arne’s wrist, with veins standing out in stark relief. Half the head peeks out from the foreskin, looking impossibly dark in the poor lighting, a single droplet glistening at the tip.

“Arne?” Henry asks when he receives no reply. He glances back up and finds the other man staring down at him with wide eyes, jaw trembling. “Are you alright?”

“Ja,” he grinds out. “Du siehst nur—you just look…”

Perhaps, Henry realises, Arne isn’t all that used to the handsome young men of Kuttenberg helping him get off.

He lets a smirk settle on his face and makes a show of pushing his cheek against the inside of Arne’s thigh, mouth only inches away from his cock. Some mean part of him longs to blow on it. “If it’s too much for you—”

“Nein!”

The vehemence in his voice – probably borne out of his constant need to prove himself, God bless the fool – tickles Henry something awful. He has to bury his mouth in Arne’s thigh to stifle his laughter. “Fine, fine,” he says around half a mouthful of hose, “but do you want me to suck you off?”

Arne swallows, sitting up straighter. Hesitantly, he extends his good hand to settle on top of Henry’s head. “If—if you want to,” he says, fingers idly twisting into Henry’s hair.

“Klar,” he replies, feeling just a bit cheeky for the odd German word. He peels himself off Arne’s thigh and reaches for his now filled-out cock; the weight of it in his hand is not unfamiliar at this point, but the sight still very much is. Gently, Henry slides back the foreskin, revealing the glistening head fully. He presses a little kiss to it, watching Arne through his lashes for a reaction.

And a reaction he gets: Arne’s breath hitches, audible in the quiet of the forge, his pupils huge. Henry smirks and kisses the tip again, maintaining eye-contact all the while, before giving the slit a tiny lick. The taste of early seed is salty and bitter on his tongue, but not unpleasant; below that, he can also taste a hint of the musk of a long day in the heat that has his gut stirring.

He gives the head another, more indulgent lick, now letting the uneven surface of his tongue slowly lave over the sensitive skin. The hand in his hair tightens slightly without pulling him off, and he takes it as encouragement to go on, letting his eyes slip shut as he takes Arne properly into his mouth.

He keeps his fist wrapped gently around the base to cover what he cannot take yet, letting his lips settle against his fingers. Like this, he can taste more of the musk, of Arne’s sweat and skin; chasing it, he allows himself to smooth his tongue along the underside of Arne’s prick, lingering for a moment. Then, he tightens his lips and pulls back, his hand moving along with his mouth.

Arne chokes out another gasp, and Henry finds himself looking back up as he begins to bob his head. There’s a blotchy flush turning all of Arne’s face red, his eyes screwed tightly shut. His chest rises laboriously, while his lips are clamped between his teeth, stifling both his breaths and any noises begging to escape. It’s a shame, that habit of his; Henry wouldn’t mind hearing just how much this affects him.

He sucks a little harder, draws his lips tighter every time they slip over the head. His drool eases the glide of his fist around Arne’s cock, and he dares to speed up his ministrations, carefully, incrementally taking Arne further into his throat.

A whimper makes its way past Arne’s bitten lips.

And then, a sudden surge of bitter, heady seed has Henry groaning instead.

Arne’s eyes fly open and before he knows what’s happening, the hand in Henry’s hair is frantically pulling him off. Arne’s teeth unclench just so he can choke out, “Heinrich, wenn du so weitermachst, dann—”

And though Henry doesn’t exactly understand, he gets the meaning just fine. The hand he has wrapped around Arne’s prick stays there, unmoving, holding it still while it twitches in his grasp. He licks his lips. “I don’t mind if you don’t last, you know,” he says, voice coming out a little rough. “’S flattering.”

The cock in his hand gives a noticeable throb at his words. Arne disentangles his uninjured hand from Henry’s hair to rub it over his strawberry-red face. “It felt… gut. Sehr gut,” he mumbles, palm muffling his words. Swallows. “I don’t know if…”

Henry finds himself smiling; for as weird as fucking Arne proves to be, there’s something almost cute about the German. He presses a kiss into the crease where Arne’s thigh meets his torso, earning himself a little gasp. “Have mercy on my jaw and knees,” he jokes, turning his head just a bit to give the side of Arne’s prick a little lick.

Arne keeps staring down at him, lips trembling. “You don’t think it’s… peinlich?” he asks. When Henry’s expression must betray his incomprehension, Arne purses his lips, thinking. A beat passes before he seems to remember the word in Czech, clarifying, “Embarrassing.”

And, oh.

Henry can’t help but smile, rubbing his cheek into Arne’s thigh. “It’s not embarrassing at all,” he says, using his hold on Arne’s cock to give it a few loose-fisted, gentle pumps. “I do mean it when I say it’s flattering. Means I’m at least halfway decent at this.”

Arne looks down at him, cheeks flushed and expression unreadable. His lips are red from how hard he’s been biting down on them. He looks already fucked-out like this, at least from where Henry is kneeling.

Then, very slowly, Arne’s hand returns to Henry’s head. Carefully, he nudges him in the direction of his cock, and Henry is all too happy to acquiesce. Using his grasp around the base to guide Arne back into his mouth, he hums in appreciation as the salty taste of seed hits his palate again. He rolls his tongue over the head, then dips the tip below Arne’s foreskin. The hand curling back into his hair trembles, lean thighs twitching about his ears.

God, but it really is flattering, to be eliciting reactions this strong. Henry glances up through his lashes as he flicks his tongue into the slit of Arne’s cock, watching the German’s eyes flutter shut, the muscles of his neck straining as he clenches his jaw tight, lips clamped between his teeth. Oh, but Henry really needs to get him to make some noise before he spills, or he’ll go insane.

Taking a deep breath through his nose, he opens his mouth a little wider, flattens his tongue, and swallows Arne as far down as he can.

The reaction is immediate: fingers clenching in his hair, a bitten-back groan getting trapped in Arne’s throat, and a jump of Arne’s hips that almost has Henry choking. But he doesn’t, thankfully – he just settles a reprimanding palm on Arne’s hipbone, holding him in place, and breathes around the weight of the cock now resting along the entire length of his tongue. The head breaches his throat, and Henry becomes acutely aware of it every time he swallows drool and seed.

Carefully, he pulls back, feeling every silky inch slide over his tongue, trailing saltiness. The hand he’d previously used to make up for what he hadn’t fit in his mouth now supports the base, his thumb occasionally dipping lower to run along the seam of Arne’s bollocks.

When only the head remains in his mouth, Henry swirls his tongue over it, rubbing it over the sensitive spot on the underside, just where it meets the shaft. He slides it a little further into his mouth again, then gives it a parting suck before diving all the way back down. A needy little noise escapes Arne as his cock slides back into Henry’s throat; he can’t help but groan over that tiny whimper, and Arne’s hip gives a twitch beneath his palm. Christ, he needs to hear more.

There’s more need than finesse to the way he pulls back and immediately swallows Arne down again and again. Tears blur his vision when Arne’s cockhead strikes the back of his throat at a particularly awkward angle, but Henry doesn’t pull off, breathing through the discomfort. All he can taste and smell is musk and salt, and all he hears is the obscene sounds of his own mouth on Arne’s prick and a litany of hitched breaths and stifled moans and groans. If he weren’t so focussed, it could well drive him mad; God knows that he’s uncomfortably hard in his own braies. But his need only makes him want to get Arne off sooner, to get his composure to snap and all those held-back noises to come spilling out without restraint at last.

Bitter saltiness sits heavy on Henry’s tongue, tears spilling from the corners of his eyes. Every time he takes Arne’s cock all the way, his nose brushes the fair hair curled around the base, the musk of a man on a summer’s day almost cloying. Henry moans, and above him, a gasp falls freely at last.

He glances upwards, vision blurred by tears, to see Arne’s mouth drop open, breathing so hard that his hot breath fans across Henry’s face. His eyes are screwed tightly shut, forehead glistening with sweat in the low light.

He looks positively debauched.

Henry groans once more, and the fingers tangled into his hair tighten. He can feel Arne’s cock grow impossibly harder, and he shallows the bobbing of his head, using his hand to jerk the base in tandem with his mouth’s movements in preparation for what’s to come. Arne throws his head back, throat straining and spilling sweet gasps and moans, a delighted smile stretching across his lips, and—

It’s hardly a surprise when he comes at last. Henry pulls back so only the head remains between his lips, slackens his jaw and lets pump after pump of hot, bitter seed spill onto his tongue. With his hand, he works Arne through his release, coaxing every last drop from his cock until, with a satisfied sigh, Arne’s hips slump away from him.

As his prick slips from Henry’s mouth, a final, stray spurt paints a stripe down the middle of his bottom lip. He’d lick it off, were his tongue not currently weighed down by a mouthful of come. For a moment, he considers what to do with it – whether to spit it into the leftover bandage or to just swallow it all.

His gaze flickers up to Arne’s face, startling when he finds him looking back already.

Perhaps it’s because he is so surprised by it, but either way, he swallows.

Arne’s eyebrows shoot up. Henry knows he must make for a right messy sight – mussed hair, drying tear-tracks on his cheeks, seed on his lips, a very prominent tent between his legs – but Arne still gazes down at him with so much wonderment, Henry wonders if he didn’t personally hang all the stars in the sky and forget. “Du hast geschluckt,” he says, full of awe, with blown-wide pupils and a flush high and bright on his cheeks. The thumb of his good hand gently swipes at the tears beneath Henry’s eye. He exhales. “Oh, Heinrich…”

And in what might be the most shocking development of the day, Arne proceeds to lean down and kiss Henry right on his come-stained mouth.

Henry can do little but freeze up in surprise, but Arne doesn’t seem to consider it a rejection. Instead, he keeps on chastely pressing his closed lips to Henry’s until he eventually recovers enough to respond in kind. And what an odd kiss this is; Henry certainly wouldn’t be kissing a man who’d just swallowed his progeny as sweetly as this. But Arne has always been an odd duck – perhaps this was to be expected.

A soft sigh fans over Henry’s lips, and then a hand settles back into his hair. It’s a gentle touch, although something about it does feel somewhat odd, and before Henry can figure out what it is—

“Scheiße!”

The floor suddenly feels colder to kneel on than before, with how Arne jerks back hard enough to upset the grindstone. In front of his chest, he cradles his right hand, and Henry realises what just happened.

“Christ, I told you not to move it!”

Arne glares down at his hand as if it had personally wronged him. Truth be told, it’s a miracle that Henry managed to finish him off without this happening. “I thought you would want… etwas im Gegenzug.”

Henry sits back on his haunches, sighing. It’s fascinating how quickly the mood has been ruined. Arne’s now soft cock looks a bit ridiculous where it dangles above the pushed-down waistband of his braies.

“I’m not letting you touch me,” he says, indicating towards Arne’s splinted wrist with his chin. “You’ll only make it worse if you move your hand without thinking.”

His friend bristles. “But—”

“Arne, I’m fine,” Henry cuts him off. Arne looks almost offended to not be returning the favour. As if to placate him, Henry settles his hands on Arne’s knees, thumbs gently brushing the inside of his leg. Softer, he adds, “I enjoyed doing this for you. And I don’t need anything in return, I promise.”

That seems to do the trick, if only somewhat. Arne deflates a little, though he still looks put-out. It’s funny to see now, with how little he had seemed to care about Henry’s pleasure during their first romp.

Slowly, Henry pushes himself off the ground. His knees creak like those of a much older man after having been stuck in the same cramped position for minutes on end.

Arne follows his every movement with all the attention of a bird of prey, though his eyes do linger on Henry’s slowly flagging erection for a moment too long. It makes him smile as he shakes out his slightly numb legs, one of his calves twinging with the threat of a cramp. “Can you fix up your clothes on your own?” he asks Arne, nodding at his still bare cock. “I can help you out with any laces.”

“Es muss gehen,” Arne huffs, frowning, and tucks himself away with his left hand before shimmying his braies back up and – miraculously – retying the waistband with only his left hand and the tips of two fingers on his right. It really is quite impressive.

“I was only asking,” Henry laughs, throwing his hands up to show his lack of ill-intent. “If you’re fine on your own, I’ll go and grab something for the pain in the meanwhile. It should help bring down the swelling as well, but it’s mostly a painkiller.”

Arne blinks up at him, considering. His good hand hovers over the undone laces at the bottom of his gambeson. “Danke dir, Heinrich,” he says, cheeks reddening just a bit. “You are… kind.”

“What are friends for, eh?” he asks, feeling maybe a little bashful, and licks his lip.

Zlata is a darling woman, really.

She doesn’t exactly remind Henry of his Ma, in part because Ma would have set her husband straight twice over instead of fussing and worrying all day, but she mothers him all the same. Whether it is out of gratefulness for finding her husband, or just because he happens to be the same age as her own son, Zlata always makes sure to always ladle an extra spoonful of stew into Henry’s bowl, to hang some dried chamomile by his sleeping spot at the lodge, and to hand him an extra fur to put beneath his bedroll whenever he stays over.

Vitek seems mostly amused by it all and doesn’t begrudge Henry his mother’s attention. He’s a good sport all around, Henry has found, so long as his father isn’t concerned. Which is, unfortunately, rather often.

“I bet your old man isn’t some useless drunk,” Vitek says one evening as they sit in the little shelter by the shooting range, waiting for the sun to set and their stomachs to settle. Henry scuffs his heel against the dirt beneath his feet, stalling.

“No,” he replies, unsure what else to say. Talking about his parents still doesn’t come easy. He doesn’t really know who his father is, either.

Vitek sighs, oblivious, and leans back against the wall. The bench beneath them tilts a little with it. “Lucky you, then.”

Well, suppose that Henry had been lucky, once upon a time. Being reminded of the fact makes his chest feel awfully tight, though. The back of his nose stings. “My Pa was the strict sort,” he says. “Always warned me off messing around and staying at the alehouse too late. My Ma, too, for that matter, but… he wasn’t the type to drink.”

The words are left to hang in the air for a moment before Vitek lets out a soft little oh, barely more than a gasp. The bench jostles as he leans forward again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—is he…?”

“Aye,” Henry says. He watches Vitek deflate from the corner of his eye. “You didn’t know. Don’t worry about it.”

Vitek swallows, eyes screwing shut as if it pains him. A slow exhale, then he straightens in his seat. “At least you can remember them fondly,” he says, face flickering between emotions, yet refusing to settle into any one expression. “If you hadn’t come along when you did and gone looking for my father, he would have been wolf-fodder. And what would I have remembered him as, then?”

It strikes Henry rather suddenly that Vitek has been grieving a parent, too.

Death, at least, is a masterful thief – one that snatches a man whole. To lose someone to the bottle, drop by drop, swig by swig, while they still sit opposite you at the table, becoming less themselves by the day—

Tentatively, Henry reaches out to pat Vitek’s shoulder. “He’s still alive,” he says, like that’s any real comfort. “And, if God wills it, he might get better yet.”

“God’s help might be his best bet, at this point,” Vitek replies, shrugging off Henry’s hand more harshly than Henry would expect, and gets to his feet. But just as quickly as he had gotten up, he immediately falls to his knees before the storage chest by the far wall. He unlocks it, fumbles with the lock and latch for a moment, before he swings it open to retrieve a simple hunting bow from it. “Want to shoot a few arrows?” he asks, still kneeling, holding out the bow like a trophy.

Henry considers it, the pale wood shining like fire in the late light. It trembles in Vitek’s hold, the skin on his knuckles stretched thin. Then, he turns to look at the shooting range and the forest beyond it – the sun has already dipped so low that he can’t even make out individual trees anymore. The woods are but an indistinct black mass, looming beyond the fence.

“Isn’t it too dark already?” he asks, turning back to Vitek.

For a moment, the only sound between them is the rustling of the tall grass, and the howl of a lone wolf, far away.

Then, very slowly, Vitek’s arm slackens, his iron grip on the bow loosening. A scoff. “Suppose so,” he replies, then pauses. His throat works around a swallow, and he stays kneeling in the dirt, staring at where the tip of the bow gingerly kisses the ground.

Henry bends at the waist and leans forward, almost pitching over to look him in the eye. “Do you usually do some shooting to work off your anger?” he asks, trying very hard to sound non-judgemental. Vitek blinks up at him, lips briefly stretching into something like a sneer, before he gives a curt nod and returns the bow to the chest.

“What else is there for me to do?” he asks, yanking latch and lock back into place with more force than necessary. “I can’t just go and start punching people! The only folk around are my family and the huntsmen, anyways. Not that my old man wouldn’t deserve it.”

“You could punch me?” Henry offers. “I’ve some experience with it, you know. They have a whole fight club set up down in lower Semine—”

“I’m not going to fight you,” Vitek cuts him off, wheeling around to look at him in mild horror. “Henry, imagine the earful my mother would give me.”

Henry shrugs, maybe a little put out. But no matter. “Suit yourself.”

With a heavy sigh, Vitek drags himself up to sit next to Henry. “I do get mad. And then Mother gets mad at me in turn, so I just… try not to say anything. Not that it always works”

Vitek’s unkind words for his father when Henry had walked him home, thrown sideways across Pepik’s bare back, come to mind. All that anger, forever left with nowhere worthwhile to go.

Henry chews the inside of his cheek, considering the ever shrinking, ever blurring shadows his feet cast in the dirt. “I mean, I’m sure you can blow off steam some other way?”

“Again, I’m not going to hit you,” Vitek says, and Henry can’t help but snort. When he looks at him, Vitek is clearly stifling a little smile of his own. “What are you thinking of, then?”

“Well,” Henry begins, and then—draws a blank. How is a bloke to blow off steam, if he can’t punch something, or fight, or at least yell a bit? Well, there is one other thing that immediately comes to mind, but the Zhelejov inn with its bathhouse is a ways off, and the sun is going to set any minute now. Though Vitek could, of course—

“You could… you know,” Henry says. With his right hand, he makes a rather unmistakable jerking motion in mid-air to illustrate what he means.

Vitek balks, then looks around in the dim light as if he afraid somebody might have seen what Henry just mimed, scandalised by the very suggestion. Through his teeth, he hisses, “I don’t do that sort of thing.”

Well, at least Henry can say he tried, and—

Huh?

“What?”

Vitek nods. “Would you do that with your parents sleeping two feet away?”

“Well, yes?” Henry says, suddenly on the backfoot. His own lashes feel like fans against his cheeks with how quickly he is blinking. Any lad who’s ever had to share his sleeping quarters with his parents has had to. “But what do you mean, you don’t do that sort of thing? Don’t tell me you’ve seriously never tugged yourself off.”

“Mother caught me at it when I was younger, and she said—well. It’s not a good Christian thing to do, is it? Self-abuse, I mean,” Vitek replies.

Clearly, there’s all kinds on people out there, but somehow, the admission still has Henry stumped. Vitek is a red-blooded young man like any other, and while it certainly explains why he can be rather high-strung sometimes, for him to never deliberately bring himself off—

“That can’t be healthy,” Henry says, a little faintly. His mind is whirring, trying to recall that one medical treatise on humours he’d read once, and then maybe sort-of understood. “If you don’t, err… discharge every now and again, just imagine how that affects the balance of all the other fluids in your body. It might throw off your humours completely!”

In the low crimson light of sunset, Henry can’t exactly tell if Vitek is blushing, but he still knows that he is. “I guess,” he says. “But—I’ve never done it. I wouldn’t even know how to go about it, and I’m certainly not about to start fumbling around with myself next to my sleeping parents.”

Henry wants to object that that is just what most young men (and, he assumes, a fair number of girls) have to go through, but he decides to keep that thought to himself. Though he genuinely does think that never getting off isn’t healthy, so—

“I could let you borrow my sleeping spot for a bit?” he offers. “I’ll keep watch, and… I suppose if you need someone to talk you through it—”

“What, you’ll tell me what to do?”

Henry shrugs. “Vitek, everyone does it. Monks do, even when they technically shouldn’t. So if you really need instructions, I at least know what to do.”

The light around them is beginning to purple now. In a few minutes, they’ll need a torch if they don’t want to break their feet on the short trek back to the gamekeeper’s cabin. Vitek purses his lips, clearly considering something, before he looks Henry dead in the eye and asks, “And this really works?”

“To help you unwind? Aye,” he says. “I know a bloke who can barely go a week without getting his pizzle pulled before he gets insufferable. Though he’s got the money to pay bathwenches to do it for him.”

Wherever that bloke might currently be; Henry just hopes that he is at least safe.

Vitek hums in thought, rocking the bench by rolling his heels back and forth in the dirt. A little sigh, then a swallow. He hunches his shoulders for a moment, then drops them just as fast. “Fine, then. I’ll give it a try, just to see if it works.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Henry asks and pushes off the bench. With Vitek’s little swaying motions, it tilts threateningly for a moment, but Vitek catches himself against the wall. He glares at Henry, though it lacks any significant heat, and Henry promptly offers him a hand up in apology. “Come on, let’s get you off.”

“Don’t say that,” Vitek groans and lets himself be pulled to his feet. In the dim light, they brave the short trek down the slight slope, tall grass rustling. Someone – likely Zlata, darling mother hen that she is – went to the trouble of lighting the lamp by Henry’s bedroll, so the open shed glows like a beacon in the almost-darkness, drawing them in like moths to a flame. By the edge of the property, Henry can make out some shadowy lumps curled up together. It would seem that Mutt has taken up with Vostatek’s hounds, though none of the dogs stir to look at what he and Vitek are about to get up to. And it’s a good thing, that – Henry isn’t sure that Vitek mightn’t faint if a dog started barking while he’s yanking his pizzle.

Henry’s bedroll is spread out on the ground inside the shed, innocent and undisturbed. Some of his belongings are strewn around haphazardly – he hadn’t exactly expected company, after all – and Pebbles’s saddle and tack are thrown precariously over a too-thin beam. “You go ahead and get comfortable,” he instructs Vitek, indicating towards his bedroll while making for his saddlebags.

“Just—just like that?”

He turns to throw a quick glance over his shoulder. “Aye, just sit down and relax. I’ll just get you some things to make it better.”

A moment passes before the gentle rustling of clothes tells Henry that Vitek is indeed getting settled. It would seem that he is slowly warming up to the idea. Or, at the very least, he is not as likely to bolt anymore.

Henry rummages through his saddlebags, rooting around for an oil-based potion – he’d rather Vitek not go through the unpleasantries of a chafed dick from his first proper wank, after all. His fingernails clink against his collection of earthenware phials until he finds a buck’s blood potion that should work just fine. And, just for good measure, Henry decides to grab a few scraps of cloth he’d meant to cut up into bandages.

Turning back to Vitek, he finds the man awkwardly sitting on his bedroll, legs tucked beneath his arse, looking as high-strung as anything. Henry has to force down a laugh. “What part of ‘relax’ did you not understand?”

Vitek flushes, shifting off his calves with an expression bordering on guilty. “It’s not that easy! Shit, I feel more worked-up than I did before.”

Henry can easily believe that. He falls to his knees before Vitek, placing the rags and the phial on the ground in front of him. “All the more reason to unwind, then,” he says, then points at the potion. “It’s nicer if you’ve got something to help your hand glide over your prick. This is oil-based, but tallow or grease also work. And if you’ve nothing else, spit’ll do you fine.”

Vitek nods, eyes fixed on the phial. “And the rags?”

“Well, ideally, you’ll spill at the end,” Henry says. “They’re for mopping it up.”

“Oh, Christ,” exhales Vitek. “And you’ll be doing what?”

“I’ll keep watch, if you want,” Henry offers, pushing himself off the ground. “Unless you need something else from me?”

Vitek swallows, then raises his gaze to look Henry dead in the eye. He looks mortified. His mouth keeps opening and closing, but no words come out.

Then, his hands fall to his lap and finally, he asks, “Can you talk me through the beginning?”

The request catches Henry off-guard. His previous offer had been half in jest, and he hadn’t expected to actually be taken up on it. But Vitek’s hands push his tunic up, the index finger of his right hand catching the ties of his braies. It’s a shockingly bold move, and before he can think better of it, Henry finds himself kneeling before him once more.

“Aye, I suppose I did offer to, didn’t I?” he says, faintly. Blood rushes in his ears, deafeningly loud. His eyes are glued to Vitek’s fingers, tugging at his laces until they come undone.

“What do I—how would I get started?” Vitek asks.

It takes tremendous effort for Henry to force himself to look up, but he somehow manages to. Vitek meets his eye, a curl of strawberry blond hair sticking unflatteringly to his forehead. Henry swallows. “Well, you have to take your cock out, for one.”

He sees Vitek’s right arm shift, watches him lift off his arse for a second to shimmy his braies down a little. The fabric of his braies rustles, but Henry cannot allow himself to look down.

“I guess that should have been obvious. And then?”

What then, indeed. He likely isn’t anywhere near hard yet, and Henry isn’t sure if he can help him with that. What he can, however, help him with is making it nice from the get-go. “Hold out the hand you want to use,” he instructs, fumbling for his buck’s blood without looking down. It takes him a moment, the phial’s round shape proving hard to grasp without looking at what he’s doing, but once he takes a proper hold of it, he wastes no time unstopping it.

Vitek wordlessly extends his right hand as bidden, and Henry pours a few generous drops of the oily concoction into his palm. “And now you just sort of… touch yourself.”

Vitek blushes like a virgin at that – which he, all things considered, may very well be. His hand trembles a little as he lowers it once more. Henry decidedly does not follow the movement with his eyes.

It’s hard not to.

It gets even harder not to when a little shiver shakes Vitek’s shoulders and a quiet gasp slips past his lips. “And how do I go about that? What’s the done thing? Do I close my eyes, or…?”

“Whatever works best for you,” Henry says, heart in his throat. “If you close your eyes, it’s easier to imagine a maid you fancy. Lets you focus better on the feel of it, too.”

Vitek hums and lets his eyes slip shut. A breath stutters out of him as his arm tentatively starts moving. Henry makes a point of not looking anywhere below his shoulders, afraid of how much the sight of Vitek stroking himself might affect him. He wouldn’t want to scare him off, and—

“Oh,” Vitek gasps, his shoulder tensing and his arm stilling for a moment before it picks up the pace.

Henry swallows, keeping his eyes on Vitek’s fluttering eyelids, his scrunching brows and twisting lips. “Feel good?” he asks. It’s startling how rough his own voice comes out. Vitek nods jerkily, his jaw tight. Christ. “There’s a spot right below the head, if you touch that—”

A breathy gasp cuts him off. Seems like Vitek found the spot just fine – or another spot that feels just as nice. His lips part, pulling into a blissful smile for a second. His hand is moving over his cock fast enough for the oil to squelch obscenely as his fist thumps against his groin. Henry’s tongue feels like cotton, his heart racing.

Sakra, he should have insisted on keeping watch.

Instead, he finds himself shuffling closer, just a bit, his knees still nowhere near close enough to come into contact with Vitek’s legs. And still, he can vaguely feel the warm puffs of Vitek’s breath, taking them onto his own tongue, down into his own lungs. He was a fool to think this wouldn’t affect him – just the sounds and the flickers of pleasure on Vitek’s face have him half-hard in his braies.

He tries to adjust himself as discreetly as he can, but even just the perfunctory touch feels like entirely too much. His cock gives a twitch, and Henry has to bite his lip to keep from groaning. Vitek has no such reservations, moaning quietly under his breath. His nose crinkles adorably whenever his face scrunches up in pleasure, and the jostling of his shoulders probably means he’s begun to fuck his own fist, and, fuck, Henry needs to look, just once—

But then Vitek’s eyes flutter open, a little hazy, and stop him in his tracks. Henry feels the back of his neck burn as Vitek seems to regain control of himself, staring at him while his hand keeps working over his cock. Jesus Christ.

“You alright?” Henry asks, licking his dry lips. Vitek gives a curt nod, tilting his head back to let out a little moan.

His eyes remain fixated on Henry.

Dear God.

In a more experienced man, he’d assume that this was a seduction. But Vitek surely wouldn’t want that, would he? He’s never even brought himself off, after all. Maybe he’s stuck his pizzle in a bathmaid once or twice; Hell, he might still remain as virginal as the Mother Mary herself. Surely, surely he wouldn’t want Henry’s hands on him. Not even his eyes. But—

Sod it.

Henry looks down.

Vitek’s plump, stout cock is stripped over by his fist, the ruddy head poking out of the ring formed by his fingers. It glistens from a mixture of oil and precum, a bead of white pearling at the tip. It’s entirely charming, sitting heavy and needy beneath Vitek’s soft belly, nestled in a dense thicket of reddish curls.

Transfixed by the sight of Vitek’s prick, Henry licks his lips and finds himself asking, “What do you need?”

A heavy puff of breath fans across Henry’s cheek. Vitek pitches forward, awkwardly shifting to get on his knees to shuffle closer. “Can you,” he huffs, and Henry’s eyes finally unstick from his prick long enough to look back at his bright red face, “can you keep talking?”

Henry swallows. Looks back down briefly. Realises how much closer Vitek has come, their knees now touching. Swallows again.

“Aye,” he says, lips and throat dry, “I can do that.”

Vitek exhales, as though relieved. And then, shockingly, he drops his forehead to Henry’s shoulder. His hand keeps working over his cock, his body jerking with the motion.

Jesus.

“What’d you want me to say?” Henry asks, suddenly finding his hands itching to touch Vitek, now that he’s close enough to. But this isn’t about him, he reminds himself, even when his own cock would very much like for it to be. “Want me to invent a maid for you to imagine?”

Against his shoulder, Vitek’s head jostles in a shake. “N-no, just… tell me what to do. How I’m doing.”

Henry’s gaze drops to where Vitek is still methodically stripping over his own cock, making sure to rub along that one spot below the head on every upstroke. His foreskin moves along smoothly, the oil and Vitek’s own early seed easing the motion.

“You’re doing good,” Henry murmurs, quiet now that his mouth is almost by Vitek’s ear. “It also feels really nice if you run your thumb over the head when you’re at the top. In a circle, or something.”

He watches on as Vitek tries just that. Feels how he gives a pleased shudder.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Henry asks. He can’t bring himself to avert his eyes from Vitek’s pleasure, but the little nod against his shoulder is all the confirmation he needs. “You can also touch your bollocks with your other hand, if you want to.”

He sees Vitek’s free hand hesitantly come up to do just that. He has to adjust his hips to reach them better, then slowly reaches between his legs to cup his sac. The hand on his prick slows as he evaluates whether he likes touching himself there or not.

“Doesn’t have to be for everyone,” Henry assures him quietly and watches with rapt attention as Vitek gives his left ball a careful, three-fingered squeeze. That has him gasping into Henry’s shoulder, and the next second, the hand on his prick resumes its work with renewed vigour. “But I suppose you can enjoy it,” he laughs.

There’s something fascinating about watching Vitek’s hands work in tandem to bring himself off while his heavy breaths wet the fabric of Henry’s shirt just below his collarbone. It’s also terribly, unfairly arousing; Henry could swear his own cock is sympathetically weeping along just as vigourously where it stays hard and contained inside his braies.

Without thinking, he brings up a palm to cup the back of Vitek’s hot neck.

“Doing so good,” he mumbles, thumb stroking through fine, sweaty hair. Vitek makes no move to shake Henry’s hand off; if anything, the contact seems to spur him on, his hand stripping over his cock so fast that Henry fears it might become painful. “Nothing shameful about it, Vitek. Just look at how good you’re makin’ yourself feel.”

The way his knees press into Henry’s, trembling with his arousal as his prick keeps leaking early seed over his fingers, has Henry aching. An ill-timed gust of wind against his cock might be his undoing at this point.

This was never going to end well.

His palm greedily slides over Vitek’s heated skin. “Gorgeous, lookin' so good,” he finds himself saying, more than a little mad with arousal and the smell of Vitek’s hair right there in his nose. “You’re doing so well, Vitek, touching that pretty cock of yours—”

Suddenly, the heat at his shoulder disappears. For a stomach-plummeting second, Henry thinks that he’s said too much, but when he tears his eyes away from Vitek’s drooling, rigid cock, what he finds instead is Vitek leaning in even closer, and, for a moment, Henry expects that he is going to kiss him.

But instead, he presses his sweaty forehead to Henry’s. His eyes flutter open to meet Henry’s gaze.

“Just a bit more,” he pants, pupils blown.

And Henry can do little but shudder and acquiesce. His hand clutches at Vitek’s neck like a lifeline as tears gather nonsensically at the corners of his eyes. “Doin’ so well, Vitek. You look so good like this,” he babbles, listening to the frantic, wet slap of Vitek’s fist against his pubic bone. “You’re gonna feel so good when you come, I promise. So c’mon, come for me.”

Vitek’s mouth drops open, his whole face scrunching up as he gasps hotly. A soft groan escapes him, and then his whole body shivers as he reaches his peak. Henry, entirely too bewitched by Vitek’s expression of pleasure and the hot breath mingling with his own, hasn’t the wherewithal to look down to see it happen.

That is, until a drop of hot seed hits the tip of Henry’s own neglected erection.

Perhaps the assessment that a gust of wind would undo him wasn’t all that far-fetched.

Henry curls into Vitek, reversing their earlier position as he buries his face in his shoulder to stifle the moan that tears form his throat as he suddenly finds himself shuddering through a climax of his own. His hips reflexively jerk into the air, though there’s nothing to be found there – not even any more drops of hot seed – while he spills into his own braies without so much as a touch to his cock.

Jesus Christ, he suddenly feels fourteen again.

At least Vitek doesn’t push him off; at least he is spared that particular disgrace.

They sit like that for a few moments, panting and getting their respective bearings back. Clarity feels cruel as it returns to Henry, and how much he’s embarrassed himself before Vitek. The inability to keep his eyes to himself, the babbling, coming in his pants—

A huff of laughter brushes over the shell of his ear. Slowly, Henry drags his burning face off Vitek’s shoulder, an apology already on his tongue before he is cut off by a decidedly sticky hand landing on his shoulder. “I won’t tell anyone anything,” Vitek says, smiling wanly, and for a moment, Henry struggles to follow before another thing dawns on him.

No one without a taste for men would have reacted, or done, or said any of the things Henry has.

He swallows, then nods. Stares off into the almost-dark, where Pebbles’s saddle sits. “That’s good of you,” he says. Blinks. “Actually…”

“Hm?” Vitek hums, busying himself with wiping himself down with the rags Henry had provided him with at the start of all this.

“Vitek, I don’t know if you’re all that innocent, either.”

Vitek’s ministrations jerk to a halt. It’s really quite ridiculous, to see him freeze up with his softening cock in hand. “Weren’t you the one who said that self-abuse is necessary?”

Henry resists the urge to roll his eyes. He slumps back on his haunches, ignoring the sticky situation in his braies for now. “I’m talking about wanting me to talk you through it. You could have just imagined a busty maid and been done with it, but no. You wanted me to instruct you.”

“Oh, shut up,” Vitek says and gives his prick a rough final wipe before tossing the rag somewhere into the dark. His face, barely returned to its normal colour, betrays him by flushing once more. “It’s—it’s different. Not that it wasn’t nice of you, but…”

His mouth twists into a conflicted pout; Henry decides to take mercy. Losing one’s virginity to one’s own hand is enough of an ordeal for one evening, after all – better not to bring greater sins into the mix as well. “Did you at least enjoy bringing yourself off?”

Vitek’s throat bobs as he swallows. He quickly reties his braies, then twists the legs of his hose until they’re presentable again. “Aye. It does feel good,” he admits, very quietly.

“Feels like it’ll be good for getting stress out of your system?”

Vitek slowly rises off the bedroll, his knees giving a little crack as he straightens up. He fixes Henry with a considering stare, redness high on his round cheeks. Standing before Henry like this, he looks like a judgemental giant.

Elishka’s fingers are pleasantly rough against Henry’s scalp. She is by far the most meticulous out of all the Kingfisher girls when it comes to freeing Henry from the dust and dirt and blood he collects on the road. She missed her calling as a dedicated washerwoman, really; Henry can easily picture her manhandling filthy clothes with the same businesslike firmness she handles his head with.

“You like this, eh, Henry?” Elishka asks, and her fingers grow just a little meaner for a moment. Henry groans in pleasure. She laughs. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Her tits, covered only by her soaked-through chemise, press against Henry’s bare shoulders. “Offering me a headrest, are you?” he jokes, and Elishka lightly slaps the side of his head.

“Nay, sir,” she says. “But if you wanted to play with them, you know that I wouldn’t say no.”

And he does know – Elishka had declared that she would like to have him all the way back when he had first fetched the girls from Grund. He had recognised it for the sales pitch it was, back then, and had declined. But now, after somehow weathering the storm that had preceded the Kingfisher becoming the municipal bathhouse together with the girls, and Betty consequently thanking him with free service, there wasn’t much left to sell to him.

Besides, he simply likes the girls, friendly lot that they are.

“Would you want that?” he asks Elishka, who has moved her soapy hands to glide along his shoulders, now. “I mean, we’re friends, aren’t we? I wouldn’t want you to let me… err… have you like that, like a chore or a service.”

And Elishka snorts – a gust of tepid air across the wet back of Henry’s neck. “Henry,” she says, teasingly chiding, digging her thumbs into the meat of his trapezius muscle, “do you think a nice, handsome boy like you can’t drive a girl a little mad? I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted you.”

“Really.”

“Really,” says Elishka, sliding her slippery hands to Henry’s chest, playfully groping at the soft, lax muscle there. “And if you don’t want to play with my tits, I’d be happy to play with yours instead.”

Henry flushes but does his best to act as though he doesn’t. Instead, he bats at Elishka’s hands with equal light-heartedness. “Ah, come off it,” he laughs, only to receive an almost mean squeeze to his left breast. But Elishka lets off, after that; Henry is almost entirely sure that she must be smirking behind his back.

“So, what then, Henry?” she asks, lowering her mouth to hover just above his shoulder, breath hot. “Do you want to, or not?”

Henry twists in the tub to finally face Elishka. She looks surprisingly affected by her own little seduction, red-cheeked and dark-eyed and smirking like she knows she’ll get her way. And Henry doesn’t exactly know what counts as going willingly, for loose women like Elishka – but to him, it does seem as though she simply, earnestly wants him.

And it’s not as though accepting a friendly, pretty girl’s advances is much of a chore for him.

“Alright, then,” he agrees, and Elishka throws her head back to laugh in triumph.

“There, see!” she exclaims, and jumps up from her stool to peel her soaked chemise off. It lands on the floor with a squelch, and Elishka cheerfully steps into Henry’s tub, sinking to her knees to join him in the warm water without much fanfare at all. “You won’t believe how much I’ve been thinking about this, ever since we first met. It’s nice to get a strapping young lad between my legs.”

As if to demonstrate her point, she lifts her bent knees to straddle Henry’s lap. “Is Kuttenberg not living up to what you’d hoped for? I’d imagine there’s plenty of good-looking men coming through here,” he says, idly settling his hands on Elishka’s somewhat meaty thighs.

“Oh, aye, there’s plenty of those,” she says dismissively, taking hold of Henry’s wrists to encourage him to knead and fondle her legs. “But there’s not many that are really my type, yes?”

Henry hums in vague agreement, thumbs running along the prickly insides of Elishka’s thighs where the hair begins to grow denser. He intends to eventually make it to her cunt like this, teasing and slow, but then Elishka throws her arms around his neck, sighs and—

“Well, maybe you’re less picky with men than I am.”

Henry freezes.

His hands still. He’s not even sure he’s still breathing.

It might as well be a confession.

And his sudden stillness doesn’t go ignored, either. Elishka looks down at him from where she’s seated in his lap, brows furrowed. Her arms remain steady around him.

“Henry,” she says, sounding almost like she is reprimanding him, “when you came to fetch us from Grund, I asked you if the men in Kuttenberg were bigger than elsewhere. What did you think I meant?” She doesn’t even mention how tongue-tied Henry had gotten when she teased him about preferring boys; he had felt like he’d been caught, even then.

But Elishka’s fingers just scratch gently, indulgently at his nape now. Henry forces himself to breathe again.

“And you just didn’t care?” he asks, his voice coming out a little faint.

Elishka smiles, sweet and genuine. “Being discreet is part of the trade. We get all sorts of tastes here, and I much prefer you liking boys over asking me to do weird things to you,” she says, sliding forward so that her tits press up against Henry’s chest. “Besides, do you think us girls don’t look out for each other whenever we’re left unsatisfied by our customers?”

For a moment, the image of two buxom, naked bathwenches pressed up to each other in an intimate embrace flashes before Henry’s eyes. Oh, Jesus.

He feels his pulse jump between his legs, and Elishka clearly feels it, giggling before she reaches below the waterline to take his half-interested cock in hand. She gives it a few nice, firm pumps and kisses Henry’s cheek. “Like that idea, do you? Maybe you can sit by and watch sometime. I have a feeling you don’t much mind a bit of sodomy.”

He isn’t sure if he’s more mortified or aroused by her words, at this point. The hand on his prick isn’t helping. “Fuck.”

“Zlata won’t do it, you know. Says only the fellas do it for her,” Elishka says, terribly casual, kissing down the side of Henry’s neck. Henry’s fingers dig into her thighs, holding on for dear life as she goes on, “Klara’s different, though. Knows her way around a cunny better than any man. Makes me wonder if she even likes boys at all.”

Henry, shuddering, gives up the fight. He slips his arms around Elishka’s waist to grab handfuls of her ample arse cheeks, a thumb dipping between them. “I’ve met a few fellas who were the type,” he says. “Just couldn’t bring themselves to – fuck – like girls.”

Elishka grins, her thumb pressing just below the head of Henry’s cock before she lets go of it. Were it not submerged in the water, Henry knows he would be embarrassingly wet by now. But Elishka seems to enjoy his eagerness, if anything; she kisses his cheek and rocks forward, so that the mound above her cunt presses up against Henry’s hard prick.

“Well, don’t leave me hanging,” she says, leaning further into Henry until her tits squish against his chest; God, but they’re soft. “Did you tumble some of them? I bet you did.”

And, fuck, it might be an admission of guilt, but Elishka’s pupils are huge, and Henry feels the phantom of broad, calloused hands ghosting over his body, and the drag of a cock inside him, and there’s a lovely cunt waiting for him to slip into—

“Aye,” he sighs. “Even took a proper knight to bed, the once.”

Elishka lets out a little noise, breath audibly catching. Her chest heaves against Henry’s. “What a sight that must have been,” she says, rocking her hips a little. “Two strapping fellas, fucking like animals in heat…”

Well. For all the good their stay in Trosky has done them, the night Henry had spent in Bartosch’s bed has not soured in his memory. He’s never been worked over so attentively, so thoroughly before or since, and—fuck. Henry digs his hands a little harder into Elishka’s buttocks, drawing her forward in encouragement. She sighs as she lets herself slide forward and up, her folds dragging along Henry’s length. He wishes she’d let him slip inside already.

“And which way was it?”

“Huh?”

Elishka gives the hair at the top of Henry’s head a little pull. “Did you bugger him? Or the other way around?”

For a long, confused moment, Henry lets go of Elishka. He fails to understand how that would be important – until he remembers how arousing the mere thought of two naked women wound together had been. Perhaps it is the same for womenfolk?

“I, uh… let him do it.”

“So you know what it’s like,” Elishka sighs and rocks her hips once more, the head of Henry’s cock catching on the opening of her cunt. “Would you like to have me like that? I don’t really let anyone stick it up my bum, but since we’re friends and you get what it’s like, what’d be the harm?”

The proposal leaves Henry speechless, and the grin she throws him is positively sinful. He feels his cock twitch in the water. “Christ,” he exhales, and Elishka laughs.

“We’d have to get out of the tub for it, though, so how about we save that for another time?” she says with a wink. Her arms lift so her hands can settle on Henry’s shoulders. She pushes herself up to her knees, water running along the curves of her waist and hips. “Let’s have you the natural way, then, eh?”

Henry’s bad shoulder twinges briefly as Elishka uses him to steady herself. She’s a right sight, dripping wet like that; he can’t even be mad about how she keeps teasing him, taking his arousal from one place to the next. “Want me to help you out?” he asks, extending a hand palm-upwards between her legs.

“How generous,” she says, light and cheerful, and all but thrusts her cunt up against Henry’s fingers. Elishka’s breath hitches as he slips two of his fingers between her folds, just gently rubbing back and forth for a start. It takes a moment for her to pick up on Henry’s pace before she is rolling her hips into the movement, taking what she needs without a hint of shame.

Outside the water like this, Henry can actually feel her slit growing slicker; when Elishka spreads her knees a little further apart, he takes the invitation and pushes his fingers against her opening. “Is that alright?” he asks, craning his neck to look Elishka in the eye. She nods, then gasps as Henry breaches her, her brows drawing together. And then, because Henry’s mouth is faster than his brain, he asks, “Is this also how girls do it with each other?”

Elishka puffs out a laugh and begins to fuck herself down on Henry’s fingers. The movement has her tits bouncing in his face, which is not the worst view to be stuck with. “Aye, of course,” she says, a little breathlessly. “But it’s also nice to – hah – rub two cunnies together.”

The logistics of how to get that to work elude Henry in the moment. But, God, just the idea of two cunts pressed up against each other, producing the same obscene sounds as Elishka’s is right now—

Henry groans at the thought, and Elishka giggles. “Perhaps you really ought to watch sometime,” she says, then shudders on the next downstroke as she grinds her most sensitive part into the heel of Henry’s hand. “Klara and me will make it – oh – worth your while. You should – yes, right there – see how she can work that mouth of hers.”

She throws her head back, the movements of her hips growing faster and more frantic, taking what she needs, tits still bouncing, her hands on Henry’s shoulders tightening, and then she’s clenching down around Henry’s fingers, moaning and whimpering without restraint. Her stomach flexes, hips jerking as she rides out her pleasure for another few seconds. It’s a lovely sight, and Henry finds himself staring at the flush that spreads down her chest in sweet pink blotches.

He gently pulls his fingers out of her as she winds down, and Elishka sighs. “Thanks,” she says, presses a kiss to Henry’s forehead, and sinks back into his lap. Her slick ditch is angled towards his cock, and she grins when Henry groans. “Want me, now?”

“If you want it,” he says, almost diplomatic if not for his cock throbbing at the thought. Perhaps Elishka doesn’t even feel it, because all she does is kiss his nose and slide forward, foregoing her teasing for once. She takes him in hand with a boldness borne of experience, rises to her knees once more, and unceremoniously guides him into herself.

She parts easily for him, her walls hot and wet and soft. A few weak, lingering flutters of her climax still ripple around him; he can’t help but groan as he bottoms out, Elishka smiling proudly as she straddles his lap. “Good?” she asks, as if she doesn’t know that it very much is.

“Aye,” Henry says, a little winded, taking hold of her arse once more. The supple flesh spills past his fingers, and—Christ, to think she’d consider it too big—

Elishka lifts off his lap, her cunt dragging deliciously around Henry’s prick. The soft skin of her tits brushes against his chest. “You know,” she says, lowly, and drops her hips back down in the same breath, “Klara also has this fake cock.” Another lift and drop. “With leather straps and all.”

Lift, drop; Henry stares up at her, the roaring of the blood in his ears making hearing difficult. “What?”

She grins, the movement of her hips picking up speed. Sakra. “Aye, she can tie it ‘round her hips, like a proper cock.”

Henry’s fingers dig harder into her arse. He doesn’t feel like he’s guiding her so much as holding on for dear life. “And what’s she do with it?” he pants, feeling Elishka’s rhythm falter for a moment. Her face scrunches up briefly – perhaps in pleasant memory – before she resumes her bouncing a little more vigorously.

“Lets me fuck her, just like this,” she says, and, oh, God.

Henry pitches forward to stifle his groan in Elishka’s shoulder, and she laughs before a moan chokes her off. Suddenly, there’s fingers in his hair, gently holding his head in place. Elishka’s bouncing turns into little grinding motions of her hips. “Oh, keep like this,” she pants, fucking herself in short strokes that barely jostle Henry’s head and he feels helpless to do anything but let it happen.

The water sloshes, Elishka is warm and slick around him, her little noises of pleasure driving him closer to the edge all by themselves, and combined with the mental image of ever-chatty Klara with Elishka in her lap just like this, their soft bellies pressing together, tits bouncing against each other, slender fingers digging into arsecheeks—

Vaguely, Henry registers Elishka’s hand sneaking between their stomachs. She moans, the fingers of her other hand twisting into his hair and pulling, dragging him back to look at her, all flushed and debauched, lips bitten and eyes on the verge of slipping shut, and then she says, “Maybe she’ll bend you over, too, if you ask real nicely,” and Henry is gone.

His hips rut up to meet hers desperately, looking for just a tiny bit more depth, and Elishka allows herself to be jostled, giggling and groaning, rubbing herself urgently enough for her wrist to repeatedly knock into Henry’s abdomen. With a high keen, she clenches around him, slamming her hips down as her walls flutter with her climax, and Henry spills, vision whiting out.

For a few long moments, they simply stay as they are, still joined, panting as the aftershocks of their pleasure slowly subside. The bathwater around them has grown tepid, not terribly pleasant to sit in.

With a splash, Elishka peels herself off Henry, his softening cock slipping free, her thighs trembling from strain. He reaches out to steady her, and she laughs, leaning forward to kiss his nose. “Thank God for you, Henry,” she says, dismounting his lap to wash his spend out of her cunt without an ounce of shame. “My faith in the menfolk I can find in Kuttenberg has been restored.”

It’s clearly an exaggeration – possibly meant to stroke his ego – and Henry finds himself laughing. He feels abuzz with pleasure and terribly loose. “Well, the womenfolk don’t seem lacking, at least.”

Another splash, and Elishka gets to her feet, water sluicing down her body in little rivulets; Henry’s cock gives a valiant little twitch at the sight, but still lies defeated. She remains standing before him in the tub, grinning, giving his leg a little nudge with her toe. “Aye, they’re good,” she agrees. “But I’d be happy if you wanted me again sometime, too. Friendly-like.”

And what’d be the harm? “Friendly-like,” he echoes, using the edge of the tub to pull himself up. He can’t feel his feet, he realises.

Elishka seems to catch on to his predicament, now moving to steady him. “Wrung you out, have I?” she asks, cheerful. Then, clearly just pretending to ponder before she speaks, she adds, “Maybe I really ought to ask Klara to let you watch, if a girl can’t even sit on you for a few minutes without it being too much.”

“Oh, fuck,” Henry says, and this time, the twitch of his cock has it stiffening again. Elishka, with her arm around Henry’s forearm, looks down with a laugh.

Were he caught in any other position, Hans could probably laugh it off. Putting a hand down his braies after a long day is practically normal, and had he been caught with a girl in his lap, he’d only want to preen over his conquest. But no: here Hans is, arse in the air, two fingers buried knuckle-deep inside himself, drooling into one of Henry’s tunics.

And whoever just walked in on him is infuriatingly keeping their silence. Well, frankly, Hans wouldn’t know what to say if he came across something like this, either. But the door doesn’t close, and Hans still kneels on the bed, frozen like a hare before it bolts, and the longer this strange impasse goes on for, the more embarrassing it gets.

Another moment passes. And though it feels like a concession, very carefully, Hans at last pulls his fingers from his arse and settles on his haunches. His empty hole smarts a little with the movement, while his somehow still interested cock slaps his thigh, loud as a whipcrack. Jesus Christ.

Very stiffly, he chances a look over his shoulder, just as his uninvited audience decides to finally speak up.

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” says the Dry Devil, leant inside the doorframe as casual as can be. The torchlight from the balcony casts his pock-marked grin in eerie shadow.

Hans feels his heart jump into his throat; breathing, he finds, becomes difficult. What kind of reaction is that? He’s toying with him, isn’t he? Hans would rather he insult or loudly condemn him, instead of just standing there, looking at him like it’s fucking hilarious.

Before he can say anything else, the Devil pushes off the doorjamb. “Looked like ye were having the time of yer life, there,” he says, hovering with one foot on either side of the threshold. “Putting on a show fer anyone who walks in.”

It almost sounds like an accusation. Incensed, Hans finally manages to croak out, “Did you need something?”

Dry Devil cackles, still clearly amused by the situation. “Just went in the wrong door!”

Of fucking course.

Hans exhales sharply, trying to calm himself down. His heart still thumps against his ribcage like an angry rabbit. At least his dick has given up the fight now, softening against his leg in a sad pool of precum. It’s not exactly a step towards making any of this more dignified, but at least he won’t be having this conversation hard and leaking.

Straightening his back a little, he summons every bit of hauteur he can scrape together and turns to face the Devil. “You could have just slammed the door and left, you know. It would have been the—polite thing to do.”

Once more, all that earns him is a cackle. “Aye, Capon. We both know that I am known for my politeness.”

Christ, but this might be Hell. Maybe Hans died at Maleshov or Raborsch, and now this is his retribution for lusting after another man: being endlessly tortured by the Devil while sitting there with his cock out. It sounds like a fitting punishment at least.

“So why are you still here?”

Finally, the Devil moves away from the threshold – except that, instead of leaving, he steps further into the room. His hand settles on the door’s handle, though he doesn’t push it shut. Hans feels his stomach turn. “As I said, it was a good show.”

Oh, naturally, the Dry Devil, with all his vices, would have a taste for a bit of sodomy as well. Or at least he isn’t above pretending that he is, in order to watch Hans squirm. But that’s just Hans’s luck, isn’t it?

“I wasn’t putting on a show,” he replies, “least of all for you.”

“Still pretty compelling t’ look at,” Dry Devil says, shrugging one shoulder.

Footsteps creak on the balcony outside, the old wood groaning under somebody’s weight. Hans is suddenly terribly aware of the fact that he is naked save for the braies tangled around his knees. He can’t make it to the door in time, and something tells him that the Devil won’t close it on his way out under these circumstances. And what would people think, then? Before he can think twice, Hans glares at the Devil and hisses, “Close the fucking door!”

Grin ever widening, the Devil obeys. The door’s hinges rattle as he slams it shut.

Hans suddenly feels terribly trapped. He wishes Henry were here.

But at least they have privacy, now. Hans meets the Devil’s eye. “I won’t touch myself in front of you, if that’s what you were angling for,” he says, trying to sound as resolute and authoritative as he can while essentially naked. Then, another thought strikes him. “A-and just so you know, I’m not in the habit of doing… that to myself. At all.”

The Devil raises a brow. His eyes travel past Hans for a moment. “Aye, only when thinking of yer pretty little squire buggering ye.”

Hans’s head swivels to look at the drool-stained tunic on his pillow. Fuck.

His face is so hot, he’s sure that even the dim candlelight in the room is enough to see how red it is. Oh God, the Devil is going to rub this in his face at every opportunity from now on. And Henry—

Shit, he really should clear Henry’s name of this mess.

“We’ve never—he doesn’t even know,” Hans chokes out, pulling the tunic off his pillow and just… holding it, after. It hides his prick from view, at least. “And I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what devil must have compelled me to do it, honestly.”

“Well, wasn’t this one here,” says the Devil, all droll, even lifting his hands to show his innocence. Hans wonders if Žižka would mind terribly if he went ahead and stabbed his fellow robber baron. It’s probably to be expected, that he’d one day piss someone off enough to earn him a dagger in the side, right? Before he can contemplate murder any further, Dry Devil takes one creaking step towards him; with the poor lighting, his scarred, gangly form looks terrifying. “And ye never even did it proper before?”

“Proper?”

“With a cock up yer arse, Capon. For fuck’s sake.”

“Of course not!” Hans hisses. “I’m a—”

Well, a good Christian probably wouldn’t finger himself to the thought of his closest friend shoving his prick up his arse; the protestation ends up dying on Hans’s tongue, turning sour.

The Devil’s eyes go big and round, delighted at his hesitance. He takes another step towards Hans; every stride forward makes him look more ominous, the candlelight hitting his uneven face from below. “Sure ye are,” he says, teeth glinting.

Is this what prey animals feel like?

“Are you going to leave already?” Hans asks, itching to stand up to at least meet the Devil eye-to-eye. But what dignity would that afford him, to stand there naked with his braies around his knees? The Devil would just sneer at him either way.

“I could,” says the Devil. Another step forward. Hans swallows and finds that he now has to tilt his head back to maintain eye-contact. “But if ye were looking for a proper fuck, well…”

“Excuse me?”

A final step, and the Devil’s shins touch the edge of Hans’s mattress. He looks like something from a nightmare, like this. Everything in Hans screams to crawl backwards, but giving up ground would probably be even more lethal. “Aye, Capon. Ye went through all the trouble of fucking yer arse open. Shame it’d be to let it go to waste.”

Traitorously, Hans’s hole twitches. He could know what it’s like to have a cock strike that spot inside him. Just once, to see what it’s like. To see if he’d like it. He stares up at the Devil, horrified. Surely, he’s not considering this. Why in God’s name would he?

“And if I tell you to leave?”

The Devil shrugs. “I leave, nae bother. I’m not going to force myself on a brother-in-arms.”

Surely, he’s not considering this.

And then the Devil, with the widest smirk yet, adds, “I won’t mind ye moanin’ Henry’s name, during.”

Hans has absolutely gone mad. No doubt about it.

Something inside him gives. It leaves him angry and itching to prove himself. “Well, go on, then, if you’re so keen to!” Hans snaps, before his sanity can catch up to him.

The Devil chortles, triumphant.

And turns away.

Hans feels his heart drop. So the fucker was just toying with him all along! And now he’s probably going to make Hans suffer for his honesty; he’ll go and tattle on him, and everyone at the Den will look at him not like he’s a fellow warrior, but some sort of wanton catamite, begging for cock—

But when the Devil reaches the door, all he does is lock it. “Wouldn’t want anyone else walking in, eh?”

Hans exhales, unsure if it’s in disappointment or relief. “Right.”

Four more strides, and the Dry Devil returns, knees threatening to dip onto Hans’s bed. “I’ll have ye the way ye were,” he says, casual as if ordering a beer. “Got any oil or tallow? If not, spit’ll have to do.”

Hans can’t help his shock at the words; the Devil sounds as though he really has experience with this, doesn’t he? Blindly, Hans fumbles for his little potion phial, which has miraculously managed not to spill all over the bed after Hans forgot to stopper it. He hands it over to the Devil and shimmies out of his braies before tossing them to the floor. “At least take your shoes off when you get on the bed,” he orders.

“Oh, of course, Your Grace,” says the Devil, always fucking sneering, but still does as bidden. Then, there’s knees on the bed and a hand at the back of Hans’s neck, nudging him towards the pillow. “Well then, down ye go.”

And Hans, twisting and shuffling awkwardly on his knees to get into position, does.

His face returns to its familiar groove in the pillow, still slightly damp where he’d been drooling into it. Without Henry’s tunic covering it, it just smells of mildew and Hans’s own sweat, though. He could put it back, but he isn’t sure if the Devil would let him live it down; the linen crinkles in Hans’s grasp.

He shifts his knees underneath himself again, unsure how to settle. All he knows is that the more he spreads his legs, the more exposed he feels. It’s embarrassing; is this how wenches feel? Because, as maddening as the thought of presenting himself like this to Henry had been in his fantasies, the reality of shoving his arsehole in the Dry Devil’s face is much less erotic.

Or so he thinks, until two calloused hands come up to knead at his buttocks. “Fuck, Capon. Yer arse puts most bathwenches to shame,” says the Devil, voice turned to complete gravel. He sounds genuinely appreciative, shockingly enough. And while the groping makes Hans feel a bit like a piece of meat, the rough touches also send pleasant tingles down his spine. As the Devil works his hands further and further inwards, fingers sliding along the inside of Hans’s crack, he is surprised by how sensitive the skin there feels, getting worked over like this. And, once he’s close enough to Hans’s hole, the Devil spreads his arsecheeks as far apart as he can.

Then, a thumb unceremoniously breaches him.

“Fuck!” Hans barks, because the Devil apparently decided to go in fucking dry. “What did you think the oil was for?”

He can practically see the grin that goes with the snickering at his back. The thumb withdraws. “Apologies, milady. I thought ye’d already used some.”

The Devil gives his arse a mild slap. Hans buries his face further into the pillow. He isn’t even really all that turned on by this, for Christ’s sake. Maybe—maybe he isn’t made for sodomy, and his feelings for Henry are just confused, misguided friendliness. Maybe—

Two slick fingers unceremoniously push into Hans with barely any resistance at all.

“Jesus wept,” he gasps, clenching down on the intrusion on reflex. The Devil’s fingers are much like Hans’s own: long and bony, far from girthy. They don’t hurt, after he’s played with himself earlier. But still, these are another man’s fingers inside him, now, and—kurva.

“Easy, Capon,” coos the Devil, patting Hans’s hip. “Relax, hm?”

The tone rankles him. “Do you think I’m a bloody horse?” Hans bites back. The only response he gets is a sharp, short thrust of the Devil’s fingers, harsh enough to hurt a bit. He’s sure the Devil knows it does; it’s punishment for the backtalk. Then, the fingers shift and pull out by a knuckle. Hans prepares for another slightly painful strike, but no – instead, the Devil crooks his digits slightly, and all but zeroes in on that spot.

Hans bites the pillow to stifle a moan.

Oh, God.

Before he can recover, the Devil thrusts his fingers forward again, striking the spot dead-on once more. It’s much more intense than when Hans had done it himself – direct pressure instead of gentler, glancing touches. There’s an almost brutal edge to the Devil’s thrusts; Hans can only take it, his legs shaking, toes curling.

It’s nearly too much, too soon, too hard – he doesn’t know what to do with the tooth-rattling, near painful pleasure coursing through him. He feels oversensitive; his prick is only at half-mast but already drooling helplessly onto the sheets as if he’s close to coming. Hell, his nipples twinge.

“Ye alright down there?” the Devil asks, sounding terribly unbothered by the torture he is inflicting. Another strike to Hans’s sweet spot; all he manages to groan out is a quick ‘fuck’ that has the robber baron laughing. “Want me to? Fuck ye, that is.”

Hans, first and foremost, wants a reprieve from this. His knees threaten to give out, and something that feels nearly like a climax is building somewhere between his bollocks and guts. Sakra, he doesn’t want to give the Devil the satisfaction of coming from nothing but getting his arse fingered. He doesn’t know if that’s even possible. Tears sting in his eyes. “Aye. I can take it,” he grits out.

That seems to please the Devil – or at least it makes him withdraw his fingers for a moment. Hans could sob with relief. His whole body is abuzz with pleasure, but it still stings in its intensity. His balls ache, he is painfully hard, and his suddenly empty hole clenches around nothing. He feels boneless and high-strung all at once.

“I’ll give ye a third, first,” the Devil mutters, somewhere behind him, yet a hundred leagues away. “Don’t think ye could take it just yet.”

He is probably right, because Hans would appreciate not getting torn apart by the Devil’s cock. Not that he knows how big it actually is, but turning around to look at it seems like the wrong thing to do. Hell, he doesn’t know if he’s even taken it out of his braies yet, or if he’s been sitting there, fully clothed, while Hans knelt before him naked as the day he was born, writhing on his fingers.

Fuck, but the mental image alone is obscene. He desperately wishes it didn’t arouse him.

Hans bites back a noise as fingers return to his arse, barely pressing against the rim. The Devil’s other hand comes around to hold onto Hans’s hipbone, steadying. “Ye have t’ brace a bit for this one, lad,” he says, surprisingly kind. “Try not to cramp up.”

And Hans—doesn’t.

The initial sting of something going up his arse is not a surprise anymore. Hans takes deep breaths, his legs trembling beneath him as he miraculously stretches far enough to fit three of the Devil’s fingers. The fullness is enough to make his pelvis throb, and his vision blurs for a moment, but then the Devil’s knuckles meet his rim and stay there without moving.

“Takin’ it well, Capon,” the Devil says, a thumb drawing gentle circles into his hip. “Tell me when it stops smarting and I’ll give ye my cock.”

Hans grunts out something like assent, trying very hard to relax. A dull thrum of pleasure keeps him from going completely soft, the stretch inside him forcing the the Devil’s fingers to press up against his sweet spot. Perhaps the earlier abuse had been a calculated move to leave Hans oversensitive for this part; that might be a bit too charitable for the Devil though.

He focusses on keeping his breathing steady, feeling the discomfort ebb further away with every inhale. His fingers twist into Henry’s tunic, and—it might help. Let the Dry Devil think what he wants of it; he seems to have it all pieced together, anyways. Hans shuffles the tunic up to his face and buries his nose back into it. The smell stuck to the fabric summons back his earlier fantasies. God, if it were Henry doing this to him—

A groan spills from Hans’s throat and the Devil cackles. “Alright?”

Is it alright? Hans feels pliant in a way that he’s never felt before – like an oiled-up bathwench, perhaps, or the rind off a cut of bacon melting in the pan. “Aye,” he exhales, muffled by the linen of Henry’s tunic. “Go ahead.”

“Good lad,” the Devil says, gives his hip a slap in parting, and slowly drags out his fingers. Hans tries not to wince at the loss, or the slight sting that still accompanies it. Then, there’s shuffling behind him, and the rustling of cloth, before the Devil’s hand settles back on his hip for a moment. “D’ye mind if I empty out yer oil?”

“Do you think I want you to tear me apart?” Hans shoots back; a good buck’s blood potion isn’t cheap, but he’d rather spend the groschen than the next few days limping. “Just—use as much as you need.”

“Aye, emptying it out, then,” laughs the Devil. A moment passes before the obscene sound of the Devil fucking his own, slick fist follows. A raspy, drawn-out breath fans across Hans’s bare back, making his hairs stand on end; desperate, he reaches down to give his own, nigh-flaccid cock a few quick pumps.

His grasp slips when the Devil’s prick slaps onto his arse, resting hot and hard and heavy between his cheeks. Oh, God. Hans’s body is wracked by a whole-body shiver.

The Devil spreads him open again, his thumbs hooking into the insides of Hans’s arsecheeks. His cock slides down his crack until the head catches on Hans’s rim. Sakra, he’s really about to get fucked like a woman, isn’t he? Will it unman him? Brand him, somehow, so that everyone will know? Will—

“All good, Capon?” the Devil asks. The blunt head of his cock presses against Hans’s twitching hole. It’s a surprising show of decency from him, to ask permission once more.

Hans swallows around the sudden lump of doubt in his throat. He’s come this far; if Henry ever returned his feelings, he would willingly prostrate himself in front of him like this.

With the first glance over his shoulder since they started, Hans twists to look the Devil in the eye. “Are you waiting for a written invitation, Sir Hy—”

The cockhead breaches him.

Hans’s head snaps back around so he can stifle a shout in his pillow. Mary, Mother of God; he can’t help but groan as the Devil slides into him. His cock feels endless as he keeps going, slipping in and in and in. Every little rock of his hips fills Hans up further. Maybe he will eventually reach all the way up to his throat. But then hips do meet Hans’s arse. Coarse, sparse hair tickles the sensitive skin of his crack. The Devil rubs his sides. “Don’t go bringin’ out the titles now, laddie,” he says. “Ye take me well, though, I have t’ say.”

An appreciative thumb reaches down to trace the edge of Hans’s stretched-out hole. It makes Hans feel—some way. His cock throbs. “Can you move?”

“Think ye can handle that already?”

But the Devil doesn’t actually wait for a reply; he slowly draws his hips back, the drag of his cock inside Hans tingling and honest-to-God pleasant. A whimper escapes Hans’s throat as he is left empty, save for the tip still stretching his hole. The Devil cackles, takes a steady hold of Hans’s hipbones, and slides back in in one smooth, languid thrust.

“Fuck,” Hans gasps.

“That’s the idea,” replies the Devil.

Hans trembles as the Devil keeps up the slow, torturous pace for a few strokes, perfectly pleasant but not nearly enough. He knows how good it could feel, if the Devil just struck that one place inside him proper. Just the memory of it makes his nipples tighten and his half-hard cock twitch in interest. Hell, sometimes, he brushes past it anyways, but Hans decidedly refuses to beg for it like a cockdrunk whore. If he wants it harder and faster, he will take it, as is a nobleman’s right.

With that thought, he meets the Devil’s next thrust halfway, hips meeting in the middle. It earns him a choked-off groan, and then a huff of laughter. “Christ, Capon,” the Devil says, already pulling out again, “I was bein’ polite.”

The next thrust in comes harder, harsher. Hans gasps, and, fuck, that’s better. “I thought you—Christ—weren’t known for being—ha—polite.”

The sound of their hips slamming together belongs in the filthiest of bathhouses. “I’m not fuckin’ ye right if ye can still talk back like that,” the Devil says, clearly amused. And then he is shifting his hips, adjusting the angle, and, like an arrow striking heart-true, the head of his prick nails Hans right where he needs it.

If it weren’t for his pillow, the entire Devil’s Den would hear Hans’s shout.

“There we are,” coos the Devil, and proceeds to fuck Hans hard enough for his balls to slap against his taint.

Hans cannot control the noises spilling from his mouth. He wants to sob, to scream, to moan like a cheap bathwench. Almost every thrust strikes true before the Devil slides further, impossibly deep into Hans. His now cock hangs fat and leaking between his legs, his balls feel ready to burst, and then there’s Henry, his smell stuck in Hans’s nose and heart.

Deliriously, he imagines his Hal running a broad hand through his sweaty hair, gentle as anything. God. God.

The next thrust forces a tear out of Hans’s eyes. He helplessly rocks along to the Devil’s harsh pace, groaning and panting. Fucking himself to completion inside a warm cunt or mouth has never felt like this. Perhaps that is why wenches let themselves be had so willingly: a blunt, all-consuming pleasure that just builds and builds and builds, strong enough to force whimpers out of grown men.

“Need a hand?” the Devil asks, suddenly, and it takes Hans a moment to understand that he is being spoken to, and another moment to make sense of the question.

“Please,” he gasps, and then chokes back a sob of relief as the Devil reaches below him to take hold of his drooling cock.

The Devil chuckles. “Christ, ye’re wet,” he says, but gathers the wetness to ease the slide of his hand along Hans’s prick all the same. And it’s—fuck, it’s almost too much. It barely takes a few strokes for the dull pleasure in Hans to grow an edge, sharp and sudden like a blade burrowing into skin. Everything inside him seizes up, his stomach trembling, his knees shaking, his arse clenching—

Hans shoves Henry’s tunic into his mouth to muffle the scream that’s being torn out of him alongside his climax, seed spurting across the Devil’s fingers and the sheets. Oh, Christ, but he’s never come like this; it feels positively life-altering. He whimpers, teeth digging into the rough linen as the Devil continues to fuck into him, wringing wave after wave of almost painful pleasure out of Hans, still striking true, over and over. Hans thinks it might never end.

But with a curse, the Devil suddenly pulls out.

The emptiness comes as a shock. Hans’s hole flutters around nothing as his cock continues to weakly dribble his pleasure. He almost wants to ask the Devil why he stopped, but then there’s the sound of the Devil’s hand stripping over his own prick, of hips rutting into a fist. A hitched breath, a groan, and seed spilling across Hans’s backside.

And that’s—not what he expected.

The Devil slumps into Hans, clearly mindful of the mess he’s made of his back. His hands once more pat Hans’s hips, rubbing oil and come into his skin. It’s probably supposed to be demeaning; Hans is still too boneless and abuzz with bliss to complain.

Later, though.

“Well, fuck,” the Devil gasps, sounding rougher than usual. One slippery hand gives Hans’s arse a light smack. “I didnae think that this is how my night would end.”

Hans opens his mouth to reply, only to realise that Henry’s tunic is still stuck to his tongue. Spitting, he pulls it from between his lips and sits up. His arse smarts. “Me neither, believe you me.”

“Hope it was worth it for ye.”

There’s an odd edge to the Devil’s voice that gives Hans pause. He shuffles around so he can face him, but freezes at the expression that greets him. Because, if Hans didn’t think the Devil categorically incapable of such an emotion, he’d say the man looks bashful.

“It was,” he says, and finds that he means it. “Worth it, I mean.”

Because, at the end of the day, Hans has always enjoyed a good fuck. And this has been good, shockingly enough. Hanush had always reprimanded him for cavorting with women too much, and for being as lustful as a common harlot. Perhaps he was always going to end up this way; but still, even while he’s still loose from another man’s cock and kneeling in his own spend, he doesn’t feel like less of a man.

And, well, if Henry ever wanted him like this—

The Devil clears his throat. Hans blinks away his thoughts, staring at the man before him: weathered, pockmarked, and fully dressed, save for the soft, oily cock hanging out of a gap between his unlaced braies and his jack’s parted hemline. Christ, that had been inside Hans.

There’s a wry, but terribly self-satisfied grin to the Devil’s lips when Hans looks back up to meet his eye. “Not often that a pretty young thing throws himself at me,” the Devil says, helping himself to the edge of Hans’s blanket to wipe his prick with. “Not that I wouldn’t’ve preferred had ye been a busty maid, of course.”

“Of course,” Hans echoes, unimpressed. “But beggars can’t be choosers, I assume.”

The Devil cackles, twisting the soiled blanket between his come-stained fingers. Kurva, Hans is going to be hauling laundry down to the baths for the next three days at this point. “Don’t beat yerself up over it,” the Devil says. “Men fuck each other all the time. It’s not worth losin’ sleep over.”

As if that was his final verdict on the matter, the Devil tucks himself away at last, getting to his feet to retie his braies and adjust the straps of his hose. Once more, he looms over Hans, though he suddenly doesn’t seem the least bit threatening anymore. At the back of his head, a lock sticks out of that unflattering haircut of his.

Hans, kneeling naked on the bed before him like a supplicant, covered in spend, doesn’t feel all that exposed. “Have a good night, then, Sir Hynek.”

The Devil scoffs. “Again with the fuckin’ titles. Will I have t’ beat those out of ye?”

Hans bristles. “You are still a nobleman. It’s—the proper thing to do.”

“Aye, the polite thing,” the Devil jeers, bending down to slip his feet back into his shoes. “Let me smack ye around the training ring tomorrow and see if ye still want titles then. Might stop yer wallowin’, at least.”

“I’m not—”

“Feck’s sake, then stay in here or shoot straw birds with Kubyenka ‘till kingdom come. I’m not yer ma.”

It occurs to Hans that this is the Devil being nice to him. “I suppose there’s no harm in getting some practice in.”

The Devil grins, satisfied. “If Henry’s anythin’ to go by, yer guard captain at least knew how to whip ye lads into shape.”

“He did,” Hans says, suddenly proud – whether it’s of Henry, or Captain Bernard, or Rattay, he isn’t sure. Perhaps all of them.

“I’ll still wipe the floor with ye,” declares the Devil, and turns on the heel of his freshly fastened shoe. Hans watches as he makes his way to the door – four long strides – and places one hand on the handle, the other on the key still in the lock. For a moment, he hesitates, casting a glance towards Hans. “G’night, Capon. And drop by if ye grow tired of moping.”

Fuck off, Hans thinks. But, in the spirit of politeness, what he instead says is, “Good night, Sir Hynek.”

Henry has been gone for five-and-a-half days.

It’s hardly any time at all, considering he is infiltrating a war camp. Sasau Monastery, he’d once told Hans, had taken him almost a month to comb through before he could be sure enough about the identity of his mark. And that was Benedictine monks, who are generally much less liable to put a sword through the guts of a saboteur in their midst than a whole campful of armed militiamen and Cumans. It’s only natural that it would take him a while to learn everything he needs to, and then even longer to exchange information with Katherine and have her forward it.

But even just thinking about the possibility of things going wrong on Henry’s end makes Hans queasy. Of course he’d rather his squire take every possible precaution to stay safe than rush things and get caught. Ideally, though, he never would have had to leave the Devil’s Den in the first place. Žižka should have let some other overly competent fool handle things for once.

God, Hans misses him.

It’s embarrassing, really, how he’s made to play the sitting duck and pining maiden in equal measure these days.  He’s not allowed to leave the Den for too long, lest Žižka grow antsy that someone took him for ransom yet again, and their Captain allowing him to actively follow Henry into danger is even further out of the question. And Hans understands why, is the worst part: he’s the sole heir to a noble lineage, and him risking his life just because he feels all sorts of ways for his common squire is expressly stupid. It doesn’t change the fact that it instils in him a sense of impotence and frustration that not even Hanush’s endless restrictions and punishments have ever managed to.

But neither the world nor Jan Žižka seem to care all that much about Hans’s feelings. And, loath as he is to admit it, that might ultimately be for the best; he can do well without old men picking at the tangled mess of Henry-related emotions sitting heavily in his chest. As it stands, he is terribly afraid for his best and only friend. He keeps him in his prayers every day, misses him like a limb. When he looks to the side and finds nothing but empty space there, his heart breaks a little. And when he pulled himself off two nights ago, he dared to imagine Henry’s hands in place of his own and almost finished on the spot.

In short, Hans has a lot to work through. But many of his worries could be eased if Henry just came back already.

His company would also make things a lot more bearable at the Den. As it turns out, a tavern’s worth of drunk and violent outlaws is only fun for so long before it starts wearing on you, and Hans is decidedly past the point of enjoying it.

If Henry were here, Hans thinks, they could commiserate. But he isn’t, so Hans must take what he can get. For example, Father Godwin makes for perfectly decent company before he gets too deep into his cups. They’d already made fleeting acquaintances of each other back when they’d laid siege to Talmberg, and they hadn’t spoken all that much before the old priest ruined Hans’s life a little by bartering away his hand in marriage, but beggars can’t be choosers, and neither can they hold onto ressentiments. Amidst a sea of thieves, his worldliness and education make him interesting to talk to, so Hans is willing to forgive him his trespasses. And – some homesick part of Hans is willing to admit – him hailing from Uzhitz also makes him feel a little like a piece of home away from home.

The rest of the Devil’s Pack is… varying degrees of less pleasant than.

Žižka seems to alternate between viewing Hans as a liability and an asset: either he needs to be watched ‘round the clock like an unruly toddler, or he is suddenly one of the finest marksmen their dear Captain has ever seen. Whichever is more useful to him at the time, really. Hans could even appreciate his pragmatism, if it weren’t constantly working against him.

And then the Devil manages to be worse, somehow. He feels like an extension of Žižka, but with none of the attempts at civility. Hans had initially hoped that his supposed uncaring ruthlessness would translate to him letting him off the leash, but no – instead, he seems to take almost sadistic pleasure in yanking on it and laughing about it all the while.

At least Kubyenka gives no shits about Hans either way. It could make him passable company in theory, but outside of shooting at straw birds and playing dice, he’s just so sad to witness. Hans has met few people who grow as sombre with drink as he does; it seems like the sickness of the soul the Rattay priest always warned people of, whenever he preached moderation.

Janosh and Adder are so far off into their own, Polish-speaking world that Hans doesn’t even bother with them. Though they seem alright. Probably. Janosh will sometimes shove food into Hans’s hands, say something about him looking like shit, and leave him with that; that’s somewhat kind, at least.

Again, probably.

The other package deal they have going on – Mikesh and Kozliek, harassers of helpful old herbwomen – also don’t mingle much, though at least they have the decency to speak Czech while keeping to themselves. Hans still can’t tell if they are supposed to be brothers or not, though.

And speaking of brothers, there is, of course, Samuel.

Hans had tried getting along with him, he really had. A little voice at the back of his mind that had sounded suspiciously like Henry had nagged him to, and the prospect of having someone his own age to talk to for a change hadn’t sounded all that bad to him, but, well. Turns out that Samuel is a prick – one that thinks that Hans is selfish and that Henry deserves better.

Or… something to that effect. They had both been pretty drunk by that part of the discussion.

The main point is that Hans has been bereft of both, decent company and decent ways to while his days away. Once more, all he can do is sit around and wait – he might as well go and fetch Brabant from his mercenary-recruitment trip, too, to relive his captivity in Maleshov as closely as the Devil’s Den allows.  

Christ, mingling with anyone has become wearying.

Which is also why, five-and-a-half days after Henry has left, Hans finds himself in bed just after nightfall like some sort of old man. The actual old men are, of course, making merry downstairs, singing and whistling and shouting as they do every night. Across the room, Henry’s bed remains empty and undisturbed.

“What a mess, eh, Hal?” he asks the empty air where his friend should be.

He receives no reply, naturally.

Sakra, but he’s being pathetic. How is he meant to survive weeks of this?

If it weren’t so damned late in the evening, he could at least hop over to the baths. A nice, hot soak and some spiced wine might do him good. Maybe also a bathwench, though he frankly hasn’t been in the mood for that in a while; that, too, he owes to his dear squire.

Thoughtlessly, Hans picks at his bedspread. If Henry were here—

Well, Hans wouldn’t be lying in bed yet, for one. He’d still be downstairs, sticking to Henry’s side until he’d be drunk enough to find the rest of the Devil’s Pack bearable. Maybe he’d even end up having a good time with their merry band of misfits for once. And then, eventually, he’d grow tired, and Henry would offer to retire alongside him because he’s kind like that, and they’d hobble up the stairs arm-in-arm, nice and thoroughly sloshed.

He can almost feel the familiar warmth of Henry against his side now; his blacksmith’s boy always runs so hot, as if he carries the forge inside him. And, God, Hans would be able to smell him, too, if they were walking so close – the smell of iron and horse and musk and herbs that always lingers about the man. Maybe he could get away with pressing his nose into the side of Henry’s bare neck if he made it look like a drunk, bumbling accident.

A tremor of heat shoots through Hans at the thought.

His cock twitches in interest.

He really shouldn’t do this. Or if he must, he should think up some faceless, ample-chested wench instead of imagining Henry touching him. Again.

Last time had at least been an accident – an unbidden thought mid-wank that made Hans come harder than he had in ages. But he hadn’t meant to think of his closest friend, then. If he did it now—

Henry’s sweet, open face flits before his eyes: the strong brow, the long lashes, his lopsided grin. It’d be a betrayal of sorts, to get off to the thought of him, but it’s not like he’d need to know, either. So long as Hans can maintain his composure around him in the future, what’s the harm?

It just feels like fighting a losing battle at this point. Hans’s heart and libido have already decided what they want – any counterargument, every bit of decency and all good morals will end up flying out of the window eventually anyways, no matter how long Hans ruminates over this. He can practically feel the last thin threads of his self-restraint snapping as he lays a palm over his clothed, soft cock.

A sigh escapes him.

So, Henry.

Hans retraces the long-lapsed steps of his imaginary evening: the warmth of Henry’s strong, solid body seeping into Hans’s side, and the smell of him after a long day. The feeling of the bare skin at his neck, temptingly close to Hans’s face.

If he were brave, he would kiss him there, Hans thinks – trace his lips and tongue and teeth up the stubbled, muscular column of his throat, take every hitch of his breath and every jump of his pulse into his mouth. Perhaps he’d moan, and Hans would get to feel the vibrations of his deep, deep voice rattle against his teeth.

Henry would cling to him through it. His broad, burn-scar littered hands would settle in the crooks of Hans’s elbows, pulling him closer as he’d grow more desperate. And he’d—yes, he’d be well on the way to hardness, Hans decides. He’d have been stirred since the taproom, simply from wanting this so much. And the grind of Henry’s cock against Hans’s hip would be maddening, hot and heavy, even through the layers of their braies and hose. Hans would not keep him waiting, reach a hand downward to help Henry along and feel the heft of him in his hand, stiff and aching.

Beneath his palm, Hans’s own cock slowly plumpens. He grinds the heel of his hand down with some pressure, imagining Henry’s thigh in its place. His other hand lazily traces over his bare abdomen.

The taste of Henry’s skin would surely be addictive. Salty, a little stale, a little earthy; Hans could probably die a happy man, buried in Henry’s neck with skin between his teeth. And the smell of him would be familiar—it would be—

Hans’s fantasy grinds to a sudden halt. He knows what Henry smells like. Of course, he does. But the subtler notes elude him, suddenly. Warmth, he has himself. Skin, he can infer. A cock, he can imagine well enough. But he’s so close to the source of Henry’s actual smell—

His eyes slide over to Henry’s side of the room once more, landing on the overfull chest by his bed.

Another line to cross. Another boundary to breach.

Hans’s cock throbs.

Before he can think better of it, he gets up. His half-hard dick chafes against the linen of his braies as he wobbles over, falling to his knees before the chest. The lid does not close fully, so it cannot lock; Hans almost slams it into the wall in this haste to pull it open. Inside, he finds a mess of armour pieces, books, phials, dried herbs, foods near spoiling, arrows, candles, and what-have-you else. Folded up somewhat neatly but then crammed against the chest’s side lies a stack of clothes.

With a shaking hand, Hans plucks the topmost garment off the stack.

It’s a tunic – faded green, with stains beneath the arms. Hans has seen Henry wear it before, when he was done doffing his top layers. Of course he’d draw Hans’s eye in it: his blacksmith’s boy has always looked good in green.

He peels himself off the floor and returns to his own bed, sitting at the edge with the tunic clutched to his chest. He runs the rough-spun linen between his fingers, softened from wear. Hans’s arousal has flagged somewhat, but even just thinking about the fabric touching Henry’s bare skin is enough to stoke his fires again.

He’ll have the tunic laundered as an apology, he decides. Maybe get some of Henry’s other clothes washed as well, just so it is less conspicuous, and then sell it to his squire as a show of appreciation and lordly goodwill. He’ll manage to come up with something believable before Henry comes back, he’s sure.

He presses the tunic to his face and takes a deep breath.

Sweat, and horse. The stale, minty scent of old perfume. A hint of something metallic. An undernote of grasses and herbs.

There it is:

Henry.

Christ, but it really smells just like him. Hans buries his nose further into the fabric, until it grows warm and damp from this own breath. It makes it much easier to imagine Henry underneath it, especially when Hans presses his nose below the armhole, where the smell of sweat is densest. What would it be like, he wonders, to shove his face right into Henry’s armpit? To lap the musk and sweat out of his hair, like some sort of beast?

He takes another deep whiff of the scents mingling in the linen and finally lets his free hand travel downwards again. His cock is well on the way to full hardness, and Hans does not hesitate to untie his braies and unceremoniously shove them down his thighs. This was never going to be his proudest moment; it may very well become his most desperate, though.

He makes a hasty grab for the phial below his bed, letting the tunic drop away from his face to uncork it and haphazardly coat his fingers with the oily potion. Then, Hans slips back on the bed, tugging at Henry’s shirt one-handed until it’s spread out over the pillow, and buries his face back into it.

Henry would smell exactly like this – warm and work-worn, already sweaty but growing even sweatier with arousal. Hans can practically feel how hot and sticky the air between them would become, crowded together with too many layers of clothes in the way. He tastes a facsimile of it on his tongue like this, panting into his pillow.

He takes his cock into his slicked-up grasp at last, pulling back the foreskin and giving it a few pumps. Henry would have him aching for it just by being close to him, warm and solid and lovely, and Hans wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off him for too long, because Henry would be hard, leaking, and desperate. They would fumble each other out of their hose and braies and press their cocks together; maybe they could thrust against each other in a mockery of a proper fuck, cradled in their palms.

Hans fucks into his hand a little more vigorously, imaging the sweet slide of Henry’s prick against his own. God, they’d run so hot for each other – Hans would bury his face in Henry’s shoulder, and the smell and taste beneath his mouth would be the same as that of the tunic on his pillow. Mindlessly, Hans bites down on the fabric, stifling a groan.

If he could—fuck, he’d kiss Henry. It’d be so different from what Hans is used to: his stubble would be scruffy against Hans’s chin, and his lips would be much thinner than a woman’s, but it would be Henry he is kissing, so he would naturally drive him madder than any wench. Whatever would he taste like? After an evening of boozing, would his mouth be sour with Treadlight’s shitty beer? Or would he taste like something else entirely?

Hans brings his free hand up to his mouth, shoving two fingers in. He presses down on his tongue, drooling around his own digits like a whore angling for some extra groschen. He can imagine anything of Henry’s in their place – his fingers, his tongue, Hell, his cock. Hans can’t stop himself from moaning at the idea, the hand on his prick stripping over it as quickly as he can stand it, just on the edge of too fast.

He takes another deep whiff of the scent clinging to Henry’s tunic. A wet spot is forming where spittle dribbles past his lips, but Hans can’t be arsed to care. Henry’s crotch ought to smell denser than this, muskier. Hans would gladly bury his face there, rake through the dark hair with his tongue and teeth until it’s as wet as the fabric beneath his cheek.

His imagination fails him when trying to conjure the feeling of a cock in his mouth, but for Henry, Hans would try. He’d swallow him down, even if he’d end up choking on it like an inexperienced bathmaid. Henry would doubtlessly be kind with him; he wouldn’t push for more than what Hans can reasonably give him.

The scenario he’d initially started with has all but slipped from his mind by now, but it doesn’t matter. Any thought of Henry suffices to drive him wild – if he asked, Hans would let him do anything to him and would do anything to Henry in turn. He’d—shit, he’d let Henry mount him like a bitch in heat, should he want that. Hans has taken girls that way before, with his cock shoved up their arse to preserve their honour. So if Henry asked, Hans would—

He pries his sopping fingers from his mouth, spit messily running down his hand. For the briefest of moments, he stops everything – the hand on his weeping cock stills, his eyes slide open to stare at his fingers. He knows how it works. It might even feel good. The wenches had seemed to enjoy it, even.

He has most likely gone mad.

Hans rolls fully onto his front, his knees propped under him, the head of his prick kissing the bedsheets. His face remains pressed into the pillow – into Henry’s tunic – as he moves his spit-slicked hand behind himself. Exposed as if he’s a cat begging to be bred, he slides his fingers down the cleft of his arse until his fingertips catch on the pucker of his hole. If this were Henry, he’d let him, he reminds himself – and then presses the first few inches of his middle finger inside.

The sting is immediate, and Hans tenses up. His arse clenches around the intrusion and his eyes grow teary. Fuck, and Henry’s fingers are thicker than Hans’s; he’d probably break Hans if he ever had him like this. He breathes deeply, holding very still, until the worst of the pain fades. To distract himself, Hans’s oily hand returns to his cock. He’s flagged a little with the discomfort, but firms up again very quickly. Henry would offer him the same kindness, Hans thinks – stroke his cock while Hans tightens around his finger, whispering sweet nothings to him in the same tone of voice he uses when comforting Pebbles.

Maybe he’d pat Hans’s flank, too, as though he really were a spooked horse; Hans would prefer it if he kissed at his ear and shoulder throughout, though. Imagining Henry’s hot mouth trailing kisses from ear to nape has Hans moaning quietly into the pillow, and he pushes his finger to slip in deeper. The sting has eased, and it feels much more bearable with the low rumble of Henry’s voice whispering in his mind: how well he is taking it, how good he is being, how tight he will be once Henry fucks him.

He begins thrusting his finger in time with the strokes around his cock, each thrust smoother than the last, until the smarting gives way to a mild, tingling pleasure. Suddenly, it’s not enough anymore; Hans’s imagination urges him on. His other spit-slicked finger slides in with a bit more resistance than the first, bringing with it the stretch and sting of before. It’s not so bad, though. He now knows that it will feel better in a bit.

Henry would be much bigger than two of Hans’s slender fingers, surely. Maybe the girth of his cock would split Hans right in two – but God, what he wouldn’t give to feel it. He’d be hard as steel inside him, unrelenting and unbearably hot. Hans would be unable to do anything but drool into the pillow as Henry took him from behind, just like this, loose and wanton.

“Hal,” he gasps, eyes screwed shut, hips fucking forward into his fist, then backwards onto his fingers. Entirely by accident, he strikes something inside himself that has his whole body seizing up for a moment. A groan tears itself free from his throat, unbidden.

What the fuck?

It’s—strange. Hans finds himself suddenly greedy for it. His fingers’ thrusts grow shallower, seeking that one specific spot just so he can feel it again. When he does manage to brush it once more, the shock of pleasure has him biting back another groan. It’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before; is this why people take it up the arse? He carefully rubs over the spot again, and he swears can feel it all the way in his fucking teeth.

His cock dribbles early seed across his hand as Hans continues to fuck himself on his fingers, eyes watering and toes curling. He stifles his noises by pressing his face into the pillow, surrounded by the smell of Henry, and God, if Henry were fucking him and it felt like this—

Suddenly, he’s entirely too close to his climax. Another glancing touch to that spot inside him has him tensing, and he gives his cock a little twist, and fuck, fuck, fuck—

The doorhandle behind him rattles, and a sudden gust of cold air hits his bare arse.

Hans’s hands still. The blood freezes in his veins.

Note: translations in the comments for this post!

Long past dusk, with nobody else around the courtyard of the guildhall, the bust-throw that costs Arne a score of almost two thousand points strikes the dice board as loud as lightning; it might as well be some kind of divine punishment.

“So ein Scheißdreck!” he yells, and Henry half expects him to punch the table, too, for good measure. But Arne is, apparently, more restrained than that these days – he only drags a heavy hand across his face and mutters something about beschissenes Glück and nie wieder dieses scheiß Spiel spielen.

Henry thinks he gets the gist of what he is saying. It’s not hard to infer from context, granted, but his time in Kuttenberg has also given him a somewhat serviceable understanding of German; enough, at least, to understand the merchants around town. “If you want to practice your Czech, my offer from before still stands,” Henry says lightly, gathering his dice into the cup. “I could teach you some new swear words.”

Arne does not look particularly amused by the suggestion. “Joke all you want, Heinrich,” he says, “but unless your next throw is besser, perhaps you need to learn German Schimpfwörter instead.”

“Aye, maybe I ought to,” Henry readily agrees and gives the dice cup a good shake. “But I also do mean it, about the practice. I think you’ve already gotten better.”

The cup’s rim hits the board with a hollow thump, the dice inside clattering on the wood. When Henry lifts it, only a single, blessed five pips saves him from embarrassment. Across from him, Arne chews on his bottom lip.

“I want to stay here in Kuttenberg mit Meister Menhard. For now, at least,” he says, watching attentively as Henry drops his non-scoring dice back into the cup. “Es täte mir sicherlich gut, to get more practice.”

“As a fellow member of the swordfighting guild, I’d be happy to help you out,” Henry says, shakes the dice, and throws. “And if you need more practice beside that, they do say that the best way to learn a language is in the bedroom.” He means to add something about finding a comely Czech lass, but the dogshit throw that greets him as he lifts the cup off the board distracts him. It’s not a bust, thankfully, but—

“Oh. Heinrich, that’s…”

Henry’s eyes snap up from the board. Arne has gone red all the way up to the rim of his hat, gaping at Henry like some sort of boiled German fish. There’s something unplaceable in his eyes. Or rather, if Henry didn’t know any better, he could almost recognise a look like that as—

Well. That would explain why an unattached young man like Arne would willingly dedicate all his free time to a contact-heavy gentleman’s sport like swordfighting. And it would certainly also explain why he would follow his master into a foreign country, despite barely speaking the language; loyalty over a debt like Arne’s can only go so far, but personal attachment...

Perhaps the realisation reads too clearly on Henry’s face, the accidentality of his proposition too obvious. Arne’s gaze sharpens, from heated surprise into something openly challenging – daring Henry to judge him for his tastes, or to rescind his unwitting offer.

But it’s not as though Henry is much better in the way of unnatural inclinations than Arne; suddenly, all he feels is something hot crawling its way up his throat, his skin tight with it. He swallows around it, any possible excuses for the misunderstanding dying right there on his tongue.

Why shouldn’t he let this accident work in his favour? Forfeiting a challenge brings nothing but shame in these circles, and he knows Arne does not yield.

Henry gathers his dice back into the cup, setting his lone scoring die down to join its predecessor on the sidelines. He takes a deep breath, gives the cup a shake, and meets Arne’s eye dead-on. “My offer still stands.”

The dice go clattering across the board. Arne punches the table.

“Dann komm her!” he barks, and Henry springs to his feet.

Nonsensically, as if spurred to directionless action by Arne’s words, he rounds the table and grabs the German’s forearm. The contact fizzles in his fingers. “Where, then?”

Arne huffs, looking around. Evening has already settled over the city, and they are all alone in the little wooden lean-to beside the sparring rink. They’re surrounded by stone walls on all sides but one, and the gate into the guild hall’s courtyard should be locked by now. Nobody outside the guild has any business here, especially after dark, and their fellow members are most likely already turning in for the night in the beds and haystacks on the upper floors.

They share a look and must realise the same thing: right here might be the best they’ll get.

“Can you keep quiet?” Henry asks, tightening his grip.

Arne blinks at him. Understanding dawns slowly on his face, and when it does, his eyes dart around once more. “If you want to do it here, then we should, ah… kill the… the Kerzen.”

“Kill what?” Henry asks. Arne clicks his tongue and tears his arm free to lick his forefinger and thumb to snuff out the candles beside the dice board. “Oh,” Henry says in comprehension. “Those’re candles.”

All that earns him is a very flat and unimpressed look. Arne gets to his feet, and Henry is shocked by how cold he feels once the other man draws away from him to extinguish the lanterns and torches around them, one flame at a time.

In the almost-darkness, Arne circles back to stand in front of Henry, between the dice board and the wall. He is only slightly shorter but always seems to draw himself up to his full height, proud and stalwart.

“What now?” he asks, chin jutted out almost defiantly – or rather, like he is issuing yet another challenge.

Once again, it makes Henry itch to meet it.

“Whatever you want,” he replies, but still dares to take a step towards the man. Like any good swordsman, Arne reflexively steps back, as though he assumes a more defensive stance after evading an opening strike. Another set of steps, then – and before Arne can evade any other way, his back hits the wall.

He exhales, shaky with restraint, but not yet conceding in spite of having lost all ground. Henry aches to put his hands on him, just to know beyond doubt that this strange, heated madness is indeed what Arne wants. But no – the call for this particular duel is Arne’s to make.

Finally, after breathing each other’s air for a few moments, Arne closes his eyes and sighs. “I want you to touch me.”

“Aye, that was the plan,” Henry says, quiet into the warm air between their bodies. “But is there anything in particular you had in mind?”

“I don’t have all the words,” Arne says. Then, shockingly, wondrously, he bridges the distance between them at last, clasping Henry’s forearm in a reversal of his earlier hold. “Fass mich hier an.”

And Henry finds his hand directed firmly south.

“Ah,” he exhales, his fingers skimming Arne’s gambeson before his palm is cupped around the bulge in the other man’s braies. Arne’s cock is still soft, but Henry is hardly offended by the fact. Gently, he massages it through the linen. “Is that all you want?”

It’s not that he’d mind if it was – Henry knows how much better someone else’s hand can feel, even if he’d maybe hoped for something a little more reciprocal. Or at least the feel of some skin against his. But Arne doesn’t seem unhappy with their current arrangement. He leans his weight further into the wall, hips pumping lazily into Henry’s hand, hardening further with each thrust. His eyes drift shut, and his breaths come out in soft, fluttery huffs that Henry aches to taste on his tongue.

“Arne,” he says, his voice coming out thin and embarrassingly desperate. “Is this what you want? Just my hand, above your clothes?”

The question must take a moment to register. Slowly, Arne’s eyes drift open, his hips stilling. The heft of his filled-out cock rests temptingly heavy in Henry’s palm.

“If someone comes and sees...”

Of course, they’re somewhat exposed here. But if anyone found them, in the dark, stood as close to each other as they are, Henry doubts that a single layer of linen – one that barely hides the straining prick pitching a tent in it, at that – is going to hide what they are doing. So, he takes a step forward, crowding Arne into the wall without taking his hand off his cock. “Hold onto my shirt as if we’re about to fight,” he instructs, and Arne’s hands hesitantly come to rest close to his collar. Slowly, as if afraid of something, his fingers clench around the fabric of Henry’s gambeson. “Good.”

“Glaubst du—will this fool anyone?” Arne asks. Curiously, though, his hips already resume their little undulations, his cock sliding back and forth in Henry’s grasp; it’s as if his body has already made up its mind where his head hesitates. Henry tightens his hold, a little bolder with the increased proximity.

“Let’s hope we won’t have to,” he says, watching Arne’s lashes flutter closed once more. Lord, but he’s affected. If he doesn’t get his hands or mouth on skin anytime soon—

“Heinrich,” Arne gasps, and stills his hips. “The fabric, it’s not… just, nimm meinen Schwanz in die Hand. Bitte. I don’t care, just—”

Henry chances a guess as to what that means, spurred on by his own wishful thinking. Arne chokes out a small whine when Henry tugs the laces of his braies just loose enough to fit his hand inside. The fists curled into his gambeson tighten as Henry takes proper hold of Arne’s cock, the skin of it silken and so, so hot, now that there’s no linen in the way anymore.

“Alright?” Henry asks, just to be sure. Arne nods, short and jerky, and thrusts into the tunnel of Henry’s fingers.

Henry swipes his thumb across the head, taking what little wetness hasn’t been wasted on Arne’s braies to ease the glide of the prick in his hold. On the downstroke, he pulls the foreskin back properly, and when Arne slides himself forward into his grasp with a tiny, aborted moan, Henry’s resolve cracks at last.

He buries his face into the side of Arne’s neck, taking in the smell of stale sweat and musk and steel. No supposed fight would necessitate a move like this, but Henry doesn’t really care; instead, he noses up Arne’s jugular with its heavy, fluttery pulse, tongue darting out to catch a taste of the salt and dirt clinging to the German’s skin. Something mad inside him itches to sink his teeth in, too, but he holds back, settling for groaning into Arne’s ear.

And if Arne minds, he doesn’t show it. His cock throbs as he fucks into Henry’s fist, steadily spilling precome that eases the way. The slick sound of skin meeting skin is muffled between them, quiet enough in the empty courtyard not to draw attention, yet no less obscene for it. All the while, Arne keeps his lips clinched between his teeth, huffing heavy breaths out his nose like an ox, stifling all noise.

Christ. Christ.

“Arne,” Henry exhales, lips skimming skin, hips jerking into empty air, “Arne, can I—”

“Was… what do you want?”

A lot of things, really, but few of them inconspicuous enough to work. Henry has to blink away a thousand images and phantom sensations that flit through his mind, settling for the realistic. “Can I take both our cocks in hand? Against each other?”

Arne shudders, though perhaps it is only the result of Henry’s words, spoken directly against his spit-slicked neck. He stills, head tilting awkwardly into Henry’s. “What do you mean?”

I don’t have all the words, he’d said.

Henry straightens a little, though he doesn’t loosen his hold on Arne’s prick. “Crossing swords, so to speak,” he clarifies. “Err. Schwerter… Kreuzung…?”

That seems to translate well enough; Arne’s breath hitches, and he nods against the side of Henry’s head. “If you can do it… diskret.”

“No more or less discreet than this already is,” Henry mutters, using his free hand to fiddle the laces of his own hose and braies apart. He takes care that nothing slips off his hips as he gets his prick out – that much, he can do to keep it diskret. With the other hand, still holding onto Arne, he shimmies his braies down further, until the length of his cock is exposed to the evening air where Henry’s fingers don’t warm it.

“Alright?”

Arne nods, exhaling loudly, almost a sigh. Henry adjusts his stance, straightens until he stands nose-to-nose with Arne, and juts his hips forward.

The first, inelegant bump of their cocks has Henry’s knees going weak. Good Lord, but he’s worked up; if it weren’t for Arne’s fists clenching in his shirt, clinging to him with urgency, he’d be more afraid of embarrassing himself by coming too quickly.

He loosens his grip around Arne’s prick to take them both in hand properly, hooking his thumb around himself while encasing Arne with his fingers. God knows they are both wet enough not to need any spit to ease the way for this – when Henry gives a first proper thrust, the slickness he’d spread along Arne’s prick before makes it glide almost as well as any cunt.

“Allmächtiger,” Arne gasps, before his teeth clamp down on his lips once more. His hips roll up to match Henry’s movements, choked off little noises spilling from him despite his best efforts to keep quiet. Henry returns to mouth at his neck, his throat – feels every hitched breath, aborted moan and thundering heartbeat under his lips and tongue. He stifles his own groans against the stubbly skin beneath Arne’s chin, teeth scraping but never digging in.

And still, the threat of teeth must entice him. Arne ruts into him with renewed fervour, his cockhead weeping wetness along Henry’s shaft whenever their strokes fall out of pace. Christ, if Henry could comfortably fit both his hands around them with how they’re standing, he would, just so he could rub their tips together, too, slippery with precome and—

Arne practically hauls Henry into him, biting down on the padding of his gambeson as his hips surge forward twice, thrice, before his cock throbs and he spills against Henry, across his hand, and likely onto both their clothes as well. He rides his peak out with a muffled groan, his seed slippery between Henry’s fingers and his prick still gives some final spurts, and, oh, but Henry knew he wasn’t going to last.

He swallows whatever noise wants to make its way out of his mouth, letting go of Arne’s prick to catch at least his own release in his palm. He strokes himself through it as well as he can, his hand sliding easily across his cock with Arne’s come, his whole body tingling with pleasure.

They stand in silence for a bit, after. Henry feels Arne raise his head off his shoulder, the fabric relaxing where his teeth don’t clamp down on it anymore. Their breaths begin to even out again, and Henry takes a step back. Arne’s fingers unfurl from his gambeson one by one.

“Was that good?” he asks, careful not to touch anything with his seed-covered hand as he tucks himself back into his braies.

Arne, still somewhat dazed, nods. “Ja, das war… it was good. Danke, Heinrich.”

Henry finds himself smiling. “Ah, no need to thank me. It was good for me, too. Not what I expected, but good.”

Slowly, Arne begins to tuck himself away. His fingers twist around his laces, instead of retying them properly, as if he’s caught up in thought. Henry idly wonders if it’s already appropriate to step away and wash his hand in the trough by the sparring rink.

“Heinrich,” Arne says before he can act on the thought.

“Yes?”

“You said that this was a good way to learn Tschechisch.”

Henry isn’t sure he follows. “I guess?”

Arne huffs and looks at him like he’s personally offended him. Or maybe just like he’s stupid.

CW: drinking, drunk sex, mildly dubious consent on account of the drinking, explicit sexual content; spoilers for some early KCD2-quests (Bird of Prey, Wedding Crashers)

Henry has had his fair share of shit days recently.

The day their party was ambushed by the pond remains the worst by far – in the past few weeks since they arrived in Trosky, at least – and he’ll gladly take a million mundanely shit days over going through something similar again, but it would be nice for the shit days to stop happening at all. Given his current situation, that seems unrealistic, but a man can dream.

It’s not all shit though. Some days have been good, even. Penniless and alone he might be, but being able to help people with their mundane and not-so-mundane troubles is something to keep him going. He doesn’t need the gratitude, he just wants to feel useful.

But after spending all day slogging through the slippery underbrush of the Apollonia forests in the middle of a thunderstorm, looking for the region’s most elusive poacher only to discover said poacher’s hideout and his wayward lord’s whereabouts all in one go, Henry is just a little sick of doing other people’s work. Capon’s tools weigh a thousand pounds in his pouch, and the lies he will have to feed the Nebakov gamekeeper weigh even heavier on his mind. And yet, somehow, impossibly, the fear that Capon will struggle to keep himself safe and fed without resorting to capital crime weighs on him heaviest of all.

At least the rain has stopped now.

The road to Troskowitz is still more mud than traversable dirt, though. Henry takes mercy on poor Pebbles, leading her by the reins rather than riding her through the sludge because he doesn’t want her losing a shoe on top of everything else. The thunder earlier had spooked his poor girl badly; Henry has no intention of making her any more uncomfortable.

His boots and hose are a lost cause already, caked in half-dried mud up to the knees, so the splashes his and Pebbles’s feet produce are mere droplets in an ocean. Perhaps, if they make it back to the village before sundown, Henry might manage to scrub the worst of it out at the little pond by the butcher’s.

The butcher who bought the meat Capon had gladly supplied him with like an idiot—

Pebbles snorts softly, as though to comfort Henry, and he sighs. “You’re right, girl,” he tells her, patting the side of her neck, “no use getting mad about him. His Lordship knows better than us, doesn’t he?”

She doesn’t grace him with a reply, but Henry takes her silence as agreement.

By the time they pass the graveyard, Mutt rejoins them. He doesn’t look much worse for wear, but he does seem a bit apologetic about having run off on a whim. Henry can’t fault him; he’d been in a right mood after leaving Capon’s little camp, and Mutt had simply been smart enough to avoid his ill temper.

Now, though, he looks up at Henry with his big, sad eyes, and Henry is helpless to do anything but give his boy a good scratch behind the ear with his free hand. He mumbles some nonsense praise Mutt’s way and gets his knee whacked with a tail in thanks.

The sun hasn’t even started to dip yet when they make it back to Troskowitz. Henry ties Pebbles to a tree by the pond and instructs Mutt to keep her company. He digs around Pebbles’s saddle bags for some leftover soap, then unties his filthy hose before he goes to kneel by the water. He dips one of the legs in to give his boots a quick wipe-down. Because, while he does have a set of spare chausses somewhere, he only has the one pair of shoes to his name at the moment. And, incidentally, very little intention of spending the evening in them when they’re squelching wet.

A good portion of the mud crumbles off the hose-legs before he can even soak them. He does the best he can with the bit of soap he has left to get the more persistent filth out, and then all he can do is wring them out and awkwardly drape the wet cloth over his shoulders.

He’ll have to ask Betty to let him sleep in the hay for the night; perhaps he’ll even manage to hang his hose up, somewhere.

Dusk is only beginning to fall as he ties Pebbles up at the trough. He pats her side and bids her goodnight, then makes for the alehouse with Mutt at his heels. Exhaustion and the weight of an exceptionally shit day begin to catch up with him as he haggles for the privilege to sleep next to the hay wagon, and by the time he clumsily ties his wet hose to one of the wagon’s beams, he is about ready to collapse into the hay.

His stomach chooses that exact moment to rumble emphatically.

Mutt doesn’t seem nearly as concerned about dinner, though. He already sniffs the hay on the ground, walking in tight circles until he finds the ideal position to settle down in. Perhaps he’s not hungry because he’d already found something to eat in the forest earlier; ever since his stint with the wolves, he’s become more self-sufficient that way.

Henry kneels beside him and gives him a gentle pat on the head. “Stay here, boy, yeah? I’ll be back in a bit.”

Mutt huffs but seems content otherwise. His eyes slip shut, so Henry lets him be.

“Dinner?” one of the serving girls asks as approaches the alehouse proper, a pitcher propped up on her hip. She gives him a once-over. “And a drink?”

“Please,” Henry says, and shoves enough groschen for a bowl of stew and some beer into her free hand.

He’ll hopefully think to tip her – later, when he doesn’t feel quite as dead on his feet anymore.

As the maid disappears back into the tavern to fetch his order, Henry begins to scour the well-occupied tables for somewhere to sit. The townsfolk seem to have, by and large, forgiven him for the brawl that had marked the beginning of everything going to even worse shit than it already had. He doesn’t dread having to sit with the locals, but he doesn’t exactly expect an enthusiastic invitation from anyone, either. Ideally, he’ll manage to stay far enough from the dice player to not be tempted into a game, so his best option for a table might be—

“Hey, Henry!”

Svatya.

So much for not receiving an enthusiastic invite. Bailiff Thrush’s son is sitting alone at one of the little tables toward the back where Henry had yet to see him. He’s cheerfully waving him over with one hand; Henry finds that there’s little reason why he shouldn’t go to him. As he passes by the other tables, he feels heads turn to look after him, eyes burning at the back of his head. Why, after all, would the bailiff’s son voluntarily sit with a man who’d first spoken to him with his fists?

“Evenin’, Svatya,” Henry greets, claiming the vacant chair.

“You look like shit,” Svatya says, grinning, and briefly raises his tankard. “Did you order something to drink yet?”

“Aye, should be coming with the food in a bit.”

“Good, good!” Svatya says, nodding. “Let me buy you another, once you’re done with the first one, then.”

“Why so generous?”

“It’s been a slow evening, so it’s good you came round,” Svatya says and leans back in his seat, considering Henry. “Besides, you really do look like shit. Thought you might need it.”

Henry finds himself smiling, though it feels a little hollow. “What can I say? It’s been a shit day all around. I think I’ve earnt looking the part.”

“Something to do with that ponce friend of yours?”

Bitterly, he thinks of Capon once more – of the waterlogged glares and the frustrating lack of sense. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“I wouldn’t want to, either, in your shoes,” Svatya snorts and takes a deep draught of his ale. Henry feels how regretfully dry his own throat is; the ale maid is still nowhere in sight. “I’d say: good riddance. Plus, it’s probably a capital crime of some kind, claiming to be the lord of Whatever-and-Whatnot when you’re just some vagabond. You shouldn’t stick around that.”

“Ah, but he is,” Henry finds himself saying, because defending Capon still comes reflexively, no matter if the man is currently deserving of it or not.

“He’s what?”

“The actual Lord of Pirkstein. And we were sent here on a diplomatic mission as envoys of the Lords of Leipa, before it all went tits up.”

Svatya stares at him for a moment. Then, very slowly and nervously, he begins to laugh. “Right,” he says. When Henry doesn’t join him in his laughter, calling the joke for what it is, his face falls. “Wait, you’re serious? I punched an actual nobleman?”

Henry shrugs one shoulder. “It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.”

Svatya pales. “Still—”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. He probably doesn’t even remember your name. If he can’t point at you and go ‘there, that’s the cunt who made me punch him!’, then I’d wager you’re safe.”

With pursed lips, Svatya stares at his tankard for a moment. Then, he promptly upends it.

“You know what? You’re right,” he says, slamming the empty tankard down. “He probably did deserve some of it. I know you didn’t, in hindsight, but… maybe that’ll teach you to keep better company, eh?”

Henry is suddenly struck by the odd thought that Svatya is actually rather similar to Capon. Perhaps it’s because both of them have grown up privileged and self-important in their own ways. Or perhaps it’s simply that Henry finds the same aspects of their company enjoyable: boyish and petty and easy, when things are good between them.

He doubts Svatya would appreciate the comparison very much, though.

A bowl of stew slides onto the table in front of him.

“We had a spill in the kitchen,” the ale maid says by way of an apology, setting a tankard of ale down next to the stew. She pats her hands clean on her apron. “Can I get you anything else? Svatopluk?”

Svatya hands her his empty tankard. “Another round for both of us.”

“On your tab?”

“Put all of Henry’s drinks tonight on there.”

“You really don’t have to,” Henry tries to argue, because there’s a difference between buying one round or three, but Svatya just waves him off.

“It’s your payment for keeping me company.”

“So, two more beers,” the ale maid confirms. Svatya just nods and shoos her off, and in this, Henry thinks, he’s not at all like Capon, who would have called the poor woman some terrible endearment twice over by now. My sweet poppy cake, perhaps. My fluttersome little bushtit.

Henry shudders and takes two big gulps of his ale to dislodge the thought. They hit his empty stomach like an alcoholic tidal wave; it’s exactly what he needs.

“I see you’re trying to catch up in time for the second round,” Svatya laughs, and Henry finds himself joining in.

“Aye,” he says, raising his tankard in a one-sided toast. “I was told my company was required.”

A lull falls between them for a while after that. Henry makes quick work of his stew, and the initial buzz of beer on an empty stomach quickly fades around meat, lentils, barley and vegetables.

By the time their second round arrives, Henry’s tankard is indeed empty, and Svatya takes the liberty to order the third immediately after. They toast, then – properly, with the froth at the top of their drinks threatening to spill over.

“Want to drink to something?” Henry asks.

“What’s there to drink to?”

“The wedding, for one. Your sister’s getting married, isn’t she?”

“We’d be drinking to the wedding getting called off, if anything,” Svatya grouses, taking a slow sip of his ale. “Semine is only marrying her for the money. Nothing screams desperation like a nobleman marrying a common bailiff’s daughter.” Svatya frowns. “We’re being made a laughingstock, but neither my father nor Agnes seem to realise it.”

And that’s—a jarring sentiment. Henry blinks. Everyone in the region is looking forward to the wedding, but here the brother of the bride sits, wishing it wouldn’t happen at all. “Lord Semine is a decent sort, from what I’ve seen,” he says, though it comes out a little weak. Svatya glares at him over the rim of his tankard.

“Have you met his son, though?” he asks. “That Olda – something about him isn’t right, I tell you.”

“In what way?” Henry presses – the reflex of an occasional spy.

Svatya purses his lips, stares at his ale as he swivels it around. “He’s just… dodgy. Often isn’t there when arrangements are being made, doesn’t tell his old man where he disappears off to, spends less and less time on courting Agnes. You get the picture.”

Henry considers this. “Couldn’t he just be getting cold feet?”

“If only God would be so merciful! No, he’s apparently still fine with going through with the wedding.”

“And Agnes? What does she make of her betrothed being—”

“She’s still taken with him!” Svatya’s tankard hits the table with significant force; blessedly, with only dregs left in it, nothing spills. “And I get it, Henry, I really do – he’s handsome alright, and Agnes likes the idea of marrying into nobility, but… fuck.”

Well. Henry doesn’t have any siblings, no matter which father he looks to, but he imagines that it must be difficult to entrust a sister into the care of another man. Awkwardly, he stretches his arm across the table to pat Svatya’s shoulder in commiseration.

“It’ll be fine,” he says. “If nothing else, she’ll have horses.”

At that, Svatya huffs something like a laugh. Henry suspects there is very little humour in it, though. “To horses, then,” he says, and raises his nearly empty tankard. Henry toasts him and throws back what ale he has left.

When the next round arrives, their conversation very deliberately does not stray towards weddings or lordlings – Svatya speaks of Vitek, gamekeeper Vostatek’s son, and Henry tells him about his misadventures with the gamekeeper in turn. At some point, they take a piss break each. Over the fourth round, they talk about swords with wildly different levels of expertise, and then girls, and the weather, and horses; in-between, they grease their throats with some schnapps, and when the fifth round of ale arrives, the ale maid informs them that it’s the last for the night.

“Where’re you staying, anyways?” Svatya asks, swaying in his seat. “You’re not ridin’ anywhere anymore like that, right?”

“Nah,” Henry says, and hiccups, and points in probably the direction of the barn. “Betty’s lettin’ me have the hay over… there.”

“No way! You can—you can sleep with me. At mine, I mean. Fuck.”

Henry chokes on a giggle. “But I paid for the hay!”

“And you’re gettin’ free hay at mine!” Svatya yells and flings his arm in the general direction of the bailiff’s office. Henry laughs, because it sounds a bit like he is trying to feed him like a horse.

“So, Henry, wanna stay over?”

Suppose that, at the end of the day, hay is hay is hay.

“Aye, sure. Let me have the free hay.”

Svatya whoops. “Come on, then,” he says, springs to his feet, and promptly sways back into his seat. He giggles, high and trilling. “Well, fuck me. Next try’s gonna be the one.”

It takes him a bit, but in all fairness, Svatya manages to get up and stay on his feet on his next attempt. He extends his unsteady hand to Henry, who, of course, takes it and almost sends them both sprawling on their arses. But then they somehow, miraculously, manage to steady each other in time, propped up against one another like a pair of slanted trees.

And—God, upright, the alcohol goes right to Henry’s head.

“Gonna take you home,” Svatya mumbles, breath hot and wet against the side of Henry’s neck. Their arms tangle awkwardly around their backs, hands slipping off shoulders, tucking into armpits, finding clumsy purchase wherever they can. “We just gotta get… to the street.”

And they do manage to, waddling and swaying, arm in arm. Henry thinks that, if he let go of Svatya, he’d probably fall right over. The mental image makes him laugh, and they manage to leave the tavern, and then Henry blinks, and they’re suddenly in the dark courtyard outside the bailiff’s office.

“Hay, Svatya, the hay,” Henry says, arm slipping, suddenly urgent, and Svatya tries to shush him while giggling at the same time.

“I’ll get you to the hay, but be quiet,” he chides. They steer each other into the pitch-dark shade of a shed, Svatya leading, Henry following. There is, notably, no space to sleep in, let alone any hay.

Henry leans against the wooden wall for support, turning to Svatya in their quasi-hold. “I don’t think this is—”

Whatever he had meant to say is cut off by Svatya’s mouth on his, insistent and clumsy. It’s not all that shocking, or perhaps Henry is just too drunk to be appalled by it; as it is, Svatya still tastes sweet and hoppy, and his tongue in Henry’s mouth feels warm and nice, and that’s really all that matters.

No weddings. No lordlings.

Svatya pulls back to breathe after a few moments, resting his forehead against the side of Henry’s face. His skin is a little clammy, but that’s not entirely unpleasant. Henry suddenly realises that he can’t clearly remember the last time someone just held him.

He runs an idle hand up and down Svatya’s spine in a loose sort of embrace and feels the other man’s entire body jerk against him in response. “D’you want to keep goin’ with this?”

The only reply he receives comes in the form of Svatya kissing him once more. Henry lets himself be crowded against the wall, takes Svatya’s unsteady weight while trying to stay on his feet. It’s all heat and noses poking into cheeks, and Henry can’t help but giggle into their kisses, wrapping his arms around his friend – but, oh, certainly they are friends now, aren’t they?

“Svatya—Svatya, hey—” Henry gasps out, and only once he pulls him off by the scruff does he stop. “Svatya, are we friends?”

Svatya snorts. “Yeah?” is all he says, and then he’s right back to kissing Henry.

And isn’t that great news? Appeased, Henry grabs a handful of Svatya’s arse, squeezing it. It earns him a low moan and a leg slotted between both of his, and that’s nice, too. Idly, he grinds into Svatya’s thigh, his cock not particularly interested yet, but hopefully not so beer-soaked that he won’t be able to firm up for whatever his friend might have in mind.

Svatya, for his part, doesn’t seem to struggle with it at all, if the hardness grinding into Henry’s hipbone is anything to go by. His eagerness is almost flattering, and Henry kisses him a bit more fervently for it.

They shift a little, but it’s enough to upset their tenuous, drunk balance. Their teeth knock together as Henry slips down the wall, only kept from falling to the ground by the thigh Svatya keeps pressed between his. The impact is not so forceful as to hurt, but the pressure against Henry’s sack has him groaning nonetheless.

“Fuck,” he pants, and this angle really works for him as he ruts into Svatya’s leg. He blindly clings to whatever his fingers can wrap around – the short-cropped hair at the back of Svatya’s head as his mouth descends on his again, the rumpled fabric of Svatya’s gambeson, his hip—

And then Svatya all but hauls him back to his feet, keeping him steady against the wall. Henry acutely misses his thigh between his, but a moment later, he finds his knee nudged aside and, oh. That’s Svatya’s cock against his.

It only now strikes him that he’s hard, too.

Henry shivers; the only thing keeping their cockheads from touching are the two thin linen-layers of their braies. Svatya ruts against him once, inquisitive, and Henry chokes out a strange noise. “That’s good,” he whispers, and then proceeds to pull Svatya into a kiss to hopefully stave off any more odd sounds that might want to burst out of him.

They grind together without much of a rhythm at first, panting into each other’s mouths and occasionally sucking on a tongue. It’s nice, and Svatya whimpers a little into their kisses, but it doesn’t really feel like it’s quite enough, either. It’s only when Henry grabs his friend’s arse again that an idea strikes him.

“Oh, Christ,” Svatya hisses as Henry uses his hold on him to roll their hips into each other with purpose. It’s slower this way, but their cocks slot beside each other nicely on the upstroke, and with how much Svatya’s cock is leaking already, the wetness of the fabric feels sinful whenever their tips meet.

In a bizarre way, it almost feels like they’re fucking proper. The very thought makes Henry’s head spin, and he digs his fingers into the meat of Svatya’s arse a little harder, thrusting forward a little more urgently. In response, Svatya whines, and the sound goes right to Henry’s cock.

“What do you want?” he pants into Svatya’s open mouth, lightheaded and desperately hard. “Please—”

“I just…” Svatya says and suddenly pitches forward. His head thunks against the wall, and a shudder shakes his entire body. His hips stutter against Henry’s, thrusting desperately into the damp heat between them, and then Henry feels the wetness of Svatya’s come seep through the already ruined fabric of his braies.

It’s that particular sensation that undoes him, and he finds his own rhythm faltering. He aimlessly humps himself to completion against Svatya’s thigh, rather than his softening cock, and through the buzz of alcohol, his orgasm leaves him unsure if he can still feel his toes.

They remain pressed together for a while, afterwards, the come in their linens slowly growing tacky. Henry eventually sighs and starts nudging at Svatya to get him to move.

“The hay, Svatya,” he says.

Svatya lifts his head, though Henry can’t see much of him in the dark. “Suppose we took a wrong turn while looking for it, eh?”

“Aye. Found the ravishment shed instead.”

“Henry,” Svatya says, tone suddenly scarily grave and almost sober, “you can’t tell anyone about this.”

Somehow, the very idea that he would seems absurd. “Obviously,” he says – with a snort, for good measure. “I’d be no better off than you.”

Svatya lets out a long breath, then slumps into Henry once more. “Right. Good. My father would strangle me.” He goes oddly still in his relief, his weight pinning Henry to the wall.

Then, after a minute or so, he begins to snore.

Henry balks.

There’s little finesse to the way Boyd’s axe chops into the training dummy.

It’s all brute force with him because he has the benefit of being big and strong, and even his cheap iron axe is a heavy weapon when compared to an arrow. Splinters of wood go flying, looking a bit like a spray of blood in the fading red sunlight.

Rolf watches his brother brutalise the dummy from his perch above the training grounds. There’s a sheen of sweat on Boyd’s face, and a big, satisfied smile on his lips. He wipes his forehead and swings his axe like it weighs nothing, then goes back to tearing into the wood again. Idly, Rolf takes a bite out of the sweet roll that Oscar had slipped him after dinner.

He isn’t jealous, per se—but his brothers are so much older than him, and stronger, and able to carry their weight around their mercenary troupe in a way that Rolf simply isn’t. If anything, he is only allowed to stay because of how well the two of them pull their weight. Even Mist, who sees equally as little combat as Rolf, manages to do more for everyone than him, what with all the laundry and mending and healing she does.

If it weren’t for Shinon’s surreptitiously teaching him archery, Rolf would not have anything to show for himself at all.

Boyd takes another swing at the dummy, right at where a person’s waist would be, and the wood finally gives. The top half goes flying, while the bottom part remains stuck on the rod it is affixed to. The wooden pseudo-torso clatters to the ground, and Boyd whoops in elation. Rolf shoves the remaining half of his roll into his mouth and jumps to his feet, praying that he might get away before his brother can notice him.

Maybe some late practice is what Rolf needs as well.

Dusk has fallen by the time Rolf returns outside, bow and quiver tucked discreetly into his side. The sound of Boyd’s irregular chopping has died down by now, replaced by the last bangs of pots and pans being stowed away in the kitchen and the cacophony of noises coming from inside the forest.

Rolf follows the song of crickets and owls and frogs into the trees, tall and pitch-black in the fading light. His feet know the way to the shooting range – the one hidden away, where Shinon takes him to practice – even as night begins to fall. The small clearing with the makeshift targets is wrapped in faint purple light and tall shadows.

It’s likely going to be too dark to see anything soon, so Rolf sets down his bow and fastens his quiver to his back. The targets fixed to the trees are still visible enough, even in the low light.

His bow feels heavy in his hand when he picks it back up, which is ridiculous. Rolf knows it to be lighter than the average iron bows everyone else uses, made with care by Shinon to account for Rolf’s lack of strength and – well, isn’t that a frustrating thought?

He pulls an arrow from his quiver and nocks it, fingers trembling. His eyes are terribly dry, and the roll from before sits heavy in his stomach. Before him, lined up ever so neatly, the targets, with all their little puncture marks from being struck by arrows so often, appear to be swaying in the shifting shadows. Rolf exhales shakily and draws back his bowstring, zeroing in on one target and taking aim.

The string snaps back into place as he lets go, and his arrow promptly burrows itself in the ground.

For a few seconds, Rolf just stands and stares at the arrow as it sticks out of the dirt. His chosen target is at least another two feet away from where it had struck the ground, like it had simply dropped out of the air before it could make it all the way to the target, and the whole thing feels a bit like a joke. Perhaps, on a better day, Rolf could have taken comfort in the fact that his aim had been pretty much perfect. But today isn’t a good day, and his stupid custom toy bow weighs nothing, and his weak little arms don’t even have enough strength in them to pull the bowstring back with the force needed to strike a target.

Rolf walks over to his arrow and yanks it out of the ground, because the head is barely damaged, and he might as well try again. His eyes sting, but he readies the arrow once more and makes sure to draw the string back as far as he can.

This time, the arrow strikes a tree trunk instead.

The thump of it rings like thunder in Rolf’s ears. Just beside the tree, the target he had been aiming for remains unpunctured.

If this were a skirmish, someone would be dead twice over by now. That is what bothers – no, terrifies – Rolf most. That, if the other mercenaries would allow him to come along on their missions, they would expect him to pull his weight, and he would fail them. That they would need to protect him and receive nothing in return. That Rolf would be nothing but dead weight to them. That someone might needlessly die for him because he wasn’t good enough.

The next arrow feels steadier in his hands than the one before. Rolf adjusts his stance and turns to a different target this time, taking deep breaths to calm himself. He readies his shot, his arms quivering with tension, and he tries, and misses again.

And again.

And again.

And—

The moss muffles the clattering as his bow hits the ground with all the force Rolf can put behind throwing it. His breathing comes ragged, and it takes all his willpower not to stomp his foot like a stupid, useless child.

Maybe this really is all he can bring to the table. Maybe he is bound to remain nothing but a petulant, unskilled liability best kept off the battlefield; an additional mouth to feed that can’t earn its keep.

He stares at his bow as it lies between blades of grass and rocks and dust—his bow, that Shinon had made specifically for him, for him to train and get better with. Shinon, who had gone out of his way to take him on as an apprentice. Shinon, who keeps training him, who must still see something in him, no matter his incompetence.

Shinon, whose bow and faith Rolf had just tossed in the dirt.

With a sigh, he picks it up, then goes to pluck his arrows from where they are lodged in everything but in his practice targets. The wind combs through the trees around him, and Rolf shudders.

And then, he heads home.

-

His evenings are spent much the same after that.

It’s the time of the year when the days are getting shorter again, and sitting out dinner is a small price to pay for an extra hour of daylight. Besides, Oscar holds back some food for Rolf to eat once he comes back, anyways; never mind that he always serves it with a concerned look and questions about Rolf’s wellbeing.

Mist, too, worries, and it feels entirely too patronising in a way that his brother’s concern doesn’t. She always gets under Rolf’s skin, so he takes to avoiding her altogether. It’s easy, seeing as Rolf is already sitting out meals.

And for all the trouble, his extra practice has yet to bear fruit.

Rolf is hopeful that the soreness in his arms and shoulder is a sign that he is finally building up some muscle. His aim has only gotten worse, but it might be temporary. After all, he can barely hold his bow without his arms shaking from the exhaustion and soreness. Earlier that day, Shinon had noticed as much during their regular training session and promptly called Rolf out on it.

It’s easy for Shinon to judge Rolf, of course. Shinon doesn’t have to worry about carrying his weight around their mercenary band. Unlikely as it seems given his natural talents, if Shinon ever started out in the same place as Rolf, it must have been so long ago that he can’t accurately remember how awful being well and truly useless feels.

His frustration makes Rolf yank back the arrow he had been readying with more force than necessary, and his shoulder gives out.

He drops his bow and arrow at once and promptly crumples to the floor.

That’s also how Shinon finds him some minutes later: kneeling in the dirt while clutching his injured shoulder, trying desperately not to cry.

“So this is where you’ve been running off to,” Shinon says, speech just this side of slurred. Rolf only sniffles in reply, refusing to look at him. Shinon sighs and steps closer. “I told you so, you know. That you’ve been overdoing things, and that you’d end up like this.”

That makes Rolf look up. “So what?” he says through his teeth.

Shinon raises his eyebrows, then frowns. “Why do I even take the time out of my day to teach you anything if you don’t bother to listen to me?”

“You don’t get it!”

“I do.”

Rolf glares at him. Shinon glares right back.

“You’ve been making an ass of yourself for a while now, Rolf. Your brothers are constantly whining about you running off instead of eating dinner. And what for? To stand around in the dark and struggle to hit a single target because you’ve been overtaxing your body?” Shinon drops to his knees. His hands come to settle on Rolf’s shoulders with measured gentleness. “And worst of all, you don’t listen to me when I tell you to lay it off to prevent something like this happening. Now let me see your shoulder.”

Reluctantly and wordlessly, Rolf does as he is told.

“Would you have kept going the second it stopped hurting?” Shinon asks as he smooths his hand over the smarting muscle. Rolf tries his hardest not to flinch.

“I… don’t know.”

Shinon lets out a noise of frustration. His touch becomes rougher for a second before he catches himself. “You pulled a muscle there. Pretty badly,” he says. His hands come to settle on top of Rolf’s shoulders again, and he levels Rolf with a glare. “If you keep going with an injury like this, who knows if your shoulder will ever be the same again. Do you understand that, Rolf?”

Numbly, Rolf nods and keeps his head down. He can’t stand to look Shinon in the eye anymore. “I just—Master Shinon, I just don’t want to disappoint you! You can’t be happy with me as a pupil, can you?”

“Not if you’re going to behave like this.”

“I mean it! I haven’t been making any progress at all! I rarely manage to hit any of my practice targets, and if I ever got into an actual fight, I would only be a burden to everyone else!”

A hush follows in the wake of Rolf’s outburst. Shinon’s face scrunches up in something akin to disgust.

“Well, good thing you’re not joining any fights then,” he says after a beat. “You are simply not ready for it.”

“And that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? I’m not carrying my weight!”

“Who said that you had to? Because that’s bull. You’re perfectly capable for a boy your age who has been practicing archery for as long as you have,” Shinon says, his face still stuck in a strange expression of distaste. “If you were a lost cause, I wouldn’t bother.”

Rolf can’t help the tear that escapes his eye at last. In the advancing darkness, Shinon doesn’t seem to notice.

“But,” Shinon goes on, “if you permanently injure yourself by practicing until your shoulders give out and your hands bleed, you will become a lost cause. And I don’t want that for you. Do you understand?”

Rolf swipes at his face with his good hand and sniffles. “Yes, Master Shinon. I just… I wish I could get better faster.”

Shinon sighs and pushes to his feet. He doesn’t offer Rolf a hand to pull him up, but goes to pick up his discarded bow instead. Weighing it in his hand, he considers Rolf. “I wasn’t born a master archer either, you know. But… well, I think I’ve trained you well enough to trust you to have my back, once I deem you battle-ready.”

Rolf’s heart jumps in his chest. “Really?” he gasps and moves to stand up, only to wince when his shoulder smarts at the movement.

Shinon smirks. “If you take the time to heal, first.”

“I promise,” he says, and crosses his heart with his uninjured hand. Another tear slips out, and he quickly wipes it away. “And… thank you.”

Shinon shrugs and fumbles for something with his free hand. A second later, he pulls out a hipflask and uncorks in one practiced movement. “Go see if they left any food for you,” is all he says.

CW: mentions of blood and attempted arson.

Something is clearly amiss after the smoke has cleared.

Susato’s hands tremble as she cups them around Ryuunosuke’s ear to whisper, “Naruhodou-san. I don’t think we could have missed those bloodstains before.”

Ryuunosuke’s stomach churns. It takes great effort not to look away.

The open door of the omnibus affords them a perfect view of the carriage’s floor, splattered with red.

“Susato-san,” he says, voice quivering. He grasps blindly for her thin wrist as the courtroom begins to spin before his eyes. “Susato-san, do you think Mr McGilded—?”

-

Lord Chief Justice Stronghart idly twists the crown of his pocket watch. His wide shoulders block out the light filtering in through the dial-plate window at his back, casting him in shadow.

Ryuunosuke’s hair stands on end as Stronghart’s icy gaze sweeps over him.

“Fetch a ‘not guilty’-verdict in court tomorrow,” he says dispassionately, “and we can see about you taking your friend’s place.”

-

Susato’s lips press into a grim line.

She takes a step back from the omnibus carriage, pulling her hand free to steady Ryuunosuke where he sways with one leg up on the foothold. “The bloodstains’ presence supports the theory that the victim was dropped through the skylight, but…”

Ryuunosuke nods and releases a shuddering breath.

Through the window of the omnibus, he meets Crown Prosecutor Barok van Zieks’s keen, judgemental gaze.

-

McGilded only comes up to Ryuunosuke’s chin, yet he seems larger than life all the same.

He is as charismatic as he is magnanimous, all oracy and disarming smiles and philanthropic projects. His gestures are sweeping, his laughter booming, and Ryuunosuke, willing to trust in his client as much as Kazuma had once trusted him, wholeheartedly believes McGilded when he reassures him that this whole trial is nothing but a misunderstanding.

-

Ryuunosuke’s uniform jacket feels stifling as he resumes his place behind the defence’s bench. Susato stands wordlessly by his side, and the sword resting at Ryuunosuke’s hip suddenly weighs a thousand pounds.

There is no misunderstanding; McGilded may very well be guilty.

-

“But what if you can’t be sure of your client’s innocence?” asks Ryuunosuke.

Kazuma regards him coolly over the edge of his English textbook. “Then it’s a question of faith,” he replies, “or of knowing when to cut your losses.”

-

In the end, no matter how much they go back and forth to no avail, an aggrieved Prosecutor van Zieks must concede that their evidence is too muddled and contradictory to deliver a verdict on.

“Counsel,” the judge prompts Ryuunosuke, finally, “your closing statement?”

Next to Ryuunosuke, Susato inhales sharply. “You can still plead—correctly,” she says, all steel and resolve. Her hand clenches into a fist. “I believe it’s what Kazuma-sama would have done.”

-

“Do you really think I can pull it off, Susato-san? If I don’t, then we’ll be sent home and Kazuma’s dream—”

“Naruhodou-san.”

Ryuunosuke’s mouth snaps shut. Susato smiles at him, her shoulder digging into his biceps in the hackney cart to the Old Bailey. “Let’s simply pursue the truth to the best of our ability. Nothing more.”

-

And the truth is—

“I believe my client to be guilty, Your Lordship,” Ryuunosuke concludes.

In the witness stand, McGilded snarls.

Ryuunosuke wonders if that expression was the last thing Mr Mason saw before McGilded drove a knife into his gut.

-

“And if it truly comes down to it, Naruhodou-san, I trust you to make the right call.” Susato smooths her hands over her hakama. “Regardless of what it means for us.”

-

In the defendant’s antechamber, escaping judgement yet, McGilded’s cheery demeanour returns. He smiles with too many teeth now; a predator caught out for his crimes, yet ever reluctant to admit to them.

“Ye gave me a right scare!” he laughs and presses a guinea into Ryuunosuke’s palm with force. The coin’s edge bites into his skin. “Don’t joke around like that tomorrow.”

And then, he makes for the courtroom again.

-

There is no blood on the floor.

There is no bloodstain on the lip of the skylight.

-

Except that the doors remain barred to McGilded.

“There must be a mistake,” he tries, pleasant smile twitching, “we had an arrangement, ye see, Sir—"

“Whatever arrangements you had have become irrelevant,” says Crown Prosecutor van Zieks, looming in the doorway like an omen. “They found an incendiary agent installed inside the omnibus.”

-

“Fetch a ‘not guilty’-verdict in court tomorrow—”

-

Ryuunosuke’s breath catches.

“What?” McGilded hisses, sounding genuinely surprised.

“It has since been removed,” says Van Zieks coolly. “Pray, understand that we cannot let anyone close to the evidence again under these circumstances.”

-

Miss Gina Lestrade flinches when McGilded clasps her shoulder good-naturedly, stood by her side in the witness stand.

The fabric of her sleeve crinkles beneath his fingers.

-

The dinner at their hotel that night looks delectable. It’s a shame Ryuunosuke can barely bring himself to eat a bite. Across the table from him, Susato isn’t faring much better.

“You did the right thing today,” she says, pushing a carrot around her plate.

-

“Even the guilty will seek legal counsel,” says Kazuma, leaning back in his chair in the reading hall. “That doesn’t mean it’s my job to get them off.”

-

“—in addition to tampering with evidence, the court hereby finds the accused, Mr Magnus McGilded, guilty of the murder of Mr ‘Thrice-fired’ Mason, as well as perjury, obstruction of justice—”

-

“Fetch a ‘not guilty’-verdict—”

-

Lord Stronghart barely acknowledges them, now.

“I’d made my conditions clear,” he says dully. “You did not manage to do as I asked, therefore, I cannot allow you to fill in for your late friend. Neither will you be allowed to practice law in our proud country. And that’s final.”

Susato inhales sharply. “But Mr McGilded was guilty—”

Stronghart’s steely gaze finally snaps up, boring into Ryuunosuke.