Chapter 1/7
post-Suchdol; explorations of PTSD, hurt/comfort, family cycles.
~50k, complete. Chapters to be posted weekly.
It’s not been a long day at all and yet Hans is exhausted, and he doesn’t understand why it’s been that way every day since Suchdol. Once he’d been a man who could rise at dawn, hunt until dusk, and then still ride to the baths and drink well into the night.
Now he finds himself craving his bed by mid-day. Hans hasn’t napped so much since he’d been small enough to be tugging at his mother’s skirts. Hasn’t been so easy to lull off with a gentle touch since then either. Every stroke of Henry’s fingers along his hairline has him closer and closer to drifting off.
“Were you like this as a boy?” Henry asks.
“What d’you mean?” Hans asks, words slurred.
“Full of ‘what ifs’ and imaginary situations, talking about them as if they’re already real.”
Hans seeks out a bump on Henry’s chest. He picks at it absently to keep himself awake as he swims through his memories. Images come up smudged and he can’t seem to tell if that’s because of the painkiller, or because he simply doesn’t remember much of his youth at all. It’s as if there’s a wall in his mind, one that only comes down in dreams, or to let scattered memories surface when he least expects them.
His nail catches on Henry’s chest. Henry rests his palm atop his hand to settle his restless fingers, and so he wiggles his toes beneath the sheets instead. He’s never been able to settle for long.
“I don’t know. No one spent much time talking with me like this after my parents died- though in truth my father never really spoke with me like this. He was busy, you see. Lords don’t have much time for their children.” Hans blinks up at him in the dark. “Why?”
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