we are creatures - so create

Hans, himself, drifts off here and there as the morning grows long in the tooth. Each time he wakes, he watches Henry a while, in a manner he often had before, but always with excuse. Their lives riddled with danger, and Henry so eager to thrust himself into danger (or else be volunteered for it), it was only natural that Hans would be worried for him. And though Henry had been charged with his protection, he no more wanted Radzig to lose his only son than for Rattay to lose its heir. Now, he needs no pretence. His eyes blink open, and he drinks Henry in for the sake of it. Admiring the marriage of soft and strong features, and sleeping again.

Until Hans opens his eyes, and finds Henry watching him.

He grins at having been caught, a flush creeping into a face made pale by sleep. His eyes are blue with the fantasy of dreams, framed by dark lashes that kiss his cheek when he blinks. He smiles so wide Hans can see the hole from the molar he'd lost in Semine, a loss Henry had shrugged off in the middle of two bites of bread. 'I'll eat with the other side,' he'd said. Strange, to think the laugh that remark earned had led to this. That every moment they'd shared, foolish and fraught, had become this.

"You've slept in," Henry chides playfully. "You're usually up with the birds, you."

Hans issues a soft, breathy laugh from his nose. It's difficult to know how to respond when they're lying together like this. Beyond these walls it's easy to slip back into the routine of knight and squire, two young men who have fought in battle, and have every reason to laugh twice as hard for the deaths they've escaped. Within them, however, it feels nebulous. This feeling, this them: knight and squire; Galehaut and Lancelot; Hans and Henry. Two friends, two lovers. He hopes.

He hopes.

Hans's eyes point in the direction of his trapped arm and he opts to say, "My wing has been clipped."

He sees confusion knit Henry's thick brow, eyes travelling to the corners so Hans can see their whites. Recognition dawns like the morning they've nearly missed, and he lifts his head for Hans to retrieve his arm— only when Hans tries, he can't seem to move in.

His own brow knits, and he tries again. He can see his arm, laying there, attached to him at the shoulder as it ought to be, but there is no feeling beyond his elbow and even that is faint. He's not even sure he can move his fingers. "What have you done to my arm?" he asks.

"What?"

"I can't feel a thing."

Henry frowns, propping himself up on his elbow to examine it. With his other hand, he prods the skin, which does elicit some feeling deep beneath the skin. "Don't tell me you've never had pins and needles before."

"Of course I have!" he says defensively. He'd woken up too many times with his arms thrown over his head and a tingling feeling in his arms to tolerate such an accusation. "But you can feel those. I can't feel anything."

"Then you've never had them properly. Ma used to complain all the time when I'd roll on her arm."

"So this is a long-standing issue?" he says. "Maybe your head is too thick, Hal."

"Or your arm is too brittle." Henry paws at Hans's arm like a wild animal nosing a corpse on the side of the road. He lifts it by the wrist and watches it fall limply to the mattress, fascinated. "Christ, it really is asleep."

"You've nursed one arm just to cost me another."

"Relax, in a few minutes it'll be fine." Though until then, it appears to be the subject of Henry's mercies. He waggles the hand at the wrist a few more times, as if waving hello to himself, but before Hans can open his mouth to protest Henry threads their fingers together. He feels nothing and everything watching them knit— his fingers like five pieces of led, but his heart jolting up into his throat. Henry seems to take no notice, but twists their wrists together, baring the back of Hans's hand to his lips.

The first brush of them against Hans's thumb seems to bring it to life. For the first time since Henry had freed him, the skin has feeling. Each finger, in turn, is nursed at the knuckle, inspiring life into the appendage. When each have been bestowed, Hans finds the strength to turn his hand to cup the flush of Henry's cheek. His newly-healed thumb strokes the smooth skin of his cheekbone, sweeping to the lines his smile has worn into his face.

"Looks like you're keepin' the arm after all," Henry jests in the moments before Hans drags their faces towards one another.

He feels Henry's breath expand against his chest, the slow draw through the nose so they need not part before they are ready. Hans makes a noise in his throat he struggles to name, and sees no need to, so long as it does not put a stop to this: to the plush of Henry's lips overlapping with his; the tender use of teeth and tongue. He feels his nose bend against Henry's cheek and wonders if it shall be put to sleep, too, before they are finished.

"Mornin'," Henry murmurs against Hans's mouth, unable to contain his smile until Hans kisses it away. They roll together, Henry flattening against the mattress, Hans on top. An inversion of that night Henry had taken his leave from Suchdol. One ear bends against the pillow, pointed tip resembling a dog with a folded flap.

Henry lays his hand upon the bicep of Hans's left arm, stroking new feeling back into it. "Sorry about your arm."

"It's alright," Hans says, kissing him again. Again. Again. Those lips have done more than give new life to his fingers, but rather have breathed it into his whole existence. They deserve to take a little, as well. "Maybe tomorrow morning, it will hurt a little less."