audentes really does fortuna iuvat

(I described it in more detail here)

So, in this AU Hans, much like in canon, has been living with Hanush ever since his parents died. They come from old money, so Hans grows up surrounded by everything he could possibly want — a beautiful mansion, the best education Hanush can provide, expensive clothes, formal dinners, posh social events and all the expectations that come with their name and status. From the outside, his life looks perfect. To Hans, though, it feels like a golden cage. He knows all the rules of polite society, but very little about the world outside of it. Beneath all the arrogance and spoiled rich boy behavior, he's actually deeply lonely, vulnerable and desperate to experience something real.

Henry comes from the complete opposite world. He's a working-class guy who lost his parents too, but unlike Hans, he has no inheritance or safety net to fall back on. He's been taking whatever jobs he can find and learning how to make his own way in life, until eventually he gets hired as a security guard at Hanush's mansion — and that's how they meet.

Naturally, Hans is absolutely insufferable to him at first. He's condescending, arrogant and constantly acts as though Henry is beneath him, while Henry is one of the very few people who isn't particularly impressed by Hans' money, name or attitude.

Until one night Henry catches Hans trying to sneak out of the mansion. Hans has decided that he's going to see the real world for once, despite having very little idea what that actually means. Henry should obviously drag him straight back inside and tell Hanush. Instead, somehow, he ends up going with him. And that night Henry shows Hans his world — neon signs and crowded bars, cigarette smoke and jukeboxes, rock'n'roll and swing, cheap drinks, noisy streets, late-night cafes and people who have absolutely no idea who Hans is and couldn't care less about his family name. For the first time in his life, Hans feels genuinely, completely alive.

After that, it becomes their little secret. Henry keeps helping Hans slip out from under Hanush's watch, and their nights together slowly become a world of their own. By day, Hans is the wealthy young gentleman and Henry is his guard. By night, they're simply Hans and Henry, driving through streets, listening to music, drinking in little bars, getting into trouble and discovering parts of each other neither of them expected to find. Friendship turns into something much more complicated, until eventually they fall in love.

And that's where the fantasy of freedom starts colliding with reality, because this is still the early 1960s. Their relationship isn't something they can simply live out in the open. On top of that, there's the enormous class difference between them: Hans has money, status and Hanush's protection but very little actual freedom, while Henry has the independence Hans desperately envies but none of the security that Hans has always taken for granted.