#mutt supervises

—

Henry laid the tinder with care — dry moss first, then shavings of wood split thin, each piece placed with the patience of someone who has done this enough times to know that haste is its own kind of waste.

He reached for the flint.

Practised fingers. Sparks spat and died. He struck again — and one didn't die. It vanished into the moss fibres and came back a moment later as a hesitant flame, uncertain of its welcome.

Henry leaned down and blew — long, slow, gentle.

The fire took the shavings. Took the wood. Made them its own.

He watched it for a moment with quiet satisfaction, then laid on the heavier logs. Straightened — his back cracking softly — and looked around.

The room was waking in amber — light crossing the bow on the wall, the table, pair of antlers above the door, the pattern of shields with their crossed billets on the hangings. It set the shadows rocking in the corner where the dog bed sat.

Mutt was standing over it.

Nose pressed to the fabric, conducting his inspection with the focused gravity of someone who takes such matters seriously. Then he raised his head and looked at Henry.

His tail moved.

"Of course," Henry said quietly. "Who else’s would it be?"

Mutt wagged once more, stepped into the bed, turned twice, and subsided onto his side. A long, contented breath escaped from somewhere deep in him. He didn't take his eyes off Henry.

Henry laughed softly.

Behind him, the door clicked.

Hans stood in it — hair tousled, glancing back as though half expecting the wind to follow him in. Then he pulled the door to.

"I had a look in the cellar," he said. "The stores here — well. There are barely any." He lifted a shoulder.

Henry crossed to him. Took him by the hips.

"No wonder." Hans let his eyes travel over the room. "You can see no one's been here. Without Pavel and Katherine, Foxburrow doesn't look after itself."

Henry's hands slid to his arse and took hold — gently, but with purpose.

"Tomorrow we'll go into the forest," he murmured, and drew him closer.

Hans came without resistance.

"But now," Henry said, his voice low.

And his lips found Hans's. Soft. Hot.

Hans smiled into the kiss. His arms came up around Henry's neck, his hips pressing close. Then Henry's lips moved slowly from his mouth — along the edge of his jaw, to his temple, down to his ear.

"This is what I needed," Henry murmured.

A shiver moved through Hans as the warm breath grazed his skin.

They drew apart a little.

Henry looked into his eyes. Firelight danced in them — small, living points of it, restless and bright.

Hans smiled, quietly. He raised his hand and laid his palm against Henry's face.

Looked at him.

Henry held his gaze — and then smiled, a little uncertainly.

"What?" he asked softly.

Hans watched him a moment longer without speaking. Then shook his head, lightly, still smiling.

"We should eat something," he said. A small frown. Then he straightened and glanced at Henry with a look that promised nothing but hoped for something. "And there might still be some wine here somewhere. I hope." The fire spoke quietly in the hearth.

Henry lay on the bench, his head resting in Hans's lap. Eyes closed. His breathing slow and even.

Hans's fingers moved through his hair — without hurry, without destination.

Henry's hand reached for the one resting on the bench. He drew it onto his chest and laced his fingers through it.

Hans looked at his face in silence.

At the quiet in it — not merely present, but settled there, as though it had taken up residence and intended to stay.

Closed eyes. Long lashes casting small shadows on his cheek. A little lower — barely there, but Hans saw them — fine lines that hadn't been there before. The mouth whose softness Hans had felt against his own so many times. The trimmed beard framing his jaw.

His fingers moved slowly in Henry's hair.

He raised his eyes.

Drew a long breath. Let it out slowly. His gaze moved across the table — two cups of wine, the remains of a modest supper. Bread, dried meat, apples.

"What is it, love?" Henry's voice, quiet, without movement.

Hans held his fingers a little tighter.

His eyes drifted to the flames.

"Only —" he began.

Shook his head.

"I keep thinking," he said, "whether we ought not to have stayed at Rotstein. With Jitka. With Heinrich."

Henry opened his eyes.

For a moment he looked straight up at Hans. Then slowly raised his hand and drew his fingers along his jaw.

Hans looked down at him.

"You must go to Rattay regardless," Henry said. "Since there is no word from Hanush." A faint smile. "And now that Dry Devil is back, I would not fear for Jitka or for your son."

Hans breathed out quietly.

"I suppose you are right," he said.

Rain began to move across the roof — soft, arriving without announcement, the way something arrives that was here before you were and has only now noticed it has company.

Henry sat up. He put his arm around Hans's back, drew him closer, and kissed him on the cheek.

"And it was Jitka's idea after all," he said, "that we should spend a few days at Foxburrow on the way."

Hans smiled a little. He pressed his face into Henry's neck.

"I cannot deny she surprised me," he murmured.

Henry stroked his back. Then lifted a shoulder.

"I am not sure she surprised me," he said, and laughed quietly. "She —"

From the corner of the room came a muffled sound.

They both turned.

Mutt, deep asleep in his bed, twitched his paw several times. Then breathed out, his tail moving once — and was still again.

Hans laughed softly.

"Dreaming of hares, most likely."

Henry nodded, smiling.

"We should go to bed ourselves," he said. "If we are to catch anything tomorrow."

Henry stretched his back — a long, slow unfolding — and laced his hands behind his head.

The ceiling above him. Beams, shadows collecting in the corners. The warmth of the bed around his hips.

He let out a breath.

And looked across the length of it.

Hans was undressing. Standing sideways, then with his back turned — his shirt swept over his head and landed on the chest without ceremony, without a glance back. His movements were easy, a little worn at the edges, but easy — the movements of a man who has no need to hurry and has known it long enough that it sits on him like a second skin.

The fire behind him shifted and breathed.

Its light moved across his back in long, smooth strokes — across the nape, across the taut arch of his shoulder blades, down his ribs, to the narrow waist. For a moment it caught on the scar on his arm — a white line in all that gold, quiet as something whose story has long since been told and has made its peace with that.

Henry didn't move. He watched the light find each muscle, each tendon — and almost felt, absurdly, a flicker of jealousy.

His throat tightened. He swallowed.

"God," he said quietly.

Hans stopped. He glanced over his shoulder — and a slow smile found his mouth. One eyebrow rose.

Henry propped himself on his elbow. Tilted his head.

"Your lordship is awaited in bed," he said. "With some impatience."

Hans made a quiet sound that was almost a laugh. He turned to face him fully and looked into his eyes without speaking.

His hose dropped to the floor.

He crossed to the bed.

One step. Then another. He slipped beneath the quilt — into warmth. Into Henry's body, and the arms that were around him before Hans had even drawn breath.

Henry pulled him close and kissed him — slowly, tenderly, the way a man kisses when time has agreed to wait.

Their legs found each other. Their lips stayed. Neither of them moved to end it.

When at last they drew apart, Hans looked at him for a while. Close.

He laid his palm against Henry's face. Gently — as though afraid not of disturbing the image before him, but of letting it alter at all, of losing even a shade of what it was in that moment.

He looked into his eyes.

His lips parted, barely.

He breathed in, slow and deep.

Then the hand moved on — along the throat, over the collarbone — and began to travel without thinking. Through the hair on his chest, over the swell of muscle, down the flat of his belly, past his navel — lower, where the hair thickened and the heat of him deepened under Hans's fingertips — and back again. Slow. Circular. His fingers following a road they knew so well they had long since stopped needing his mind to find it.

Hans's eyes drifted elsewhere.

Henry noticed.

The gaze that had been on him a moment ago — warm, close — had quietly gone somewhere. The eyes were still open, but what lay behind them was another place. Another time. The hand moved on — slow, and back.

Henry waited.

"When I was last here," Hans said quietly.

A flame shifted in the hearth. The shadows on the ceiling moved.

Hans shook his head — slight, almost nothing. His eyes came back to Henry's face.

"I missed you so much, Jindro,“ he whispered.

Henry watched him for a moment without speaking.

Then reached out and drew him close. Firmly, without words. He pressed his lips into his hair — and was there a while, his hand on Hans's back, a quiet weight in his chest for which he had no name.

"I have not stopped blaming myself," he whispered, "for not going with you. That time."

Hans stirred. Pulled back just far enough to look at him. His brow furrowed.

"No, Henry." Quietly, but without wavering. "It was our choice. And it was the right one." He lifted a shoulder — a little helplessly, the way a man lifts it when he knows the truth does not stop hurting simply because it is true. "We could not have known what —"

He did not finish.

Henry lowered his eyes.

A silence. Only the rain on the thatch — steady, patient.

Henry looked at him again. Hans's expression had softened. He took Henry's hand and drew it up between them.

"Jendo," Henry whispered.

Hans was still for a moment.

"Mine," Henry added.

Hans leaned in and set a small kiss at the corner of his mouth — brief and quiet, asking nothing of it.

Henry closed his eyes and smiled.

He kissed him.

Hans rolled onto his back — and in one unbroken motion drew him up onto his chest. Henry settled his head there, cheek against warm skin, and breathed out. Long and slow, as though he had been holding it since morning.

Hans's arm came around him. His fingers began to travel along Henry's forearm — back and forth — quiet and even as the rain outside.

Henry turned his head and pressed a soft kiss to the skin of his chest. Laid his arm across him, his palm resting easy against Hans's side.

His head rose and fell — carried on Hans's breath, like a small boat that has forgotten it had somewhere to go.

The fire in the hearth fell quiet. The crackling thinned.

Hans looked up into the dark.

He felt Henry's weight — warm, alive. Breath moving soft and steady against his skin. A small twitch, barely anything — then a deeper, easier exhale. Another small twitch, then a different, slower breath. Sleep coming for him.

And then, after a little while — quiet, barely audible: a snore.

Hans smiled into the darkness.

He closed his eyes.

And let the arms of night take him in. Gold broke at the tips of the firs

The sun sat up there quietly — still low, still uncertain of itself — gilding the crown of the forest with rays that were only just learning to be day. But beneath that gold, where the meadow lay along the forest's edge and Foxburrow sat low and still in the wet grass, the dusk still smouldered. Mist spread across the meadow like an unwritten message — white, slow, unfinished — and only a thin thread of smoke rising from the chimney told anyone the house was breathing again.

From the low bushes at the forest's edge came the song of a robin.

Trills scattered one after another without order — as though the bird sang for itself alone, for the cold and the morning mist, for no ears in particular. Melancholy, far away, dissolving in the air before they could quite die.

And then — from the depths of the forest — a bellow.

Deep. Raw. A voice rising from a stag's chest, from his blood, from his bones — the sound by which the true lord of the forest declared himself to the trees and to the autumn drawing near. Hans opened his eyes.

He blinked into the grey-white dimness of the bedchamber.

He breathed in slowly — through his nose — and let the scent travel all the way down to the bottom of his lungs. The cold of morning mist seeped in here too, mingling with the dry smell of a hearth burned down to its last. Ash and morning. Autumn, only just trying the door.

But Hans was warm.

Henry's arm lay around him — strong and quiet, faithful and natural in some way that asked for no word, as though they had never not been there. Behind him Henry's chest rose and fell — the loose, easy rhythm of a body not yet ready to wake — and with each breath passed warm skin and the faintest trace of chest hair across his back.

Hans shifted.

Pressed a little closer, his back settling into that chest. Further into the warmth, further into the rhythm.

Henry's arm did not let him go. Rough, broad fingers lay against the back of his hand. Hans threaded his own quietly through them.

He lay still for a while and looked.

At the white-grey light filling the chamber. At the beams. At a small cobweb in the corner where the light had not yet properly reached.

On his left cheek, the cold of morning. On his right, the pillow. And at his neck — Henry's breath, warmth that meant to stay.

From the forest came the bellow again.

Hans closed his eyes.

And in that moment something in him drew tight, quietly.

Not with pain. Not with fear. More like a tightening around something you are afraid to let go of — not because it would flee, but because it is too precious a thing to hold lightly. Henry's arm around him. Cold on his face and warmth at his back. Rough fingers between his fingers. Breath moving against his neck in its steady rhythm.

Everything he had wanted — here, in this place, in this moment.

At the corners of his eyes, something he did not blink away.

He drew Henry's arm closer against himself.

Henry stirred. A low murmur. He pressed into Hans's back — unknowing, half-asleep — the whole length of himself.

Hans smiled.

He lay there and felt the muscles of the body behind him slowly, sleepily stretching — like a cat, like nothing, like someone who has not yet decided whether to rise.

And then — at his neck — the faint rasp of the beard.

And after it, softly, Henry's lips.

Hans breathed out quietly.

The tip of Henry's nose traced the curve of his neck — slowly, with no particular destination, a morning's exploration that needed none. Just to touch the skin. Just to feel. Hans held his breath: not lips, not fingers — only that softness, the barely-there warmth of it, a tenderness that weighed almost nothing and reached all the way down. Then the lips again. Soft, warm, barely parted, carrying the whole quiet of the morning in them.

Gooseflesh ran across Hans's shoulders and down his back.

He breathed.

Smiled into the dim space before him.

Henry's lips moved higher — toward his left ear, just below it — and stopped. Simply rested there. And then came the breath. Hot, damp, close.

Hans's eyes closed.

A shiver passed through him from the nape all the way down — unimpeded, unprotesting, the way water moves when it finds no wall to stop it.

He moved his palm slowly. Along Henry's forearm — feeling the firm cord of veins beneath his fingers — onto his side, lower, until his fingers slipped into the soft hair at his backside.

Henry's hips shifted. Not much. Enough.

His palm — warm, knowing — moved slowly across Hans's chest. His fingers stopped above the nipple and stroked it so lightly it was almost nothing. 

The touch found Hans all the way down his back.

He turned his head slowly.

Their eyes met.

Henry was looking at him from very close — sleepy, easy, with the look that hasn't yet gathered its full weight, and for that very reason was heavier. Hans lost himself for a moment in the pale blue of it.

Then his mouth found Henry's lips.

Slowly. Tenderly. The way you drink from a jug when you have no reason to hurry.

His palm moved across Henry's backside — slow, full-palmed, warm skin and firmness under his fingers — while Henry's fingertips began moving down across the muscles of his belly. Easy. As though retracing a map they knew by heart — and for that very reason needed to travel again.

Their lips stayed.

Breath found breath. A tongue moved lightly against a tongue — careful, searching, like a first touch. Like the first time they had kissed this deeply. Like the thousandth.

Hans arched his back slowly.

Pressed closer into Henry's chest — and felt him. Heavy, hot, hard against his arse. Henry's want, full and awake.

Henry murmured against his lips — low, from somewhere below the throat, from the bottom of the chest, from the place where things are felt and not thought.

His palm slid down Hans's belly. Lower.

Slowly. Through the hair, across warm skin. Hans felt Henry's hand — certain, even — close around him. The thumb moved slowly across the tip — and Hans's breath stopped, the way a clock stops. Then Henry took him fully in his palm and drew slowly down.

Hans's whole body drew tight in the same moment.

From his lips — still pressed to Henry's, still in the kiss — came a quiet sound. Deep. Not chosen. True.

He turned slowly.

All the way. Face to face.

He laid his palm beneath Henry's shoulder blade and looked at him. Only looked. Then slowly ran his hand down his back.

Henry placed his palm softly against his face.

His thumb moved slowly across his lower lip.

Hans half-closed his eyes. Leaned closer.

Their lips met — fully — and Henry's fingers slipped into his hair.

Hips to hips.

Their want pressed together — hot, alive — like two blades meeting in a blow.

Hans's lips kissed the corner of Henry's mouth and moved on slowly. Along the line of his jaw, through the close-cropped beard — short, hot touches of lip on skin — down to his throat.

A quiet, unsteady breath escaped Henry's lips.

Hans's mouth moved on. To the collarbone — slowly, close and hot, with a patience that took its time. He pressed his nose to Henry's skin and breathed in and closed his eyes. 

Salt and heat. Henry.

His palm slid down his back, along the spine, and settled on the firm curve of his arse.

Henry's fingers stayed in his hair.

Hans's mouth moved lower. Across the chest — along muscle and skin — until it found the nipple. He circled it lightly with his lips, just a passing touch. Then his tongue moved across it — slow, hot, deliberate.

Henry's body arched.

The fingers in Hans's hair tightened for a moment, barely, just barely. His hips lifted slightly. Hans felt the muscles of Henry's arse pull tight beneath his palm — and grabbed him, gently but firmly.

Henry's fingers slipped from his hair along Hans's cheek. Took him gently by the chin.

Lifted it. Drew his face up and kissed him. Deep, urgent, with the full weight of everything in him.

Body against body.

Between them only breath, heat, the slick of sweat on skin binding them together.

Henry's arms came around him — firm, sure — and turned him onto his back. Both still in the kiss, lips still joined, breath one.

Hans's palms moved across Henry's back. Along the muscles. Along the scars he knew as well as his own — and that hurt him more than his own.

Henry's hips rocked slowly.

His length moved hot across Hans's groin and Hans shivered.

Henry pushed himself up onto his arms.

The quilt slid from his back and dropped beside the bed with a soft sound.

He looked at Hans.

At his face — still a little breathless from the kiss, cheeks flushed, hair spread across the pillow. 

Hans smiled a little and let his gaze move over Henry's body — the broad shoulders and strong arms, the chest, the muscles of the belly — in the grey morning light that gave neither gold nor warmth. Only shape. Only truth.

He raised his hand and slowly drew his fingers along Henry's chest.

Henry returned the smile.

Then he moved lower.

His lips pressed to Hans's belly — warm, slow. They followed the thin trail of hair running down from his navel. Slowly. With an intent that needed no name.

Lower.

For a moment he looked up.

He looked into Hans's face — question and answer both — and then his lips moved lightly the full length of him. Barely a touch. Hans exhaled with his whole body.

Henry's lips moved again, from root to tip.

Hans closed his eyes. His head fell back. His lips parted.

His palms slid to Henry's shoulders — not to press. Only to hold on.

Henry took him in his mouth.

Slowly. Hans felt a faint tremor move through him — not chosen, not stoppable. His fingers sank softly into Henry's skin.

Henry's palms took gentle hold of his hips.

His mouth and tongue moved along him — slowly and then faster and then slowly again, with tenderness and then with hunger. Beneath his palms Henry felt how with each movement of his mouth Hans's body pulled tight — the grip of his thighs, the muscles of his belly drawing in — then eased, only to tighten again.

Hans breathed out loudly.

His fingers went into Henry's hair.

Henry felt against his lips and tongue how Hans strained and pulsed — alive, hot, close to the edge.

Hans's hands moved carefully to his face.

Lifted it.

Henry looked at him.

At the face where a faint smile was losing ground — slowly, steadily — to something it could not hold back much longer.

Hans breathed out unevenly.

"Love," he whispered.

He drew him close. And kissed him with hunger.

Henry answered with no less urgency.

Breath came broken between them — hot, never quite enough, always a little shorter than the wanting. Hans's arms held Henry's body and Henry's arms held Hans's — and in that holding was something old, something you could lean your weight on, and yet never something taken for granted, but always chosen again.

Everything theirs, everything in them, reforged and beaten into raw desire — hot and hard as steel.

Hans's palm slid between them down Henry's belly. Lower. His fingers found him — and closed around him.

A quiet sound escaped Henry into the kiss

When Hans's palm moved slowly, the sound deepened into a low groan.

And then Hans felt Henry's palm against his length — a little unsteady, warm — his fingers careful and certain at once.

He breathed out into Henry's mouth.

And kissed him deeply.

Their lips stayed. Their hands between their bodies — moving in quiet, matched rhythm. Two bodies in one movement. Bound by desire, by tenderness, by everything they were — everything they had become only together, only through each other.

Then their mouths came apart for a moment.

Hans looked at Henry's face.

A little breathless. Cheeks flushed. Hair pressed to his forehead.

Their eyes met.

And held.

Blue, still as a held breath — save for a quiet brightness rising from somewhere within, which gave away what was happening below. In the movement of their hot bodies. In the hands that did not stop.

A drop of sweat ran along Henry's brow. Down his cheek, to the corner of his mouth.

Hans leaned in.

And kissed him there — exactly there — salt on his lips, on his tongue.

Henry closed his eyes.

And kissed him — deeply, urgently, with a faint trembling he couldn't hide.

Their hands stayed between their bodies, each in the other's lap, moving toward what was coming.

Breath broke.

Their movements found their rhythm — hips, breath, the quiet tension that built steadily and without thought of stopping. With their free hands they held each other — fingers into skin, firm but not hard, the way someone holds who doesn't mean to let go.

Their eyes stayed on each other.

They didn't stop looking.

Not for a moment.

Hans saw in Henry's gaze what he felt in himself — that quiet, certain rising that needed no name. 

Blue, still — only that faint brightness within, giving everything away.

And then —

Not an explosion, not a fall. Like molten metal finding the shape it was cast for — without resistance, without noise, only that quiet, certain settling into itself. A tightening moved through him — from the nape, through his back, through his thighs — and spread, warm and relentless.

From his lips came a quiet sound. Not a word. Only a sound.

Their eyes did not let go.

Hans's palm kept moving. Slower now, attentive. He guided him — and Henry's breath broke more and more. Uneven, unsteady. The fingers gripping Hans’s back slowly clenched.

Then Henry's eyes, for a moment — just that one moment — darkened.

And he arched.

His whole body. The nape, the hips, the hands that closed around Hans without thought — and then released. From his parted lips came a helpless groan and a trembling breath, quiet, lost in the grey morning of the chamber.

They were both still trembling.

They lay in each other's arms — hot, damp skin on skin, slick with what had passed between them — and neither moved. There was nowhere to go. There was only this: the warmth of the other, the slow settling of their bodies, the silence.

Only the other.

Henry leaned in slowly.

Kissed him — slowly, softly — on lips that were still trembling a little.

Hans breathed out.

He drew him close. Firmly, with both arms. And they stayed.

In each other's arms. In a silence that was itself the answer to everything.

Outside, the morning wind moved and pulled at the last shreds of mist. Sunlight came through the window and lay warm and golden across their bare, damp skin.

And from somewhere in the forest — far off, barely reaching them — the stag called once more.

Hans breathed out quietly through his nose, eyes still closed.

"Some randy stag," he murmured.

A quiet, amused sound came from Henry. He leaned closer, a mischievous smile at the corner of his mouth.

"I cannot say I blame him," he said, and set his lips beneath Hans's ear.

Hans laughed — loud and easy — and slapped him on the backside. Left his hand there.

He looked into his eyes, one eyebrow lifted.

"Am I complaining?"

Henry's lips pressed together — then spread into a smile.

Hans leaned in and kissed him. Then looked toward the window, where the day was coming in bright and clear.

"Up you get, you randy stag," he said, and gave Henry's arse a pat. "We ought to wash." The grass in the yard lay under heavy drops of dew — each blade bent beneath its own weight, each drop catching the golden light like a small jewel that had decided to last a little longer before it passed. Sunrays stretched aslant from the forest across the yard, drawing long shadows and driving before them the last shreds of mist that rolled along the forest's edge like a beaten army not yet ready to concede.

The door of the lodge opened.

Hans stepped out — and the morning air received him all at once, sole to crown, without mercy. Cold, damp, sharp on the skin. He squinted against the golden light.

Behind him came Henry.

And at his heels, with joyful inevitability, Mutt trotted out. He stretched his front legs in a long, blissful arc, yawned wide, then straightened and wagged his whole back end as his gaze moved from Hans to Henry and back again.

Hans took a few idle steps and slowly spread his arms wide.

He closed his eyes. Stood there a while — in the middle of the yard, bare as the night he was born, face turned to the sun — and let those hesitant early rays move across his skin. The cold ground underfoot. Golden light on his eyelids.

He heard behind him a quiet splash and a sharp intake of breath.

He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder.

Henry stood there — likewise as God had made him — pouring water from the wooden trough over his chest with both cupped palms. Each pour drew a short hiss from him, but didn't stop him.

Hans's gaze moved across the yard toward the lean-to beside the smithy.

He breathed out.

"We could have filled the bathing tub," he said, with more longing than the situation strictly deserved.

"We can today!" Henry called from across the yard, bent over the trough, without a shred of remorse.

Hans nodded. Lifted a shoulder. And set off in slow, careful steps across the dew-soaked grass toward the trough — like a man who expects nothing good of what awaits him, but goes regardless.

Henry shifted aside and made room.

Hans stopped. Looked into the trough.

The water lay dark — and already icy from the look of it. He dipped the back of his fingers in, as though hoping he might be wrong. His lips pursed.

He looked at Henry.

Henry was watching him with a mildly amused expression. The corner of his mouth pulled slightly.

Hans drew a long breath.

"Henry," he began, his voice sharpening, "don't you da—"

Whatever came next was swallowed by a loud splash.

And by Henry's loud laughter that followed immediately.

"Henry!" Hans cried.

Streams of icy water ran down through his hair, down his face, his chest, his sides. His head shot up in shock. He spun round — and Henry, doubled over at the waist, was clutching his belly and could not get breath for laughing.

A moment later a wave drenched Henry from head to foot.

Hans burst out laughing himself.

He slapped his palm hard against the surface once more — sharp, full-palmed — and a dense shower of fine droplets flew through the air. The morning sun caught them and shook a rainbow out of them.

Mutt, who had been watching the whole business with rapt attention, barked with delight and leaped.

He snapped his jaws at the air — once, twice — caught nothing, lost nothing of his enthusiasm. Barked again and leaped once more.

Hans and Henry watched him. Their shoulders shook with the last of the laughter, quieter now but not gone.

Then Henry took a step toward Hans.

He put his arms around him — firm, without warning — and pressed him against his bare body, wet and cold and warm at once. He laid his cheek against his shoulder.

Hans's palms slid slowly down his back.

"I hate you, Henry of Skalitz," he murmured.

Henry laughed quietly. Tilted his head and pressed a small kiss to Hans's neck.

"I hate you more, my love." In the hearth, the flames licked carefully at a large fresh log — slowly, with the patience of something taking up a new thing.

And with no less care and deliberation, Hans — standing before the fire in nothing but his breeches — was drying his hair with a piece of clean linen.

Then he heard something from outside.

Muffled. Wooden. He stopped and listened.

Another. Then three quick ones in succession.

He slung the linen over his bare shoulder and went out to the yard.

Henry stood bent over a bench by the wall — a wooden mallet in one hand, brown shells before him — cracking hazelnuts with quiet concentration, one by one. From the lean-to beside the smithy came the sound of running water: a steady trickle and splash as the bathing tub began slowly to fill.

Hans stood and watched.

Henry turned over his shoulder. He smiled, reached for the bench, and held out an open palm — in it a handful of brown kernels.

"Nuts," he said. "From that hazel over there." He nodded toward the forest's edge.

Hans crossed to him. Came up behind him and put his arms around him, resting his chin on his shoulder — and picked a few kernels from his palm. Chewed slowly.

From the lean-to the water went on trickling quietly.

Hans smiled at him.

"Good, these,“ he said. "But let's go and get us some meat, yes?"

Henry tossed a handful into his mouth and nodded. Chewed for a moment, his face set in the exaggerated gravity of a man attending to serious business.

"Horse or on foot?" he asked, mouth still full.

Hans moved the linen from one shoulder to the other and looked slowly around.

The leaves on the nearby trees trembled in a light wind — some already turning to yellow and russet, as though the forest were quietly, steadily making ready for something that must always come, however much it might wish to keep summer in its arms a little longer. Between the trunks the sunlight reached in long, slanted beams — golden as fingers that stretch out and fall just short.

Hans tilted his head.

Smiled quietly.

"I'd walk." Mutt nosed his way along a large fallen branch, working through the dry leaves with single-minded focus. He raised his head, caught something on the air, and moved on. Hans followed in his wake with a light, easy stride — and behind Hans, Henry at a steady pace.

Scent lay over everything.

The damp of last night's rain held in the earth, moss drinking in its drops, the heavy sweetness of fallen leaves. And beneath all of it — deeper, like a note sounding from somewhere beneath the music — mushrooms. That unmistakable, heavy, faintly earthy smell that comes to the forest only for its season and then slips away without farewell.

A light wind moved through the branches.

Soft golden light fell between the leaves and drew its capricious patterns across the needles and dry ground — across the smooth trunks of beeches and the wrinkled bark of pines. The oaks were only just beginning, and grudgingly at that, to admit the first yellow to their leaves. The beeches and hazels made no such hesitation — their colours ran openly from yellow-green to deep gold, without restraint. Between the trunks, long threads of spiderweb drifted, translucent, nearly invisible — caught in the light like spun remnants of summer not yet willing to release their hold.

Above the narrow path, rowan branches bent under the weight of their berries — so richly red, so perfectly round, they looked more like something placed there than something grown. Like beads of wax the moment before they fall.

A black squirrel crossed a hazel branch without a sound.

It stopped — tail still swinging in its arc — and considered the group passing below with one small dark eye. Sizing them up. Then it turned and was gone behind the trunk, having apparently decided they were nothing worth its while.

Henry kept his eyes on the spot a moment after it disappeared.

Then looked back at Hans.

He moved ahead of him — a few paces in front — with lightness that looked like no effort at all, as though each step were only one more away from taking flight. Shoulders easy. Face lifted toward the light in the canopy. In every movement joy — quiet, unassuming.

Henry didn't notice he was smiling.

This Hans. That beautifully free man around whom every place seemed to arrange itself. That step, those gestures, that way of taking in everything around him — the world coming to him through every sense at once, all of them open. 

That Hans, whom Henry had loved long before he could bring himself to admit it. Before he had even known it was there.

Hans turned.

With a wide smile — still moving, without breaking stride — he turned and walked backwards, as though the forest at his back were ground he could trust without looking. He spread his arms wide. Looked around — at the canopy, at the light, at the coloured leaves — and then back at Henry.

"Is this not the most beautiful forest, my dear Henry?" he called, still walking backwards.

"It would never do to come home empty-handed!" he went on.

He stopped at last. Standing there with flushed cheeks, a strand of hair fallen across one eyebrow, eyes bright — and looking at Henry like a man who cannot want more from the world than this.

Henry crossed to him. Laid his palms on his hips and kissed him.

"Where hunting is concerned," he said then, a corner of his mouth lifted, "I defer entirely to your judgment."

Hans laced his fingers with his and raised one eyebrow.

"Which is, of course, the correct position," he said, and laughed quietly.

Mutt ambled over to join them, tail going steadily side to side, and looked up at them both with his tongue lolling from the side of his open mouth.

Hans laughed. He kissed Henry briefly on the lips once more — and then they both walked on between the trees, side by side, the tips of their fingers loosely laced.

Around them the forest breathed in a light wind.

The dog stopped.

Not a step forward, not a step back — he simply stopped, as though movement had ceased to apply where he stood. Ears up, muzzle forward, nostrils in their focused, constant work. His whole body a single listening muscle.

Hans closed his fingers around Henry's.

Henry stopped and looked at him. Hans nodded toward Mutt — with his eyes only, without a word.

He lifted the bow from his shoulder in silence.

His movements were slow and exact — not the movements of thought, but of hands that know before the mind has been asked. He drew an arrow from the quiver, dropped into a crouch, and began moving forward, where daylight broke between the trunks.Henry fell into step behind him. The forest heard nothing of either of them. The dry leaves under their soles gave nothing away.

They reached the clearing's edge.

Hans stopped and eased his head forward, as slowly as he could.

A stag stood at the far end of the clearing, deep in grass the colour of old gold, the whole of it shifting slow in the wind.

Not one among many. A stag as though the word itself had taken form — massive, dark-coated, a thick mane heavy at his throat. His legs caked with mud, as though he had come from the earth's own depths, its darkest and most secret places. He made every bull Henry had ever seen look small. He carried his head with the settled gravity of a creature that has never once doubted its place in the world. A muzzle sharp-cut as carved wood. Eyes missing nothing. Ears already working.

And above them — the antlers.

A great spread of them, wide and full of points, their pale tips catching the autumn light like dressed timber. Hans turned over his shoulder — eyes wide, in them the quiet astonishment of a hunter who sees such an animal once in years.

"Sixteen points," he breathed. Barely sound at all.

He nocked the arrow carefully. Raised the bow.

He looked across the shaft at the stag.

The animal lifted its head slightly. Its nostrils worked — slow, precise, reading the air. It turned its head, one ear swinging forward. But it didn't move. It stood, and the sky behind it was blue and uncommitted."

Then the stag took a slow step. Another. And stopped.

Hans breathed, shallow and even.

He had the stag's neck and chest squarely in his sight. A clean shot.

He drew the string. Held his breath.

His fingers didn't tremble.

Eye. Arrow. Stag.

Such silence settled in Hans's mind that he could hear his own blood beating at his temples.

Henry watched without moving. Without a word.

But the string did not sing. The air remained whole.

Hans lowered the bow.

Slowly. The way something is laid to rest rather than set aside.

He turned over his shoulder to Henry.

His eyes held something quiet — not regret, not explanation.

He shook his head.

Then turned back to the clearing and whistled — sharp, carrying.

Up went the stag's head — one held moment — and then it moved. Not in fear. Not in flight. It departed. Across the grass, toward the trees, into the shadow of the forest, its movement fluid and easy, the antlers riding above the grass like the crown of a king who walks at his own pace.

Gone.

Hans watched the place it had been.

Then he rose and looked at Henry — with a small smile, almost an apology in it.

Henry laid his palm quietly on his arm.

Hans smiled more.

"We'll catch some hares," he said.

Henry leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

"I make the best hare stew in all of Bohemia," he said.

Hans looked up at him.

Smiled. Gave a small nod.

"Indeed." Henry's fingers worked through the thorny branches — careful, deliberate.

The bush was dense with rosehips — ruby-dark and gleaming, pulling each small branch earthward under their weight. A thorn caught him beneath a nail and he drew a sharp breath, wiped his hand on his hose, and went on. The bright fruit was worth it.

Before long he had more than his hands could hold.

He picked his way down the slope, careful with what he carried.

Hans lay back in the grass as though he owned it — ankles crossed, hands tucked behind his head, nothing above him but sky. Nearby, three hares lay where they had been set down. Beside them Mutt rested with his head between his paws, though his ears hadn't stopped listening.

Hans felt the shadow cross his face and opened his eyes.

Henry stood over him — a half-smile at his mouth, both palms brimming red, the whole blue sky behind his shoulders.

"I'll add them to the hares," he said, pleased with himself.

He tipped the rosehips into the game bag and rubbed his palms clean on his thighs. Hans looked at him and raised a hand, saying nothing. Henry lay down in the grass, his head finding Hans's chest. Hans's arm came around him, and his palm began to move slowly across Henry's belly.

Above them the sky held deep blue, and across it small, puffed clouds drifted alone, as though they had nowhere particular to be. A breath of wind moved through the tall golden grass around them.

Hans bent his head and rested his lips in Henry's hair — not quite a kiss, and more than one.

And at that moment a loud, raw growl rose from somewhere between them.

They both went still.

"It wasn't me," Henry said, with perfect gravity.

Hans burst out laughing. "That was, for once, entirely me."

They laughed — quietly, into the sky, into the grass. The laughter thinned. And then there was only the grass whispering and the forest far off.

Hans drew a long breath.

"In a few years," he said, "we'll bring little Heinrich here."

Henry's head moved slightly against his chest.

"He'll be beside himself,“ he said. He smiled. Then laid his hand over Hans's where it rested on his belly. "I find I miss the little scamp," he added.

Hans kissed him in the hair.

"And I," he said quietly. A slow breath out.

He looked up into the blue depth above. Clouds were still drifting eastward, taking their time.

"Would you believe it, Jindro,“ he said after a while — almost to himself, almost to the sky — "that I'm a father."

Henry lay still for a moment. Then lifted a shoulder, gently.

"I would say," he said, "that little Hynek could not have had a better one."

Hans's palm moved slowly across his forearm — as though the searching had moved from words into his hands.

"Nor a better godfather," he said quietly.

He looked at Henry. Henry turned to him. They held each other's gaze for a moment — in warm light, close — and then Hans leaned in and kissed him. Light, but long.

Henry looked back at the sky.

Hans's palm went on, back and forth across his forearm.

After a while Hans breathed in.

"Love?" he said quietly.

Henry turned to him.

Hans looked at him — then at the sky — then at him again. Something sat on his face that was searching for words and not finding them easily.

"Does it not trouble you —" he began. Stopped. "Wouldn't you sometimes want —"

He looked aside. Breathed out. Gave a small shake of his head — as though what he was trying to say was too large for any sentence, and too important to leave without one.

"Does it not trouble you," he said at last, quietly, "that there is no little one... your own?“

Henry tilted his head.

He looked at Hans's face for a while — open, a little uncertain, a little worried, and not hiding any of it.

Then he turned his eyes to the sky.

He shook his head, gently.

"I have these hands," he said. Simply. Quietly. "I have my lord and my love."

A pause.

"And I need nothing more."

Hans smiled, quietly.

"I am your lord no longer."

Henry turned. Found his eyes.

"Jendo," he said, "I think that in some way —" A small smile. "— you will never not be."

He reached out. Took him by the back of the neck. And kissed him, and let it last. Scent gathered under the ceiling.

It layered, settled into the beams and corners — meat turning slow in the pot, the sweet-sour drift of rosehips, the faintly camphor warmth of wild thyme. And beneath all of it, the ground on which the others built, the quiet earthy presence of mushrooms.

Henry bent over the pot and stirred slowly. The thick stew went on its lazy way — bubbling, sighing, popping, sealing itself back shut. He half-closed his eyes and breathed in, all the way down, and smiled.

He looked at his feet.

Mutt had settled himself flat on the floor, chin resting on his front paws. Not one of Henry's movements went untracked, and his nose — his nose was practically a separate creature.

Henry laughed.

"Did you not just finish off a great pile of fresh innards, you greedy wretch?"

Mutt raised his head and wagged his tail.

Henry crouched down and scratched him behind the ears.

"I have a weakness for food myself," he said quietly, in the tone of a man sharing a confidence. He winked at the dog.

Mutt wagged again.

Henry straightened. He pressed his palms to the small of his back and stretched — the bones of his back cracking softly, one by one — and stood there for a moment in the warmth, in the smell of supper, in the low amber light of the fire.

From outside came the sound of strings being plucked.

Tentative, exploratory — the fingers still introducing themselves, still learning the geography of it. Then silence. Then again — steadier, more deliberate, a long open chord finding its shape.

And then Hans's voice, full and carrying:

"When it seems you're out of luck…"

Henry went still.

"there's just one man who gives a fuck…"

He rolled his eyes. The smile came anyway. He shook his head.

"And a friend who'll never leave you stuck…"

Hans sat on the bench outside, bent over the lute's neck with the focused quiet of a craftsman at work — fingers on the strings, elbow resting on his knee, brow faintly creased with that particular line that only appeared when he was concentrating.

He drew breath.

"Now, who can that friend be?"

"Hans, dear."

Hans looked up.

Henry stood in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. His expression was so thoroughly stern that sternness itself would have been a little ashamed of it — and yet the corner of his mouth refused to cooperate.

Hans looked at him. Bright as a marigold.

"If you wish to see your supper this evening," Henry said, "you will not continue with this song."

He made a considerable show of frowning.

"Never."

Hans burst out laughing.

When he had recovered somewhat, he arranged his face into an expression of elaborate gravity. Pouted and looked at Henry from beneath his brows.

"But my lord of Rotstein," he said.

Henry let out a loud sigh, rolled his eyes, stepped out of the doorway and settled himself on the bench beside Hans. Put his arm around his back.

His eyes found the great linden standing in the middle of the yard. Its heart-shaped leaves trembled softly in the light wind, already here and there beginning to turn.

The sun had gone behind the forest wall. Only a pale brightness in the west still kept the evening from the dark.

From the lean-to by the smithy came the muffled sound of water.

Hans leaned in. Set a small kiss against his cheek.

"That lute," he said quietly. "Back in Zasmuky." He smiled — that smile, just for that moment, just for Henry. "Such a beautiful thing to give a man, Jindro.“

Henry looked at him — at the shine in his eyes.

And found he could not stop smiling.

He thought for a moment. Ran one finger slowly along a string — carefully, barely a sound.

"Shall we go back?" he asked.

Hans tilted his head. "To Zasmuky?"

He shrugged.

"We need provisions in any case," he said. He glanced toward the door of the house. "We have nothing left but hares and wine." He smiled.

Henry clapped a hand to his forehead.

"The hare!"

He was on his feet.

"Supper is ready," he said. Henry rubbed his tired eyes and blinked.

He eased back on the bench and looked at Hans.

Hans was on the last of it. The spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl, finding what remained of the sauce — thick, darkly red from the rosehips — and Hans brought it to his lips without ceremony. His eyes closed. He held the stillness.

The spoon went down into the empty bowl.

He looked at Henry, who was watching him with a mild, questioning look.

Hans breathed in, long and slow.

"How did you put it?" he said. "The best hare in all of Bohemia?"

Henry gave a soft snort. Smiled. Dropped his eyes — then brought them back up to Hans.

Hans shook his head, his expression entirely grave.

"I would not go so far as to say the whole kingdom, Henry," he said. He looked into his eyes. The corners of his mouth began their slow work. His arm swept a wide arc through the air. "At the very least the whole Holy Empire."

He settled his palm on Henry's thigh.

Henry laughed — his shoulders moving with it — and put his hand over Hans's.

"What a tongue you have on you," he said, smiling. He leaned toward him a little.

Hans drew himself up and was, for a moment, enormously serious.

"I mean it in deadly earnest," he said. "I have never eaten a hare so tasty."

Henry looked at him. Then put his arm around his shoulders — and Hans came without resistance, letting himself be drawn in, his back settling against Henry's chest. Easy. Natural. As though he had been waiting for exactly this. Henry held him loosely, fingers laced together on his belly.

Hans purred.

Henry bent his head and kissed him in the hair.

Hans closed his eyes.

"I love you, Henry of Skalitz, lord of Rotstein," he said quietly.

A silence.

"So terribly much," he added — more quietly still.

In the hearth a loud crack rang out as the flames tore through a thick pine log — sharp and clean, as though the fire wished to say: I heard — and then only the soft hiss and the low crackling.

Henry laid his cheek against Hans's crown.

He drew him a little closer.

"Every morning," Hans whispered, "when I open my eyes..."

Henry breathed in the scent of his hair, quietly.

"Every night," he said softly, "when I close my eyes..."

Hans tilted his face up toward him.

In his eyes the firelight trembled — alive and restless, shot through with gold.

Henry found his mouth and kissed him gently.

Hans smiled.

He was quiet for a moment. Then something came over his face — into the corners of his mouth, into his eyes — slow and mischievous.

"We still have that wine," he said.

And winked. The dark treeline at the meadow's edge spoke low — the private language of leaves and wind in the night.

In the dark sky, stars looked through gaps in the clouds — cold, blinking, as though for a moment they drew back a curtain and let it fall. Then the clouds came back and took them.

The door opened with a dull thud.

A band of warm light spilled into the yard. Henry came out — his step uncertain but undeterred — and behind him Hans, and at Hans's heels Mutt, who immediately put his nose to the night and grew solemn.

"It may be full," Hans said, "but it will be cold as a spring."

Henry turned to him, lifted a shoulder — with the expression of a man who has drunk himself past the point where reason has any purchase — and set off toward the smithy.

Hans laughed.

"You've lost your mind, Henry!" he called, and followed.

Henry pulled back the lean-to's cover.

Ripples crossed the surface of the bathing tub — water right at the brim, one wave more and it would go over. Henry glanced back at Hans. Something played at the corner of his mouth that might have been confidence or might have been wine — hard to say which of the two was currently in charge.

He pulled his tunic over his head.

"Henry," Hans shook his head, "I'm telling you —"

Henry shook his hose off his feet. Winked at Hans. Set his palm to the rim of the tub and stepped in.

A moment of silence.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

The words came out of him like the crack of a whip — and at the same time Henry was scrambling over the edge, stumbling clear, his legs wet to mid-thigh, groping around for his tunic.

Hans held on for just a moment.

Then it took him.

The laughter rose from below — from the belly, from the ribs — and Hans doubled over at the waist, palms on his knees, his whole body moving in waves that didn't arrive together but one behind the other, each stronger than the last. He tried to stop it. Couldn't.

Henry, in the midst of wrestling his hose, watched him.

"Fuck," he hissed once more.

Hans didn't stop. He sank to the ground, sat in the grass, then let himself fall back — threw his arms wide and laughed into the dark sky. Laughter that had long since outgrown its cause and was now only itself — clean, boundless, past all governing.

Mutt leaped around Hans in a frenzy, then over him, then around again, tail in ceaseless motion.

Henry watched.

Hans in the grass. Mutt. Hans.

And then it took him too.

He laughed — quietly at first, then from somewhere deeper — and stood there in the night with his tunic slightly askew and laughter that had nowhere to go, so it stayed.

Hans quietened slowly — wave by wave, each a little less — and finally lay still in the grass, breathing it out, content. Henry held out a hand. Hans took it and Henry pulled him upright.

Hans wiped the corners of his eyes with his fingers. Stood and recovered his breath.

Henry wore a sheepish look.

"I'll heat the water tomorrow," he said. And gave a quiet burst of laughter.

Hans, still twitching at the corners of his mouth, nodded.

He ran his palm across Henry's back.

"Come to the fire, you madman," he said.

They set off slowly toward the house.

Hans stopped.

"I just need to step aside," he murmured.

Henry stopped. Turned, put his arm around him and drew him close. Tight.

His hot breath found the back of Hans's neck.

"Should I not come along?" he murmured close at his ear. "To keep a proper eye on that beautiful noble arse of yours?"

His lips settled soft against Hans's skin.

"Or," he added, "your noble vanguard.“

Hans considered this briefly, then gave him a resigned pat on the back.

"Well," he said, dry as dust, "just at this particular moment, my dear Henry, stepping aside would be somewhat more difficult than I had intended."

He breathed out.

"You stag."

Henry laughed quietly.

"Forgive me, love," he said.

And kissed him lightly on the cheek. The bedchamber held the quiet voice of the hearth.

Not crackling — only hissing, only that low night monologue of a fire with things still to say, and a voice growing quieter, growing slower. The firelight rocked on the ceiling in a slow rhythm.

Then — from the forest — a tawny owl.

One deep, hollow call. Like a note from the bottom of a jug. Then silence — and again only the hearth, that tireless, quiet-voiced talker.

Henry nestled closer into Hans's arms.

Hans drew him in a little more. Just so. Without a word.

Henry breathed out.

From the forest the owl called again — and after a brief silence an answer came from another direction. Two throats, two notes in the night, each from its own dark branch. Then they too fell quiet.

Hans pressed his lips into Henry's hair.

He closed his eyes.

Tiredness was coming for him — the warm kind, without edge or weight — wine and the warmth of Henry's body, which gave off its heat calm and steady as a stone after a long summer day.

"Every night," he murmured, "when I close my eyes..."

In his arms Henry stirred, barely.

His lips found Hans's skin, lightly.

"Every morning," he whispered into his chest, "when I open my eyes..."

He breathed out slowly.