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Although some time has passed since they last slept in the same space, Hans still feels an emptiness in his room in Trosky castle. He has cracked the window, and a soft and easy summer night breeze filters in slowly, almost silently. In the taverns on the way, he had only Henry’s breathing to listen to, in a nearby bed close enough that he could stretch his arm and the tips of his fingers could touch the bedpost directly beside Henry’s head, dark hair on a pillow, an unfurrowed brow, mouth slightly open as he breathed. Now, the wind is a poor substitute.
He pulls himself out of bed, planting both his feet on the cool wooden floor. It hardly creaks. The castle is well maintained, almost preserved as though in a jar. Wealth drips from every fixture, the bedframe, the soft down mattress, the softer sheets, the silent floors and the clear glass on the windows. Through the glass, Hans can see torchlight from patrolling guards. Guards who had tried to hang him. He can still feel the scratchy rawness of the rope. This place, although beautiful and powerful, is stifling. He can hardly stand to sleep here.
He gets to his feet, slipping on a shirt. Takes a lantern. Snaps at a few guards who ask him where he's going on his way down to the courtyard. By the time he finds Henry’s room, he can see the beginning of morning as a brightness in the air rather than in the sky, a degree of lightness to everything, a haziness of predawn. He closes the door behind him.
Henry only wakes up when Hans sits on the edge of his bed, much less soft than Hans’s was.
“What?” Henry blinks slowly. “Hans?”
“Move over a little.” Hans places the lantern on the floor. The bed is a little narrow but they both fit laying on their sides, facing each other. Outside the little window of the room, the sun is still down but the air is getting brighter. “I'm actually a little angry with you for leaving me completely alone in another part of the castle. You should be in my room with me.”
“The chamberlain would appreciate that,” Henry mutters, but there’s a smile in his voice when he says it.
Hans smiles too. In the slowly brightening room, he can make out the way Henry’s eyes change when he smiles. He’s had so little cause to recently. “I don’t give a fuck what that decrepit old pervert thinks. He can shove it. Sleep in my room.”
“Alright, sir.” Henry doesn’t move.
“Henry.” Hans touches his shoulder. “Get up. We are going to my room. I need you in there.”
“Alright.” More stillness. After a beat, Henry adds, in a whisper, “I can’t get up.”
Hans props himself up on his elbow. In the hazy predawn light that cuts through the dark and the window set high up in the walls of this repurposed room, he squints down at Henry. He lays on his side, his legs straight to make room for Hans. His body looks unharmed, no bandages, no visible blood. His face is as clear as ever, except for the beard that he hasn’t had a moment to shave since they arrived in the region. Hans catalogues these aspects and lets them sit for a moment on the surface of his mind. A sense of unease fills him. He touches Henry’s shoulder again and lets his hand linger this time, warmth from Henry’s body seeping into his palm like water.
“What do you mean?” Hans asks. “You look fine. I’m tired too, let’s just go to my room and sleep. If anyone disturbs us, I’ll have them whipped.”
“I want to go,” Henry says. His voice is low, his words bitten out, as though he doesn’t want to let them go. “But my back. I, um. I must have overdid it. Running around the castle while you were imprisoned.”
“Overdid it?” Hans sits up and glances behind Henry, laying on his side. He moves his hand down Henry’s arm, onto his waist. “Let me… just roll over onto your stomach, I can take a look.”
“Nothing to look at,” Henry says quickly. “It’s just bad now. Since my fall. It just pains me sometimes. It’ll pass, I only need to stay still for a while.”
“Shut up and flip over.” Hans sits back on the edge of the bed and pulls Henry’s arm until he’s laying on his stomach. A groan escapes Henry, a soft sound that disappears almost as soon as it leaves his mouth. Hans feels his breath hitch at the sound but masks it with a shifting of his body on the bed as he moves closer to Henry, his clothes moving against the rough old linen sheets, loud in the hush quiet of dawn.
Hans lifts Henry’s shirt, exposing his back. The arrow wound, still healing, is the first thing he sees, just above his shoulder blade. There’s a mostly healed cut at his side, the skin like coiled rope, a poor stitch job. His skin is dotted with freckles and unevenly tanned. Hans touches the small of his back, where it dips and rises to disappear under his braies.
“There,” Henry says, sounding strained. “My lower back. See, there’s nothing to do about it. No injury to heal. It’s just bad now.”
“Well, this won’t do.” Hans puts both his hands on his lap, trying not to focus on the warmth from Henry’s back that still lingers on the tips of his fingers. “I simply can’t have a bodyguard so fucked up that he can’t even stand. Tell me what you need.”
“I told you, there’s nothing to do about it—”
Hans puts a hand up. Although he’s out of Henry’s line of sight, Henry still closes his mouth, eating the rest of his sentence.
“Tell me what you need,” Hans says again.
Henry is quiet for a few moments. Outside, someone walks through the courtyard carrying a bucket of water that splashes out onto the dirt floor. Once the person passes, Henry says in a whisper, “Could you press it? With your hand. My back, I mean. My lower back.”
Hans looks back down at the dip in his spine that collects shadows. “Press? Apply pressure, you mean?”
“Yes.” Henry turns his head into the pillow. His voice is muffled when he says, “Not too much pressure. Just there. Please.”
“Oh.” Hans touches the small of his back again. The way it curves inward, the rest of Hans’s hand resting almost against his backside, sends a prickle of nerves to his scalp, just like the moment before he lets an arrow fly at a mark during a hunt. “Yes. I can do that.”
He presses down, just a little, and watches Henry’s body as he does. Henry tenses, a ripple of something passing through his body, something Hans feels through his palm. Slowly, he presses again, and this time a sound accompanies the ripple, still muffled by the pillow, another groan that Hans feels as much as hears. He presses again, adding more pressure, letting his hand move, skimming across warm skin, back and forth, pressing down evenly. Henry’s body starts to relax. The tension slowly lifts, leaving only soft muscle that Hans touches with his other hand, higher on his back, his fingers brushing against old scars and goosebumps. Henry turns his head and sighs, and this sound isn’t muffled, and Hans takes it in, the sound, the warmth, the new looseness of Henry’s body, relaxing slowly, slowly against Hans’s hand. With each push, a wave of soft warmth crashes gently over him, a sense of satisfaction. It pushes him, this feeling. It keeps his hands moving. This desire to be needed. To be useful. Useful to Henry.
Hans’s hands wander. Up and down Henry’s back. At his shoulders, where tension coils in the space between the shoulders and the neck. Down his spine, tracing each vertebrae, pressing down on either side, feeling the muscle loosen under his hand. At his sides, slightly softer than the rest of him. At the dip again, the curve under Hans’s hand, the sound it pulls from Henry as he presses down, releases pressure, presses down again.
The sun has poked out from behind the battlements by the time Hans stops, sitting back and watching Henry breathe. He’s asleep, his breathing deep and even, his body heavy against the bed. Hans lays on his side in the narrow space afforded him. The bed is small, much smaller than the one he was granted in the castle. The linen sheets are nowhere near as soft. The mattress is lumpy and uneven. And although he can’t see it, the shadow of the gallows in the lower courtyard still looms over him, a constant reminder unseen but certainly, and perhaps permanently, felt. A reminder of the help he needed, helplessly bound. He watches Henry sleep, his face smooth, no wrinkled brow, no frown lines around his mouth, needing Hans for once, just this once. Hans touches his shoulder and feels the looseness of it, relaxed. He curls up beside him and matches his breathing, a slow in, a loud out, the bed creaking with both their weight. With each breath, he feels a tension between his shoulder blades slowly, very slowly, uncoil.
His hand drifts again, down his back to the curve there, but he doesn’t press, only lingers, a soft touch.