Work Text:
“Are you missing a tooth?!”
In the blink of an eye, Hans withdraws from where he’d been ever-so-greedily staking his claim to every inch of his squire’s mouth.
In the dim of their shared room, Henry blinks up at him, clearly thrown off by the abrupt pause in their delightful malfeasance, before turning his gaze upwards as he roots around his own mouth with his tongue – taking stock, as if he himself had forgotten what’s in it.
After a breath, he confirms, “Aye, this one fellah in Uzhitz knocked it out a while back. A fisherman, I think.” Hooking a finger into a corner of his mouth, he pulls back his left cheek and turns his head, revealing the undeniable gap in the bottom row of molars.
“Got caught mid-tumble with his wife, did you, Handsome Henry?” Hans teases in low tones, running his hands up the other man’s shoulders to the back of his head and observing him languidly from where he’s perched in his lap.
“Nah, nothing like that. Just a few bored lads throwing punches for groschen.” Henry smiles, petting up and down Hans’s sides absentmindedly. Raucous laughter drifts inside through the slats in the window, alongside the first chilly winds announcing September’s imminent arrival.
“A few more fights with lads like that I’d be left with a toothless squire I’d have to spoonfeed porridge to for the rest of my life.” Hans shakes his head solemnly - the picture of a disapproving matron. “Quite a shame it would be, that. I’ve always thought you had rather nice teeth, for a yokel.” The backhanded comment immediately earns him a pinch to the nipple and Hans hisses, swatting the offending hand away.
“Oh, I’ve been in many a fight since then,” gloats the oaf, a smug grin pulling up one side of his stupid, handsome face. “Believe me, I’ve knocked out way more teeth than I’ve lost.”
“Christ, if you find your wages lacking, you can just say so. No need to go around thrashing poor peasants for a pint at the tavern.”
Henry shrugs. “It’s good fun. Good practice, too. You should try it sometime.”
Hans guffaws – a high, pompous thing. “Certainly, my dear Henry. The future lord of Rattay has much to learn from fisticuffs with local farmers indeed. Let us away to the nearest sheepfold at once!” He raises an arm, index finger pointed up for emphasis, all bravado.
His ever-forbearing friend rolls his eyes with a huff at his haughty tirade. Then, his expression morphs as if he’d just thought of something and he throws Hans a sly, cheeky little side glance. “I dunno. As someone who’s taken a punch from you before I think there’s definite room for improvement,” he lilts.
Hans’s mouth drops open in utter disbelief. God save him, this boy knew how to get under his skin. “Do you now…!” In a rush, he surges forward, pushing against Henry’s shoulders, forcing the man onto his back and holding him there. The bedframe lets out a long-suffering groan.
His advantageous position is short-lived however, as Henry grapples him with all the prowess of a man used to fighting for survival. Hans by no means makes himself an easy target – thrashing and pushing, then pinching and poking and biting when it becomes clear that he won’t get anywhere without resorting to dirty tactics – but Henry still pins him down with an arm behind his back in record time. Hans should be embarrassed, but the solid line of muscle pressing down on him and the ragged chuckle hitting his ear fill the young lord with other, more salacious feelings that leave no room for shame.
“Perhaps you’re right, squire. I could stand to learn a thing or two,” he huffs out as he tries to catch his breath. Voice dipping honey-low as he presses up against Henry in a way that makes the other man grunt softly, he adds, “Teach me?”
–
“You have got to be kidding me.”
To Hans’s absolute horror, before him stands what is sure to be just about the most squalid pigpen in all of Bohemia, and in front of it a beaming yokel he now acutely regrets ever indulging. Or perhaps even meeting.
“What? Is it not up to snuff for his lordship?” the yokel coos, crossing his arms smugly as he leans against the enclosure. Entirely in his element, surrounded by muck, Hans fulminates pettily as he eyes the rickety fencing, wishing for it to give under his squire’s weight.
A dung fly lands on his face and he swings his hands wildly to chase the nasty thing as far away as possible, “In what world would this have ever been up to snuff?! What was so wrong with where we usually spar at the Den?!” Hans prays to God some insect or other won’t fly into his mouth as he hollers indignantly.
“I thought you'd want an authentic experience. And young Bruthans was kind enough to lend us the pen.” Henry shrugs. “It won’t be that much different from regular sword practice, you’ll see.”
“I don’t exactly remember there being a fucking sow involved in any of old Bernard’s drills.” Hans eyes the beast within the enclosure with disdain as it wallows in detritus, heedless of the fact that it was in the presence of a noble.
“Her name's Chucha.” Henry's lips form a curve crafted specially to aggravate his lord. The man seemed to be heedless of the fact that he was in the presence of a noble as well. “Now let’s get to it before the young lord grouses himself into an early grave.” In one fluid motion, the blacksmith slips his tunic over his head and tosses it onto the fence before hopping it. Ugh.
Hans follows suit, movements steeped in reluctance. “If you wanted to show off those perky little tits of yours, you could have easily done so without the elaborate ruse, blacksmith.”
“Perky little tits?!” An incredulous wheeze bursts out of Henry, his brows furrowing over smiling eyes that flash in sudden challenge. He shifts his stance. Hans tilts his chin up with a smirk – he knows how to get under that boy’s skin just as well as the boy knows how to get under his.
Mirroring Henry's position and curling his hands tight, he pulls his arms up towards his center – the smirk never leaving his face. They begin to circle slowly, triggering a sense-memory at the sight somewhere in the back of Hans’s mind.
Before the focused silence that has been steadily growing between them fully takes root, the nobleman posits his last request, “Do try not to hit my face, seeing as you’re the one to most often profit from its splendour.”
“That, and for fear you’ll chew me out something fierce if I do.” Steely blue eyes observe him for tells like a soldier does his enemy, but the fond smile beneath them tells an entirely different story
“Fear? In Henry of Skalitz? I never thought I’d see the day.” With that, Hans makes the first move, boldly stepping closer to attempt a clinch. As expected, Henry dodges with a practiced deftness.
“My one weakness – a nobleman’s nagging.” A right hook, blocked by Hans’s forearm. “It’s enough to chill any man to the bone.” Left hook, duck.
Hans’s lip curls further upwards; God, how he relishes being talked back to like this. But only by Henry. Only his brazen blacksmith’s boy.
They trade a few more easy, almost languid swings between banter before the air begins to crackle, sparks flying as Hans’s focus hones like steel on whetstone. Lunge forward, grapple, release upon dodge. A foot hooked behind a knee, an unsuccessful topple. The space between them grows heavy with huffed breaths growing progressively strained. They circle on, boots sliding in the muck.
The young lord throws a punch to his squire’s left shoulder, exertion causing him to overshoot and making him an easy target for the headlock Henry artfully initiates. Hans’s face gets trapped against the other man’s shoulder – a parody of other, more tender, more damning embraces they’ve shared – as a knee meets his stomach in a strike that Hans knows would have done more damage had it not been pulled, softened. His back hits the wicker fence, suddenly cornered.
“Wanna stop?” breathes the man currently crowding him in, releasing his hold on Hans’s neck. He sees Henry’s eyes trail downwards, the path of his gaze coinciding with the drop of sweat he could feel making its way down to his collarbone.
Hans musters a smirk between gasps for air. “If only for your benefit.” Never one to call it quits first, he twists out and around his squire.
At this point, his hose are thoroughly saturated with grime, splatters reaching as far as his upper thighs, but Hans finds that all he cares for in this moment is claiming another victory to hold over Henry’s head – no matter how improbable. He starts backing up towards the center of the pen, away from any obstacles that could obstruct his movement.
The brief flick of Henry’s eyes to someplace behind him is all the warning he gets before his feet catch on a warm, heavy mass, and the ground comes up to meet him with a gruesome squelch.
For a heartbeat or two, Hans just stares at the expanse of blue above him, in denial of the fermentation-heated wetness that now coated his entire back. The continuous frantic buzz of flies fills his ears in the drawn-out silence, before being joined by a loud wheeze.
Hans lifts his head – keeping the rest of his body immobile to avoid further facing the harsh textural reality he found himself in – to look at the source of the sound.
Henry stands where he stood, hands now moved to brace himself on his knees as uncontrollable laughter curls him inwards. In another bout of mirth, his head snaps backwards, pulling his body to curve in the opposite direction, an arm moving up to clutch at his stomach as if his navel were in danger of untying at the sight of Hans’s definitively unfunny predicament.
“You–! You–!” the insufferable idiot tries to get out between snorts and wheezes, pointing uncouthly at his lord’s disgraced figure. Hans’s searing gaze – which briefly flickers to the sow that waddles past his limp body, unaware or uncaring of having been the cause of his mortification – seemed to not affect him in the slightest.
Henry closes his eyes as yet another wave of howling glee overtakes him, which Hans takes as a sign to move forwards into a crouch. The sucking feeling at his back as he lifts himself makes him shudder in barely contained disgust.
Just as Henry’s face begins to unscrew itself enough to wipe at tears, Hans lunges at his legs with all the ferocity of a thoroughly derided noble.
“Kurva–!” was all the blacksmith gets out before his breath is stolen by the impact. Hans is upon him in an instant, pressing a hand to the man’s cheek to coat it in grime.
“Having a laugh, are you!” he exclaims in affront, scooping up muck to slap it onto Henry’s chest, smearing it as he wiggles and disdainfully sputters underneath Hans, who sits heavily on his midriff. He finds the revulsion taking a backseat in his mind as he focuses wholeheartedly on putting the insolent village boy back in his place.
Where he, of course, doesn’t stay for long. Henry of Skalitz hadn’t made a name for himself by taking things lying down – Hans feels a foot hook behind his knee and instantly finds the warm, greedy embrace of the unparsable slop on his back once more.
They roll around in the muck, fighting for the upper hand in turns. Hans can see exertion-red start to bloom through the gaps in the dirt streaked on Henry’s face as he feels himself grow winded.
After just a few minutes, both of them are covered head-to-toe in God-knows-what, and finding leverage or purchase becomes increasingly demanding. As a wayward thigh misses its mark and brushes lower than it should have, sending a thrum up his spine, it dawns on Hans that it’s not entirely due to the slipperiness.
Curse his young, healthy body and its appetites. By rights Hans's sole focus should be getting back at his squire for pulling him into this entirely preposterous and classless affair. And yet, with each heated tug at his hair or harsh squeeze of his hip, his righteous fury turns meek in the face of an unforeseen lustful challenger.
Christ. He can not be pitching a tent in some pigpen at the back of some farmer’s shack, rolling around in the dirt like a dung-grubber. Even he has his limits.
“Fine! Fine, you win,” he gasps out, crushed under Henry’s weight. The bastard has the audacity to grin triumphantly, like this had been a fair fight in any capacity. With a groan, Hans drops his head onto the ground, deflating. He doesn’t care anymore. He's fairly sure his hair is now the same color as Henry’s, feeling the mud caked on his scalp like a foul-smelling helmet.
With a satisfied sigh, his squire drops his head on his chest. “See? Not so different from regular sword practice.”
“Not a word from you,” Hans grumbles, trying to kick Henry’s shin but only managing an impotent wobble with his foot. With a chuckle, his friend complies, and they take the time to catch their breaths.
A snuffle at his ear startles the young lord, and he whips his head to the side to come face to face with the same accursed beast that caused him to topple in the first place. The sow wiggles her snout, examining him thoroughly.
After a beat, she unceremoniously, but with a great deal of weight, flops down, back pressing in against Hans’s side.
“She must think we’re a part of her little territory now,” his friend notes, a true fount of yokel knowledge.
“How charming. I’m charmed,” Hans says, not feeling charmed in the slightest. Henry’s chuckle reverberates through his chest, more feeling than sound.
With a final amused exhale, his squire pushes himself up and off him, offering Hans a hand after getting back on his feet. The young lord takes it, but not before shooting a final scornful glare his way. “At least my face came out unscathed. The same cannot be said about my pride,” he grumbles. The sow hasn’t so much as looked up at them despite being jostled as they got up.
“And you still have all your teeth! I’d call this outing a success.” Henry beams. How he manages to still look good enough for Hans’s heart to flutter at the sight, while being quite literally caked in shit, is beyond him.
“Yes, yes,” the nobleman huffs dismissively, wishing to move on to more pleasant affairs as soon as possible. He shakes his hands off as best he can and quickly adjusts himself through his hose – the movement not lost on Henry. “To the baths, then?” An order more than a question, thrown over his shoulder as Hans hops the wicker fence separating the land of men from that of swine.
His cocky squire, the champion of yet another unarmed match, chuckles. “Yes, sir.”