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“…I wtedy ona powiedziała mi, żebym jej palec w rzyć wsadził!” Adder’s triumphant voice carries through the Den, vowels slurred to the point where he sounds even less intelligible than usual. Given the amount of ale already consumed by most of the men gathered around the table though, that hardly stands in the way of the conversation.
( …and then she told me to stick a finger up her arse!)
“Well… did you?” It must be Dry Devil speaking this time, Hans thinks, based on the amount of annoyance permeating the question.
“No pewnie, że tak!” The Pole grins, ale sloshing over the edge of his mug as he gestures widely in a crude —though rather evocative— reenactment. “Żebyście widzieli, jak ona wtedy podskoczyła…”
( ’Course I did! If only you could see how she jumped up then…)
“B-but that’s where shit comes from,” Hans notes somewhat belatedly, frowning into his own, scandalously empty, mug. Surely, that ought to be reason enough to ensure no sane man would ever attempt such an act, even if the most beautiful wench eagerly demanded so.
“Not all the time though, does it?” Kubyenka snaps somewhere from a corner.
After that, the entire Pack erupts into a discussion Hans finds too incomprehensible to follow, so he leans back against the wall and half-heartedly tries to catch an alemaid’s attention to demand another drink. He fails rather miserably, but doesn’t have it in himself to try again, not when the world has already grown so pleasantly hazy around the edges and the others’ voices mix together into what can only be described as utter chaos, so he lets his eyes drift half-closed, careless.
“It can feel quite nice.”
It takes Hans a moment to realise it’s his page speaking, loud in the kind of way alcohol always enables him to be, a lopsided grin brightening up his usually-solemn features. He’s pissed, Hans realises. Well and truly pissed.
“What, sticking fingers up women’s arses?” He asks anyway, words tumbling off his tongue before he can think any better.
“Not exactly.” The grin on Henry’s face turns into something even brighter, an odd spark flickering in his eyes before he seems to catch himself, back straightening and gaze just a little more sober as he drags his fingers through a drop of spilt ale on the wooden table. “…aye, let’s say that.”
Around them, the conversation carries on, quickly meandering into an entirely different territory —something about Godwin’s snoring and then a game of Farkle that Henry eagerly joins— but the remark sticks in Hans’s mind stubbornly, echoing over and over again until he decides to call it a night.
***
“ Not exactly ,” Hans repeats once he’s clambered up the stairs and conquered the narrow passageway leading back to his room — or rather, after Henry has done those things, while Hans allowed himself to be comfortably dragged along, arm slung over his page’s shoulders. “Not. Exactly. What did you mean by that?”
“What?” Henry, paused halfway through taking his right shoe off, blinks up at him with those infuriatingly big eyes of his, expression oblivious. As if he was too drunk to recall his own words. The bastard.
“You said it can feel rather nice.” Having to clarify anything about this, especially after he’d already made the effort of asking at all, leaves Hans feeling rather uneasy in a way he cannot quite explain. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, trying to turn the frown he can already feel forming into a more indifferent expression. “But… not exactly. Not exactly what , Henry?”
To his credit, Henry does actually look like he’s considering how to answer this time, brows drawn together with the kind of intensity usually reserved for questions pertaining to blacksmithing and whatever odd hobbies he tends to pick up out of nowhere. But he is also, to Hans’s utter dismay, taking his sweet time with it. Because of course he is. Thoughts wandering God knows where now that he’s been asked to put some effort into them. It’s nearly enough to make Hans lose the initial interest, his own rickety bed more and more appealing the longer he has to wait.
“What, Henry?” He prompts his page again after what feels like an eternity.
“Well…” At this point, Hans feels half-ready to grab the man by the shoulders and shake an answer out of him. “Men can do it too. To oth— to themselves.”
It’s Hans’s turn to blink at his page without understanding.
“Do what— how??”
“We’ve got arses too, no?” There’s a look of determination in Henry’s eyes now, some kind of stubbornness shining through as he straightens up, shoes kicked away somewhere to the side. He’s definitely still drunk though, if the way he sways in motion is anything to judge by. “An’ in Zhelejov there was this bathwench…”
“What’s a wench got to do with—“
Henry shushes him. Honest to God shushes him and Hans’s jaw clicks shut at the sheer audacity of it.
“She once demanded I tell her what I like, because she’d rather a fellah left satisfied.” Henry’s frown deepens, less thoughtful now and more… there’s something odd in his expression that Hans can’t quite place. Something a little bitter — ashamed? He wants to ask how the company of a wench could ever leave a man unsatisfied, but bites his tongue when his page continues. “I told her that I don’t know what she means, but she just laughed and said some fellahs like that,” Henry mimics Adder’s earlier gesture with impressive accuracy, “because men have this spot up there that makes one feel… uh, different.”
Even in the fickle light of cheap candles, Hans can see the redness now colouring the tips of the other man’s ears, spreading quickly across his cheeks and down his neck.
“—and she’s right. It does feel rather good,” his page concludes, and Hans can’t stop staring at him.
When did this boy from Skalitz, who blushed upon seeing Klara in a slightly-damp chemise, grow comfortable with acts that, Hans is rather sure, would warrant a hefty penitence if ever admitted in front of a priest? When did he have the time to even explore such things? Hans ought to chastise Henry for it, he thinks, or at the very least find a way to act appropriately shocked about it, ignoring the odd sense of curiosity stirring in the pit of his stomach. He ought to be appalled, but then…
Surely, if a man does it to himself, it cannot be much different than yanking one’s own pizzle.
And the blush on Henry’s face looks rather… intriguing. Something hungry begins to grow between Hans’s ribs the longer he stares, ale-muddled thoughts swirling as he tries to imagine it — tries to imagine Henry like that. The change in thought is subtle, sudden. He can no longer call it simple curiosity then, not with the hazy silhouette of his page taking shape in his mind in all the ways it should not; the image of Henry’s powerful back curved under the presumed intensity of it —muscles trembling with effort— making his head spin.
“Show me.” The drunken command slips past his lips quicker than Hans can think, but before he can worry about what possessed him to voice it, Henry —
Henry simply says, “…alright.”
Before the agreement even truly settles in Hans’s mind, he’s greeted by the sight of his page’s hose landing on the floor in a misshapen puddle. Oh. He stares at it dumbly, distantly noting that there is a stitch coming loose somewhere around the left knee, and… White linen of braies flutters down onto the floorboards next, the sight punching the air out of Hans’s lungs. Oh. Oh this is really happening.
“It’s uh— not that complicated.” Somehow, Henry manages to sound almost at ease about it all, though that might have something to do with just how utterly drunk he still seems, nearly losing his balance as he rummages through his bedside chest. “But it’s much easier with — kurva , where is it?— this.”
He holds something up, a small phial that Hans has to squint at to decipher the label of. Oleum. Now it’s Hans who feels heat blooming across his face, made all the worse by the sight of his page clambering up on the bed so gracelessly that it leaves him briefly wondering how the man has ever managed to sneak up on a guard unnoticed. Really, it’s… it does not matter at all, and the line of thought scatters completely when Henry stretches out on his back, one knee bent leisurely and a deep breath making his chest rise as he uncorks the phial and spreads some of its contents over his fingers.
“She said…” His page must be saying something more, Hans is rather certain of that, but none of the words make it to his ears. He can only stare, eyes unblinking, as Henry’s hand travels down his torso and slips under his canted hips, disappearing from view. “…make… easier…”
Then — the entire world starts spinning a little at the sigh Henry lets out while he’s doing… whatever it is that he’s doing exactly, and Hans takes a step closer before he can think any better of it, shins bumping against the bedframe. The long shadows cast across the room obscure quite a bit, but he can still see the tight strain in the other man’s neck, the bent line of his leg and the way it stretches the scar on his upper thigh, the… It belatedly dawns on Hans that he is also staring right at Henry’s cock, nestled in a patch of dark hair that runs upwards over his torso, disappearing under the rucked-up tunic. It’s quite a pretty cock, all things considered, with how it curves slightly to the right and flushes such a deep red at the tip — Hans feels too dazed to really worry about the implications of such a thought.
Still, he makes sure to look away, swallowing thickly as he clasps his hands behind his back. Indifferent , Hans reminds himself. He needs to stay indifferent.
“That takes an awfully long time,” he comments, with a slight scoff that, he knows immediately, creates a very poor impression of disinterest. Thankfully, his page seems too distracted to care.
“Aye,” Henry huffs out, the muscles of his arms flexing in such a way that Hans almost forgets about his resolve to not stare, “but ’s worth it—”
“Really? I doubt it very much.” It’s an argument purely for the sake of arguing, really, since it didn’t escape his attention just how hard his page looks already, despite the fact that he has not touched himself yet. Not like that, at least. Not that Hans has been paying attention to it. “You would have been done already if you had a pretty wench’s mouth on you.”
Instead of answering, Henry twists on the mattress, tongue stuck between his teeth as he grunts in effort, hips pushing down against his fingers, and it’s so utterly ridiculous that it must be the least attractive sight Hans has ever seen — though his cock, fighting already against the constraints of his braies, apparently seems to disagree. Oh . He inhales shakily at the realisation, a bit of shame managing to cut through the ale swimming in his head. But a quick glance at Henry reveals that he hasn’t noticed anything. He hasn’t, or at least has the grace to not comment on it.
Either way, it emboldens Hans enough to sit at the edge of the bed, breath held as he leans over a little — nearly falls off entirely at the suddenly much-clearer sight of his page’s spread thighs, fingers rhythmically pushing into his hole, slick with oil, trembling — Sakra , the way Henry’s legs are trembling— and his cock heavy where it lays against his stomach, smearing drops of white across the hair there with every movement. The smell of sweat, oil, musk and something undeniably Henry hits Hans right over the head and he leans forward without a thought, hand brushing against the other man’s calf.
The contact makes them both freeze. Blink at each other. Henry’s lips part as if he wishes to speak, but Hans is quicker, bolder — he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, a question forming without much input from his mind.
“Can I try?”
“…yes,” it’s barely more than an exhale, but it comes so quickly it almost seems as if Henry has been waiting for this, breaths heavy as he shifts on the bed, angling his hips even more.
Oh. Hans doesn’t think —doesn’t dare to think— too much about it and presses one finger in alongside Henry’s, cock throbbing at the way his page’s body sucks it right in. Greedy. Beautiful. Carefully, he slides his finger out and then pushes it in again, up to the knuckle — that draws a new sound out of Henry, higher-pitched and keening. Unlike anything he’s ever heard before. And he wants more, Hans realises, so he tries again, one finger replaced by two. Three. He barely notices when Henry’s hand falls away entirely, leaving him to do as he pleases while his page grasps his own cock, and he presses his chin against Henry’s knee, distantly noting that it’s really not all that different from satisfying a woman. Except more intense, somehow, and then—
Then his fingers brush against something and Henry’s back arches, cock leaking in his palm and breaths coming in quick, uneven. Deep blush spreading down his chest. Gaze hazy as it locks with Hans’s, who once more finds himself entirely unable to look away — so he simply strokes that same spot again, not daring to even blink.
“Ah— ha, Hans…” He’s never heard Henry’s voice like this, strung tight and breathless. “Right there, please—”
It makes Hans feel drunker than the ale did, so he complies without a thought, pressing his fingers in deeper, less careful, rhythm quicker to match Henry’s strokes. It feels like a blink and as if the time had stopped flowing altogether before Henry’s entire body seizes, clenched so tight Hans thinks he might just get his fingers broken like this, and then Henry spills across his own stomach with a whine that sounds nearly painful. Breathless. Intense — Hans never imagined sex could be this intense.
Before he can think any better of it —before shame can settle in— Hans stuffs his free hand down his own braies, grasps himself roughly. Even that is enough to knock the breath out of his lungs, face still pressed against Henry’s knee as he finishes himself off with embarrassingly few quick strokes, rather thankful for the way his page’s thigh muffles his groans.
There’s a moment, so fleeting it almost doesn’t register, where Hans wants to stay right where he is. Wait for his heartbeat to slow down, soak in the comforting warmth of the other man’s presence. But the reality of what just happened —of what he did— strikes back quickly and he jumps off the bed as if Henry’s touch burns, nearly tripping over the discarded hose in the process. Fuck . Did they really just… fuck!
He turns to look at Henry, excuses already-forming on his lips, except… Henry doesn’t look bothered at all. The opposite. He hasn’t moved, legs still kicked apart and chest working heavily to even out his breaths, and he meets Hans’s gaze easily. Without shame. There’s some kind of steadiness in his expression, even despite the blush still painted across his cheeks, that makes Hans wonder whether his page hadn’t been expecting this.
Fuck.
The possibility makes Hans’s head spin in an entirely new way, tips of his ears burning as he huffs quietly, turning away from his page with a firm decision to pretend nothing has happened at all. He marches over to his own bedside chest to fish out a fresh pair of braies with that resolve in mind.
“You will take my clothes to be laundered tomorrow,” he orders with his back still turned towards Henry.
“Yes, my lord.”
Hans pauses just then, hands on the strings of his hose. Perhaps it’s the ale still, or some kind of a devilish force tempting him towards eternal damnation, but he doesn’t let himself dwell too much on it as he inhales sharply, gathering the courage for the words that follow quickly after.
“…and in the evening, you will teach me how to do this again.”
There’s a brief silence, something like a heavy inhale behind him. A hint of amusement, maybe, in the words that follow.
“Yes, my lord.”