Chapter Text
The bastard is leaning against the stable fence like he owns the damn thing. That is the first problem. The second is that Henry smiles when he sees him.
It’s not a broad smile or a particularly warm one. It’s just that small crooked thing at the corner of his mouth that clearly indicates that he is familiar with the man in front of them.
Hans immediately hates the sight of it with the force of divine revelation.
The afternoon sun cuts through the yard in long gold stripes. Horses stamp in their stalls. Someone nearby is hammering iron. The whole bailey smells like hay, sweat, and dust, and Hans suddenly has had enough of all of it; all he wants to do is turn around and drag Henry back to his room. They’ll find ways to entertain each other locked away instead of in the yard.
The man he knows as Black Bartosh pushes himself off the fence when they approach. Handsome bastard. Tall. Dark hair tied back. That irritatingly calm confidence men get when they know exactly what effect they have on people.
‘Skalitz,’ Bartosh says, like the name tastes good in his mouth.
Henry snorts. ‘Bartosh.’
Hans says nothing; instead, he narrows his eyes, cocks his hip, and crosses his arms. He hates how defensive he’s feeling all of a sudden. Bartosh’s eyes flick to him once. Sharp and assessing, granting him a small head nod that borders on rude before his gaze tracks back to Henry again with deliberate ease.
‘I heard you were dead.’
‘Disappointed?’ Henry places his hands on his hips before shifting his weight from one leg onto the other.
‘A little.’
Henry laughs, and Hans wants to kill them both. Not truly...probably. But the urge flashes hot and bright anyway. Because now he can see it. God, now that he knows, he can see it. The familiarity. The comfort. The way Bartosh stands too close without hesitation. The way Henry does not step back.
And all that flashes in his mind is one single thought: You fucked him while I was upstairs miserable over you.
The humiliation of it still burns. He had spent that evening drinking himself sodden alone because Henry had ignored him all day. Hans had gone to bed angry and aching and stupidly heartsick over feelings he could barely name at the time.
Meanwhile, Henry had apparently wandered off and climbed into another man’s bed.
Not just any man, Otto von Bergow’s personal bodyguard, the treacherous bastard got himself some bodyguard from Prague and—
Like some kind of personal insult handcrafted by Satan.
‘You look well,’ Bartosh says, and Hans’s attention snaps back to the disaster happening in front of him.
Henry shrugs. ‘Still breathing.’
‘Mm. I preferred you bloody.’
Hans nearly chokes but manages to cover it up with a cough...he hopes. Henry grins; he actually grins, that yokel.
Hans folds his arms so tightly his shoulders ache. Bartosh looks over, his gaze slides back to Hans again, slower this time. Then his eyebrows raise ever so slightly up his forehead.
Hans sees the exact moment it lands. Bartosh looks between them once, taking in Henry standing slightly too close to Hans, Hans glaring like a territorial wolf, Henry carrying Hans’s gloves tucked through his belt without even thinking about it.
Bartosh’s mouth twitches. The son of a whorefucking bitch is enjoying this.
‘Well,’ Bartosh says mildly, ‘that explains a great deal.’
Henry blinks. ‘What does?’
Bartosh ignores the question entirely. ‘You always did have expensive taste.’ He grins, looking back at Henry.
Hans goes rigid while Henry, idiot that he is, only huffs a laugh and leans against the stable post beside him. Beside him, damn it, all comfortably. Like Hans is not standing there being boiled alive in his own skin.
‘Do you mind?’ Hans cuts in sharply. Both men look at him. Bartosh looks delighted, eyes twinkling with discovery while Henry’s brows just knot in confusion.
‘Whot?’
Hans stares at him in disbelief; for a liar and a thief, this man is being uncharacteristically stupid. Like he truly has no social survival instinct.
Bartosh tilts his head. ‘My lord seems displeased.’
‘That lord,’ Hans says coldly, putting the emphasis on his title, ‘thinks you should find another conversation.’
‘Mm.’ Bartosh crosses his arms, licks his lips, and grins. ‘And if I don’t?’
Henry’s eyes flicker between the dark-haired visitor and his Lord. ‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ he mutters, finally catching onto the tension.
Hans rounds on him immediately. ‘Don’t 'oh for Christ’s sake' me. You are standing there smiling at him like—’
‘Like what?’
Hans opens his mouth, closes it, and presses his lips together tightly. He cannot shout like a man who once bent you over a table...while standing here in the middle of the courtyard.
Bartosh rescues him in the worst possible way. ‘To be fair,’ he says lazily, ‘he smiled like that when I had him too.’
Henry coughs violently while Hans goes white with fury; a moment of silence follows.
‘Henry,’ Hans says, very, very calmly.
Henry already sounds tired when he answers, knowing full well Hans usually does not take a tone like this unless he’s upset over who knows what.
‘Hans.’
‘If I stab him, will you be terribly upset?’
Bartosh laughs, a rich sound bellowing over the courtyard. Henry pinches the bridge of his nose.
‘Nobody is stabbing anybody.’
‘He is baiting me.’
‘He is enjoying you,’ Bartosh corrects. ‘You're good company, sir.’
Hans steps forward before he can stop himself. Bartosh straightens immediately, amusement sharpening into readiness.
Henry moves between them automatically, making it worse for himself without even noticing.
Hans stares at him in disbelief. ‘You are defending him?’
‘I’m stopping you from causing a scandal simply because you're...jealous,’ the last word whispered as if cursing.
‘I am not jealous.’ Hans bites back instantly, crossing his arms.
Bartosh makes a thoughtful noise that should qualify as treason. This man should be in the stocks for at least 72 hours, or preferably in some hole in the ground. He read about that somewhere some time ago. In France, they call it an oubliette. A forget? He doesn’t remember exactly, but he wants to put this handsome fucking guard in there and pave the entrance over with brick.
Henry actually smiles again, and Hans could just drop dead himself from pure rage by now.
‘You,’ Hans hisses, pointing at Bartosh, ‘slept with my bodyguard.’
Bartosh raises an eyebrow. ‘Well...yes, I had a delightful time.’
Henry mutters, ‘I don’t want to be in this conversation.’
‘And you,’ Hans continues, now turning on Henry, ‘slept with him while I was upstairs suffering.’
Henry stares before he can’t help but smile in with a stupidly fond smile. ‘You dramatic little shit,’ he says quietly.
Hans flushes scarlet from his hairline to his chest. He can feel it slam into him: the heat, the fury, and the shame all at the same time.
Bartosh watches this unfold with the air of a man attending an extremely entertaining tournament. Henry steps closer before Hans can retreat from the embarrassment of what he just admitted.
‘You didn’t even like me then.’
‘I did,’ Hans snaps. ‘I just didn’t know it yet.’ His voice trails off with the admission.
Henry stills, and for one tiny moment the entire yard seems to disappear around them. The moment is only broken when Bartosh sighs heavily. ‘God save me, you’re both doomed.’
Henry laughs under his breath; the sound still irks Hans, deepening his humiliation. He wants Bartosh launched directly into the nearest river yesterday. But the bastard probably knows how to swim with all that fancy Prague knowledge.
However, Henry is looking at him now with that molten dark softness that always ruins his ability to stay angry for long.
‘Come on,’ the former blacksmith murmurs. ‘Before you challenge him to a duel over a tumble from almost two years ago.’
Hans lifts his chin. ‘I could win.’
Bartosh grins. ‘You absolutely could not.’
Henry grabs Hans by the elbow before spontaneous murder occurs. As he pulls him away, Hans hears Bartosh call after them:
‘For what it’s worth, my lord, he only talked about you afterward.’
Henry freezes, and Hans stops dead. Slowly, very slowly, he turns his head toward Henry.
Henry looks like he wants the earth to open and swallow him whole.
‘Don’t.’
‘You talked about me?’ he asks, scandalized and delighted all at once.
Henry groans. ‘Hans.’
Bartosh is openly laughing now. And Hans, suddenly incandescent with vindicated possessive joy, loops an arm around Henry’s shoulders and beams at Bartosh with unbearable smugness.
‘Good,’ he says brightly. ‘You lose.’