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Hans was never going to kiss Henry.
It was a preposterous notion. They were both men and friends and good Christians. It was not done. It was not something Hans would do.
He had thought about it, though. In detail.
One might think the worst days would have been in Maleshov, locked up in a tower with nothing to do but stew in his own thoughts. Henry was dead for all he knew, so where was the harm in reimagining the past few weeks to involve fewer arguments and more Henry being suddenly struck by the inexplicable urge to kiss Hans? Maybe it was Henry he took up to that barn in Semine during the wedding. Or maybe when Henry found his hunting camp, he threw himself down at Hans’s feet and begged his forgiveness for all those terrible things he said and confessed it was all out of confessed desire. Or in Nebakov, instead of spending the night with that Klara woman, he went and found Hans.
It was even worse after somehow, when he knew Henry was alive, when he knew Henry was foolish enough, brave enough to face down a garrison full of men just to rescue Hans from a comfortable prison. Hans took the prison with him, carried it in his mind, tried to release it in the countryside under the wide-open sky while Henry was God-knows-where doing God-knows-what, but he couldn’t. Those daydreams plagued him no matter what he was doing. He was lucky that Sigismund’s army interrupted their hunt. As it turned out, the only thing worse than missing Henry was being next to him, lying to him with every breath he took.
Which meant the absolute worst days were now, in Suchdol, when the best distraction from one hunger was thinking about another, and Henry was right there beside him the whole time with his blacksmith’s hands and his neck and his eyes that Hans kept trying not to meet.
Henry wasn’t the first boy Hans had thought about kissing. There had been many, starting from when Hans was very young, and he’d never kissed any of them. He wasn’t about to start with some blacksmith’s boy, no matter how broad his shoulders were from the forge nor how deep his voice sometimes got, rumbly, like fingers scratching down Hans’s back. No act of kindness, no humility or forgiveness from him would dupe Hans into believing this was a viable path for him to take.
He was never going to kiss Henry, and he was fine with that.
Hans liked girls. He liked the way they looked, and that they were small. He liked their soft bodies and their warm cunts. And he liked thinking about men when he fucked them.
That didn’t mean he was going to fuck a man.
He’d never fucked so many women since meeting Henry. He’d never lied about fucking so many women, either. He’d never felt the need.
It went in cycles. Henry’s smile, his laugh, a teasing word so igniting Hans that he needed to go release it somehow. It was never going to be Henry, so he’d find any willing girl and fuck that desire right out of himself. He could even tell himself this was close to normal. Men spurred each other on, don’t they?
And then he stopped and only pretended to be out whoring, because wenches never actually gave him what he wanted, and wasn’t he defiling Henry just the same thinking of him like this? Wasn’t he taking something good, something too good for him, and crushing it between his dirty hands? If Henry knew what was in his mind when he was with those girls… Lying about the girls he wasn’t seeing didn’t seem nearly as big a sin in comparison.
It would have been nice if Henry could do one of those things the other boys had done that made Hans lose interest. He could have picked his nose or made disgusting sounds while eating or just said something intolerably stupid.
It would have been nice if Henry were uglier. Hans was shallow. Ugly might have solved it. Then they could have gone on as friends without the guilt and without wondering what Henry’s beard would feel like against his skin and without the fear that one day, Henry would see straight through to his mind.
It also would have been nice if Von Bergow dropped dead, or if cows gave wine instead of milk, or if Hans’s parents were still alive, but Von Bergow hadn’t as far as Hans knew, and at this moment he’d fall down on his knees grateful for milk, and his parents remained dead, where he would probably join them soon from starvation.
It would have been nice if Hans didn’t want to fuck men, but he did, and somehow, with each passing day, Hans founds Henry’s looks more and more pleasing and every annoying noise somehow became endearing. Henry cleared his throat and stared vacantly with his mouth slack and hanging open, and Hans thought nobody had ever been lovelier.
That didn’t mean he was going to kiss Henry. It wasn’t part of his plan for his life. It wasn’t God’s plan for Hans’s life, and that was all there was to it.
Hans was going to marry some noble girl and disappoint her greatly, and that was fine. Lots of people had to do things they didn’t want to do. Hans had hunting and wine and enough leisure time to lose himself in both. His wife would find her own vices to get over it.
It wouldn’t all be bad. Hans had decided long ago that he would do everything in his power to have more than one child, so that if he and his wife, whoever she may be, perish tragically young, his heir wouldn’t be alone in the world. And maybe he’ll like being a father. And his wife will surely enjoy being a mother. Hans would teach his sons to ride horses and play dice and that seemed pretty good.
That was the path set out for Hans, and he was fine with it.
Except none of that mattered now because Hans wasn’t going to get married; he was going to die. He was going to die here in Suchdol, and Henry, rather than dying with him, was going to climb over the walls and die first and leave Hans behind, and if Hans were not so hungry and tired, he thought he might be angry about that.
Anger made the most sense as to why he did it.
He didn’t think to himself, “it’s now or never,” or, “I just want to experience it once,” or anything like that. It wasn’t a last chance kind of desperation that had him grabbing Henry's hand, pulling him to him.
Hans would have taken that desire to his grave like he was supposed to, if only Henry had decided to stay by Hans’s side. But Henry was brave. And he was good. So of course they picked him for the most hopeless mission of all missions, and of course he agreed, and of course Hans was deemed incapable of going with.
This was the end, Hans uselessly sitting inside a castle not ever finding out Henry’s fate. Helpless to stop any of it.
So he ruined it. He ruined their friendship and showed Henry exactly who he was, exactly what thoughts regularly ran through his mind. Henry was spouting heroic things, making promises, and Hans grabbed him and showed him his rotten core.
Being mean to Henry hadn’t ruined it. Insulting him, ignoring him, disrespecting him. Getting in a fistfight with him. Violence and cruelty and degradation hadn’t ruined their friendship, but this would. One moment of love was enough to turn the most valuable part of Hans’s life to ashes.
Henry was going to die, and his last memory of Hans would be this, Hans trying to explain that he loves him, possibly more than his own life, and sealing it with a kiss that was never supposed to happen, that he was never… he was never going to…
But he did. He kissed Henry.
No friendship would survive that.
Hans busied himself with the firewood and waited for Henry to leave his life forever.