Archive of Our Own ^beta

Janosh didn't need to know Polish to know Adder.

‘But Janosh,’ people would say, ‘you can understand Adder, can’t you?’  

The answer to that was yes and no. Did the grass need to understand the wind to move at its will? Did the rocks need to understand the stream flowing above them to be gently molded into shape? And if someone were to ask what the fuck that meant, Janosh also didn’t know.

But he just knew Adder. 

It was easy, because the man thought almost solely with his cock and if Janosh knew anything it was the finer sides of sausage. So when a pile of consonants tumbled from the man’s mouth, he was likely talking about whatever woman existed and breathed in the near vicinity. 

At some point in their long time together he began being able to divine meaning in each cluster of sounds like an astrologer measured the fates from the stars. It was all very romantic, especially when the man expounded on the ways he would bed Janosh’s mother, or fondle the tits of the ale maid, or shove his sausage into one such hole or another.

Sometimes those words would be muffled into the nape of Janosh’s neck, frustrated hands pawing at his tunic, grubby fingernails digging into the embroidery. They never talked about those nights, when Janosh would laugh at the other man squirming with pent up desires rutting against his backside like a dog. The nights that Janosh would flip around in the Pole’s arms and pin him to the ground.

For all Adders boasting he would turn into a doe-eyed, blushing virgin in Janosh’s hands. He’d coax out new words, new sounds, hissed and hushed in the darkness. In those moments Janosh could almost understand Adder’s unnatural allure with the womenfolk, in those moments he was almost jealous of the womenfolk. But no woman saw Adder like he did.

He’d drain the snake of its venom with a little too much enthusiasm, wipe his hand clean, then flip back over and pretend there wasn’t anything in need of attention in his hose. Sometimes Adder would lazily tug at them, halfheartedly offering to repay the favor without a word. But words and acceptance would make it more than it was. It would be something then, wouldn’t it? Something they could lose. Something they could burn for. (Not that it mattered, they had both long since accepted their place in hell for all that they'd done. Thieving, murdering, bedding married women. What would this be on top of all that?)

In the morning after those nights Adder would wake up relaxed, his normal prickliness smoothed out if only for a brief time. If anyone in the band noticed or heard anything, they never said anything- not like they had a high horse to sit on, some jobs were long and lonely and sometimes your hand didn't do the trick. Adder would give Janosh one of his stupidly charming, boyish smiles and then vomit foul words about what he wants to do the next time he has enough money to pay for a bath wench. 

Sometimes he’d comment on Hungarian sausage, the innuendo not lost on Janosh, but he always feigned ignorance just to watch Adder get frustrated all over again, his handiwork the night before gone to waste because Adder was a wholly impatient man. And it would be a wonder that those Bohemian idiots didn’t understand a word of it.

‘You know what I mean!’ Adder would say, stomping his foot like a petulant child.

‘I do not ,’ Janosh would say with a shrug and blank look that usually got him out of most confrontations. ‘ My pack always has some if you’re hungry.’ If Adder were smarter- if his brain didn't reside entirely between his thighs- maybe he would’ve understood the subtle offer in the words, too. The “if you weren't such a selfish prick and just came to me, maybe.” But Adder didn't have the patience to scry meaning from words the same way Janosh could.

That was the closest they would ever come to talking about it.

Even closer still they had come to it after being reunited. Janosh's back still ached from being locked in the pillory, sentenced to hang. Adder had rope burns around his neck, spitting curses left and right. 

When they saw each other at the Devil's Den, free and alive, they embraced despite the frustration and annoyance- Adder had abandoned him to rot for some girl, of course. Janosh would laugh that they were both set to hang, that fate decreed they share the same death together, even towns away. Janosh would not tell him how much he'd thought about the man while the noose awaited him, and Adder would not say anything about what had been on his mind when the men kicked the cow out from under him and he'd dangled for several heart stopping moments. But Janosh could hear the words in the bashful glances, in the too-gentle touches, the too many touches. Maybe Adder could hear it too in Janosh's laughter, could read it in Janosh's eyes. But Adder was an illiterate fool, and they didn't need words to understand or to know they danced on a thin line.

During the celebration of the band getting back together they would drink and be merry. Adder would challenge him to dice with a wicked glint in his eye, he’d complain about the lack of women, his lack of coin for the bath girls across the creek, and speak of everything naughty he'd done to the butcher's wife. He’d lick his lips, smirk at Janosh, a challenge in his eyes. 

When they were both sloshed and the Den was filled with stumbling idiots, he’d shove Adder against the wall in some dark corner. He'd pin Adder there with a hand on his chest, feeling the warmth of him through his shirt, the rise and fall of every breath, the thrumming of his heartbeat. Alive and spilling the unspoken to Janosh's fingertips.

They didn’t have a room to themselves- Zizka, Devil, and Katherine had taken one and the other was hogged by the boy that had saved them and brought them back together. That didn't matter because they would find space where they could. That didn’t matter because they were together and alive and maybe he'd had enough ale to stop pretending to be decent. Stop pretending this wasn’t something.

But inevitably footsteps trudged into the room and Dry Devil's voice would cast stones into the serene waters of their moment.

What the fuck are you two doing, he would grind out, clutching onto the doorway to keep himself upright.

And the excuse would be so simple, so easy. 

He owes me groshen.  

And Dry Devil would accept it with a barking laugh, ascending upstairs while grumbling about the Adder owing everyone money. But the spell would be broken, the stars would shift and their fates would change.

Maybe Janosh should've taken him elsewhere, outside of the Den somewhere just to see what would have happened. But he didn't do that and they wouldn't have the opportunity again with everything going on and the Den being packed with more people every day. Their schemes got bigger and grander and the cramped quarters left no room for their usual antics. He'd toss a few groshen to Adder when he couldn't tolerate the bitching anymore and tell him to see a bath girl and he’d pretend to not notice the reluctance, or the scowl, or the consonants cursing him to hell and back. 

But then it was too late, they were betrayed and Adder was left to die like a dog and Janosh didn't know what to do after that.

Suchdol was a blur, the hunger gnawing but he could barely notice in the numbness that struck him. He hobbled like a man that had lost his leg and if anyone noticed they didn't say anything. They'd toast to the lost and the wine would sit rancid on his tongue. He’d sit and think how he should have done more, should have known better. Would things have been different if he’d insisted on carrying Adder to the cart despite his protests or if he’d charged in when he’d wanted to and cut down the traitor?

Sometimes in the night he'd thumb at the weathered memories and marvel at how easily they morphed into wishful fantasies. In them there'd be no Devil to interrupt them, no prying eyes or cramped quarters. He would murmur Adder’s name, his real name, into the darkness and heat between them. He’d murmur all the things he’d wanted to say but had been too afraid of, tongue rolling effortlessly over the language that felt as familiar as his own . They would be soft and saccharine, too much so for terrible men such as them.

But they would be wrong because Adder should be beside him, bitching about the conditions, bitching about Devil’s bitching, somehow seducing one or five of the weeping womenfolk despite the despair clutching at their souls. 

He should be here and alive instead of that French bastard. Maybe then Janosh would not be a fool and maybe then he’d act, his will drawn thin from hunger and fear, at least he’d have something sated. At least he could find out if all of Adder’s teasing and toying amounted to anything or if he’d turn pliant and needy in Janosh’s hands. Or maybe they’d continue to toe their thin line into eternity. 

Well, none of that mattered anymore. The siege would continue and Janosh would continue to lie awake at night, thoughts tangled up on the man he missed so dearly. Janosh would continue to live.

Perhaps he wouldn't live much longer, the idea almost pleased him. He'd die in a skirmish on the battlements and trot happily to the gates of hell. He'd find Adder because of course he would, the bastard's soul would be his beacon, his guide. He'd find his Leszek even if it took a thousand years and a thousand torments.

They'd find some corner of hell and find it not as terrifying as it was preached because they had each other again.

And maybe there, free of worldly problems and fears, bold in the face of Hell’s fierce flames, they would talk openly.

Maybe there they would be something.