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Hans was cold. He couldn’t remember being this cold since their night in the stocks. He curled up tighter under his blanket, trying to suppress his shivers. He supposed it was only lucky they hadn’t been relegated to the stables somehow, but there was a good chance they might have been more comfortable in a stall.
Henry, of course, was sweltering. They’d laid blankets on the floor of the tiny room for him, and he lay uncomfortably cramped in one corner, pinned between the bedframe and the wall. He shifted restlessly every few minutes, and the sound was driving Hans mad. The room was dark with no windows, but they had left a small oil lamp burning, and in its flickering light Hans could see the bandages he had helped Henry place. The men at the stables had offered to help, but the disdainful looks Henry and Hans had leveled at them had quickly sent them packing. Klara's offer had been more kindly received, but Henry had gently turned her down as well. In the end, he and Hans had simply posted up in a corner of the outer yard and had seen to each other's wounds as Godwin caught up with them on everything that had happened.
“We should go outside,” he murmured. Henry leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, but Hans could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was still awake.
“You'll be uncomfortable,” Henry replied, cracking an eye open to glance over.
“Nonsense, I've slept in worse. We'll bring the blankets, and this rock they claim is a pillow. You're plenty warm enough for the both of us, and you'll have more space.”
Henry grumbled for a moment but stood reluctantly, bending down to gather the blankets they’d been given. Hans folded the one from the bed and, together with his pillow, he followed Henry as he slouched forward to squeeze out the door.
The forge was quiet, so late at night, the coals reduced to a banked glow so they could be quickly revived in the morning. Hans glanced around, eyeing the place they had used to tend their injuries but ultimately settling for the ground just beyond the smithy. He folded his blanket and spread it carefully, dropping the pillow at one end and then helped Henry organize their meager bedding to accommodate him. Hans lay down first, doing his best to get comfortable as Henry settled down beside him, slowly rolling over until his human form draped on top of Hans, using his lord's body as support to keep his spine from growing stiff and kinked as he slept. Hans wedged his legs between Henry's forelegs, and they both sighed.
The ground was hard and cool, even through the blankets, but with Henry as a living blanket, Hans found his body temperature slowly stabilizing. The air was chill, but curled together like this, Hans was warm. It was the same sort of comfort he got when he laid in a beam of summer sunlight coming in through a window: just on the borderline of being too hot, but still comfortably toasted. Hans’ hand came up to stroke gently down Henry's back, Henry looped his arms around Hans’ sides, and together they drifted off.
Hans awoke when a voice above him said, “I'm fairly sure there were orders for you two to receive a room somewhere.”
He blinked up at Jan Zizka in the predawn light. He must have been on his way to take a shift on watch when he'd passed the pair of them, asleep out here on the ground.
“There were,” Hans muttered, trying not to speak loudly or move too much lest he wake Henry, “but the room that was found for us simply didn't admit for a centaur.”
Zizka raised an eyebrow as he looked over them exaggeratedly. Hans wondered what they looked like to him, tangled together like children. Or perhaps , he thought much more secretively, like lovers . “To be frank,” Zizka said, returning his gaze to Hans thoughtfully, “I'm not sure there's any room here that would admit a centaur.”
Hans shrugged minimally. “We'll make due outside. It's not exactly new.”
“I see. Well, I'll have someone scrounge up a few more blankets, then.”
Henry groaned, tensing in his sleep and tightening his grip on Hans, whose hand immediately went to the back of his neck, gently rubbing the skin that peeked between his hair and the collar of his tunic.
“The two of you are quite close,” Zizka continued, his voice a little more quiet now.
“Yes,” Hans said. He didn't feel like explaining his relationship with Henry to the man who had so recently been about to kill them.
“I see. Well, I'll have someone figure out a better spot for the two of you, anyway.”
“Thank you.”
Zizka wandered off, and Hans shivered suddenly. Now that he’d been disturbed from his sleep, he felt chilled. He nudged Henry gently, who snorted and sighed noisily. “Henry,” he said, nudging his shoulder again. Henry didn't move. Hans took a deep, shaking breath and murmured gently, “Hal?”
Henry did shift at that, and Hans could feel himself blushing to the roots of his hair. The two of them had been friends for ages, at least as far as Hans was concerned, but they had always kept a respectable distance whenever it wasn't simply the two of them alone. In front of literally any other person, Hans was always “my lord” or “Sir Capon”. Yesterday, though, in the midst of battle, Henry had slipped a number of times, calling frantically for Hans in their personal way whenever they got too far apart. And until now, Hans had stuck strictly to Henry’s Christian name in all cases. But after a long series of exceedingly bad days, and regardless of his feelings thereon, Hans was starting to lose his grip on his self control around Henry. And it seemed it was starting with his name.
“Hal?” he murmured again, craning his neck to get his quiet voice closer to Henry’s ear.
Henry snuffled, shifting slightly with a quiet groan that Hans identified as a question.
“Hal, you need to move. I’m getting cold.”
“Mmmmmmere,” Henry mumbled, slowly releasing his grip with a disappointed sigh. Hans was about to adjust his position so he could sandwich himself in the folds of the blanket he was laying on, when Henry instead began to flop around, moving inch by inch, until Hans found himself being tugged from his own spot down onto Henry’s patch of blanket. He was drawn down until he was being tucked against the entire length of Henry’s front, his arms around Hans’ shoulders and forelegs tucked around his knees to pull his legs along the curve of Henry’s lower chest. Hans wasn’t sure what his face looked like at the moment, but inside him his heart was pounding.
“Berr?” Henry mumbled. He still hadn’t actually opened his eyes, and Hans wasn’t convinced he was actually any level of awake.
Hans snorted, snuggling down into the warmth that now enveloped him. “Yes, that’s better. Thank you.”
Henry hummed, and Hans considered briefly what this would look like to anyone walking past. But as Henry’s arms settled more securely around him and the heat settled deep into his bones, Hans realized he didn’t much care.