Archive of Our Own

When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me;
Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you—

“Be not too certain but I am now with you.”

Hans put his book down and checked his pocket watch. 

It was 2:30.

He sighed.

The finger of whiskey he’d been nursing was almost gone. He swirled it and watched as the light played on its surface, spots of honey gold dappled among a brown long diluted by melted ice.

It reminded him of the eyes of a stranger he was trying to forget. 

He finished the whiskey.

Checked his pocket watch. 

It was 2:31.

He sighed.

The desert outside the window was as boring as ever. When his uncle had shipped him off on this work trip out west, he had expected to find scenery he had only ever seen in paintings. Rock formations red as a sunset, or waterfalls surrounded by a frankly obscene amount of rainbows. But this wasn’t that.

This was just…dirt. Dirt as far as the eye could see. His entire view was one long streak of brown topped by one long streak of cloudless blue. In front of him was an expanse as wide as the ocean and it contained jack shit.

Two days ago he started playing a game with himself, seeing how much time would pass between sightings of anything remotely tree-like. It has started with less than a second, but once they hit the desert proper that time has slowly expanded and expanded.

He checked his pocket watch.

It was 2:32.

He sighed.

This latest stretch was going on three hours. 

For about as long, the men at the table behind him had been discussing everything from the growing tensions in Europe to the recent positive fluctuations in the stock market. Hans could have easily inserted himself if he wanted to, helpfully remind the gentlemen about how overproduction in agricultural sectors would take their beloved stocks and send them swirling down the drain, but he would rather watch paint dry.

There was an itch he couldn’t scratch because it was under his fucking skin, threading through his muscles and burrowing through his bones. He could maybe scratch it if he could goad those fat piggy banks behind him into a screaming match,but he promised his uncle he would behave.

The last time he had gotten the itch it had been on a hot Missouri night and he found relief in the arms of a stranger he was trying to forget and it had been miraculous and it had been terrible and alright he’d had enough.

Fuck that, fuck his uncle and all his words about damage control, fuck this silver mine he was demoted to checking on, and fuck this stupid automated carriage.

Hans stood abruptly, grabbing his poetry book and bumping the table. His empty glass rattled, more than it already had been against the steady beat of the train. He ignored the stares from the gentlemen as he passed by, marching with as much dignity as could back to his compartment in the first class car.

Said dignity was lost almost immediately when he opened the door and was blasted with a hot wind that blew dirt into his mouth and sent his hair in every direction imaginable.

He was still coughing when he flung himself into the next car, hair a mess when he righted himself and looked right into the eyes of Caroline. 

Ugh. Caroline. 

She was the daughter of a wealthy rancher who relocated his family out to San Diego for banal reasons Hans had already forgotten. Caroline had been a fun way to pass the time until they had hit their first Harvey House, at which point Hans was so thoroughly distracted by the lovely waitresses that he had stopped paying attention to Caroline entirely—a fact she made sure to remind him of each time he walked past her.

He had hair in his eyes and dust in his nose, was hunched over and clinging to the door handle. Caroline looked him up and down, sniffed her upturned nose loudly, and turned her eyes primly back to her needle point.

Great.

Hans stood, raked his hair back, and walked past her.

He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of making him run. 

And if he had turned up his nose and sniffed in turn, well, that was between him and God.

His compartment was at the front end of the car at the other end. He passed the man who snored too loudly when he napped; the old widow whose perfume cloyed the air and made Hans sneeze; the honeymooning couple who laughed constantly at nothing at all.

The itch burrowed itself deeper.

He slammed the door to his compartment behind him—hopefully pissing off the snoring ogre—threw his book back on the luggage shelf in front of him, and threw himself back into his seat.

God it was hot.

He checked his pocket watch. 

It was 2:36.

He sighed.

Hans rested his head in the palm of his hand and looked back out the window, trying to time the shaking of his leg to the rickety thump of the wheels over the tracks. There was still nothing to look at.

There was another fun game he had started playing about a day ago, his claustrophobia his main opponent. It was a long, looping internal argument with the victor deciding if the walls of the suite were actually closing in.

He’d lost every round so far, but he was feeling hopeful for the next. He made it from Missouri to New Mexico before he felt the creeping presence of his claustrophobia that had made him begin that game in the first place, so surely, surely, he was getting better, he just had to…had to…

God, if he could just open the window—

But he couldn’t, because of the fucking heat. 

It radiated through the glass panes in suffocating waves. Sweat pooled at the small of his back where his waistcoat was cinched tightly. It was disgusting. He fucking reeked. His finger had been tapping along to the beat of his foot. He tried to swallow around the dust still stuck in his throat.

There was the sound of voices yelling from the engine car, followed by a loud thump.

He checked his pocket watch.

The time didn’t matter. 

The train came to a sudden, screeching, halt.

Hans was unceremoniously thrown forwards, slamming head first into the metal luggage rack in front of him.

“By God’s nails!” he cursed as he rubbed the now tender spot on his forehead, scowling at the offending piece of metal in front of him. “Someday when I invest in railways, the first thing I’m putting in my trains is padding, Christ.”

The ringing of the metal luggage rack and the hallelujah chorus of the angels flying in circles across his vision was suddenly accompanied by a loud, staccato thumping on his cabin door. 

It was the worst symphony he had ever heard, ending with the tinkling sound of the shackles of his boredom falling ceremoniously to the ground.

It was the best symphony he had ever heard.

Hans couldn’t open the door fast enough, only to be met with the business end of a six cartridge repeater. It was held by an honest-to-god cowboy, his face covered with a blue bandana that matched the grumpy-looking flecks of blue in eyes, which were glaring directly at Hans. 

Holy shit. 

Holy shit. A train heist. A real, bona fide train heist. 

Hans used to dream of times like these. 

Very specifically a year or two ago, in fact, during one of his last classes at Princeton. It had been a literature class with a focus on American poetry. It was the best class he had ever taken and, in all honesty, the only one he had ever cared about. His participation alone had been a huge middle finger to his uncle and business professors, all of whom bemoaned his lack of work ethic as he cruised on the backs of his nearly perfect test scores. It had also paved the way for the majority of his cowboy-related fantasies. 

In particular, Walt Whitman’s Calamus. 

It was a series of forty-five poems that had irrevocably changed Hans. The series described life in the American West and how out there, beyond anything that Hans had ever known, there was love among brothers. Love so deep as to transcend time, make death seem like a simple concept in the face of this great, incomprehensible connection. 

A vast, unknowable longing had taken root in Hans’ heart upon his first reading of them, and in spite of the months and months of reading and re-reading the cluster, he still could not give it a name. 

So he had, instead, entertained the idea of heading west for himself—to see if he could capture what he was seeking, what Whitman had found, if he could bottle it inside his soul to complete the picture that was himself. 

But there was never time. As soon as he returned to Missouri there was always a meeting to avoid, a bachelor’s club event to attend, a damsel in need of a knight to save her from the mundanity of everyday life. 

So he imagined instead. 

Locked away in his bedroom at night, in the realm between the waking world and the one of dreams, he imagined riding off into the sunset with a band of brothers, robbing trains with the same gleeful abandon as throwing dice or shooting craps. 

He imagined insults hurled, guns shooting, fists flying, blood pouring out of his nose and settling into his toothy grin, standing back to back with his unnameable concept. 

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving.

He imagined hushed voices in the dark of night.

Up and down the roads going—North and South excursions making,

He imagined firelight, hot breath, laughter— 

Arm'd and fearless—eating, drinking, sleeping, 

—being consumed, the stars the only witness to their joy—

loving. 

—letting his hands raise slowly in surrender.

Oh. No, wait, that part was new. 

“Listen up!” a gruff, mustachioed man called from the other end of the car, the handlebars above his lip well-oiled and curled.

Interesting. 

"We aren’t here to cause trouble. We’re just going to kindly ask you for anything valuable on your person.” His hand raised slowly to settle on the trigger of the shotgun cradled between his weathered hands. “You help us out, you won’t have any trouble. We can do this nice and easy.” 

Interesting.

The man was obviously the leader. He sauntered casually to the first cabin and spoke quietly to an elderly couple being attended to by a similarly mustachioed man wearing a derby and a far-too-cheerful look on his face.Hans slid his eyes back over to his own new friend, and realized with great annoyance that his was the only one who had chosen to cover his face. 

There were very few features to make out aside from his eyes. He stood almost as tall as Hans and was a might wider in the shoulders, had tufts of brown hair that curled out from under the brim of his hat, and had dark circles that made Hans wonder if the man had ever seen a day of sleep in his life. 

The revolver in his hand was nothing special, though Hans raised an eyebrow at the engraving on the handle, barely visible beneath the heel of his captor’s palm. A pearl inlay of, what was that? An “M” and a “J” combined somehow? Seemed overly gaudy and impractical in the hands of a vagabond. Hans flicked his eyes back up and watched those blue eyes narrow into slits and the barrel of the gun push lightly into his chest. 

Hans grinned.

Interesting. 

In front of him was a walking contradiction. A veritable boy, running with a group of vagabonds who were all almost twice his age, robbing a train with a gun that was worth more than anything Hans had on him at the time. It demanded study. He wanted to whip out a magnifying glass and look at the dirt clogging the pores in the boy’s nose, the dust still clinging to his eyelashes. To see if he had wings like the horseflies Hans would find crawling on his skin.

He used to rip them off, those wings, and they had deserved it for biting Hans as many times as they had over the years. But he found himself thankful for the agony at that moment. They had taught him that there was more than one way to scratch an itch, and where distraction failed, there was nothing for it but brute force. 

He could almost imagine the black eye he’d be wearing if he played his cards right, and damn did he love to gamble. 

"Fine day for a robbery, this,” he started casually, quietly, to keep the conversation to themselves. He cocked his head into a tilt that always made the bastards at his club sneer at him. “You might not know this, considering you likely have never seen a bath in your life, but in polite society folks usually introduce themselves to each other.”

Hans received no acknowledgement that he had been heard other than the continuation of that stony stare.

Whatever, silence had never stopped him before. 

"I’m Hans Capon,” he stated gleefully, wiggling the fingers on his still raised hands.

Still more silence. 

“No? Nothing? Heir to Capon Banking? Biggest bank this side of the Mississippi? The scourge of Wells Fargo?” 

Nothing. It was almost unfathomable that this man had never heard of him. 

"Well, it’s almost unfathomable that you’ve never heard of me,” he said. “Ah, unfathomable means ‘difficult to understand,’” he said, pitching his voice downward just as his private tutor would when he was being pretentious. “You’ll have to forgive me, I forget sometimes to dumb down my words for the unwashed masses. Consider yourself lucky to meet someone as important as me in your lifetime.”

The gun at his chest hadn’t moved an inch, his captor unflappable. 

Forget the wings, Hans wanted to pick him apart like a scab.

“You know, the rules of reciprocity dictate you tell me your name, since I’ve graciously told you mine. Surely you know reciprocity, the golden rule?” Hans puffed up his chest, making the gun push another inch into his chest, and spoke in a deep voice, “Matthew 7:12, ‘Do unto others whatever you would like them to do to you.’ Surely you have churches out here, for God’s sake.”

Another moment passed in stony silence, but no matter. Hans had ways of getting information without the help of a willing party. 

He winked, slyly. “Well, I suppose you only have yourself to blame for this,” he said before tilting his head forward slightly and facing the other end of the cabin. 

"Hey! Cow fuckers!” he yelled. 

Every head turned sharply in his direction.

“Do you just fuck the cows, or do you take the horses from behind too?”

The perfumed widow two cabins down gasped and put her gloved hand over her lipstick-stained mouth. 

"You know,” he continued, “back where we have running water we tend to protect the chastity of our livestock!”

"For God’s sake!” a red-haired vagrant yelled with a voice that sounded like sandpaper on a chalkboard. “Henry! Shut that fucker up!”

Hans did nothing to hide the earsplitting grin that took over his face and focused its full force now on Henry, whose shoulders had risen so sharply in anger they practically touched his ears. 

"Adorable,” he said. “You look like a Henry.”

Realizing he has been outplayed, Henry turned sharply back to Hans, blue eyes now cloudy and hardly visible in the narrow slits of his glare.

"And you look like ya choked on the silver spoon ya sucked out your ma’s tit.” 

What—

The bark of laughter Hans let out started somewhere in his toes and shot up out of him faster than he could realize

Henry’s voice was lower than he thought it would be. Gravelly too, as if he were a dog growling at the sight of an unwelcome neighbor. Hans felt its vibrations settle somewhere in his chest. It was the most crass thing anyone ever had the balls to say directly to his face and was maybe the best thing he’ds ever heard. 

"Oh, we’re going to have fun, you and I,” he said with genuine delight. 

He was met with genuine disgust. 

"Ain’t gon’ be fun when I take those pretty words of yers and shove ‘em up yer ass,” Henry said, though the effect of the threat was lost behind his uneducated drawl, turning words like “pretty” into “purdy” and making Hans’ eyelid twitch. 

"Puuuurdy sure you can’t do much of anything right now if you want what you came here for. You’ll find I'll be less willing to dispense of my valuables while my ass is being otherwise occupied,” he pointed out helpfully. 

Henry rolled his eyes. “I always knew folks like you shit bullion.”

Another laugh startled its way out of Hans. “On the contrary, you’ll find we shit those silver spoons out too when they aren’t lodged in our throats.”

Finally, finally, Hans said the right thing as that revolver was now lodged firmly against his chest. Slightly to the left—over his heart, he realized belatedly. 

"I’ve killed men with less cheek than you fer less. You watch yer tone,” Henry threatened, and yeah, there it was, a solid, firm scratch to that itch. The kind that gave him the briefest second of relief that he kept chasing and chasing until his skin began to rip apart by his own hand. 

It was the most fun he had had, well, ever. 

Hans wanted to keep pushing, prodding, see if he could get that fist fight he had always dreamed about out of this guy. It would be so easy, too; a quick jab to the underside of Henry’s jaw on the right side, dislodging the gun from his hand and leaving a bright red mark that would ease into a pretty purple the next day. 

Maybe Henry would retaliate, clocking Hans right on the bridge of his nose. If he was lucky it would break, leaving it with a slight dent. A permanent sign to everyone that for once, he had lived. 

He could almost taste the blood on his teeth already, licking the imaginary iron tang off  behind his closed lips. 

Henry’s eyes tracked the movement, and then tracked lower, down past the knot of Hans’ tie to where they were connected, barrel to chest. It lasted less than a second, and if Hans hadn’t been watching Henry as closely as Henry was watching him, he was sure he would have missed it. 

As it happened, Hans felt the quick drag of the gun move to the right, off his heart, where a shot would have been instantly fatal. 

That moment’s hesitation was the chink in the armor Hans had been looking for. He tilted his head and grinned, Cheshire slow. 

"Come now, Henry,” he drawled, lingering on the last syllable. “That’s no way to treat a new friend. I’ve been perfectly pleasant! Why, it's been my dream to meet a real cowboy.” He hummed. “Though, seems to me I’ve yet to have the pleasure.”

Hans imagined the scowl on the face hidden behind the bandana. Maybe pouty, small, shaped by full lips with a fierce cupid's bow. Perhaps thin and wide, pulled tight, graced primly by a patchy wisp of pubescent hair. 

Almost assuredly punchable, though. 

"Hush yer mouth.”

Hans tutted. “See, this is what I mean. You certainly sound like one, but when it comes down to it I doubt you really have the balls to follow through on any real ‘cowboy business,’” he said, making air quotes with his still raised fingers. Christ, he was starting to lose feeling in them. 

Henry’s eyes went flat. “‘Cowboy business?’”

"Certainly! I imagine it involves a decent amount of, how do they put it, ‘wrasslin?’ Tumbles in the hay, fights in the bar!” Hans let his voice drop, quiet, and leaned forward. “Killing a man for having a certain amount of cheek, let’s say.”

The fingers still wrapped around the hilt of the gun tightened slightly.

"Like I said, ‘cowboy business,’” he said cheerily, relaxing back. “Though I suppose in your case it's just ‘boy’ business.”

Henry let out a throaty growl of frustration.

Almost, Hans thought, just a little more. 

"Tell me, how many cows do you have to fuck before you can properly earn the moniker?”

Quick as a whip, Henry shoved his way in close. He pulled Hans forward by the yellow silk of his tie, blessedly taking the barrel of the gun off of Hans’ chest and pressing it firmly under his chin. The kiss of metal was scalding, hotter than the air in the train and hotter than the boil of Hans’ blood. He could feel it pulse light in his fingertips, heavy behind his cheeks, and throbbing, euphoric, in his cock. 

Shit. 

"Supposin’ you would know all about that, seein’ as how one must have fucked yer ma to birth yer ugly mug,” Henry whispered in that tight space, the bandana the only thing from keeping the words from crossing beyond the thin no man’s land left between them. 

Shit. 

Hans didn’t know he could feel so many things at once. Anticipation, shame, joy, rage; all a swirling tornado inside him, barely contained by his rib cage and the now tight pull of his slacks. 

One more push. One more push and they would fall beautifully off the edge of the knife they were dancing on.

That’s it. Come on. Do it, you bastard. 

Do it do it do it do it do it—

"Henry!” 

Henry dropped his hold and stepped back as if he was scalded.

God damn it. 

Henry’s head flung to look at the leader of this group, who was giving a look only a disappointed father could ever muster. “Cool it.”

The brim of his hat was brought low over his eyes as Henry ducked his head. “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir.” His boss nodded once, then returned to digging through the handbag held in the arms of a shaking elderly woman who looked like she could drop dead on the spot. 

Well, at least she wouldn’t need those valuables anymore. Shame about the dying. 

The bigger shame was that Henry’s gun was now pointed back at his chest, held an inch or two away, and Henry’s gaze was focused hard over Hans’ shoulder. 

Fuck, and he had worked so hard, he thought for sure… 

God, that tease of something more had spread through him so completely and was ripped away so suddenly that the itch was everywhere and agonizing. He hadn’t felt like this since that time he had tried to quit smoking to impress Caroline. 

Ah, a different Caroline. 

It had been so awful that as soon as he bedded her, he ran out of the room and became a chimney for a couple of days. 

He was half tempted to make a run for it and throw himself into the smoke stack at the front of the train, but the gun, while further away, was still pointed squarely at him.

Might as well keep talking, they still had a while before it was Hans’ turn to be properly fleeced. 

"Awfully concerned about my mother, aren’t you?” Hans started, but Henry had gone mute again. He sighed. “Come on, Henry, you’re being a child.” 

Henry sniffed petulantly.

Lucky Hans, a blessing by the presence of the patron saint of maturity.

Time for a new tactic.

“You would know if she had been fucked by a cow, by the way. My mother.”

"What?” Henry hissed back at him. Oh, good, Hans hadn’t lost him entirely, then. 

He shrugged. “If my mother had had relations with a proper bovine seductor, I’m afraid you would be currently chatting with a minotaur.” Hans raised his pointer finger to emphasize the point, or tried to anyway. The effect was lost when he realized the lack of blood flow was keeping him from extending it to its full, pointed potential. 

Henry’s eyebrows furrowed. "Stop makin’ things up.”

"Aw,” Hans clicked his tongue. “My apologies. I shouldn’t have assumed you received a proper education. Can you even read?” 

He was met with exasperated silence.

Hans sighed. “No matter, there’s never a bad time for a lesson.”

"You kiddin’?”

“The minotaur,” Hans started, ignoring Henry, “is a legend out of Greek myth. His mother had been bewitched to fall in love with a bull, and their son came out an abomination,” he said dramatically. “Half man! Half bull! So hideous as to be sent away into a labyrinth from which there was no escape.”

"Hm. Sounds about like what I’m lookin’ at.” Henry hummed, giving Hans a once over. His eyes roved much lower this time, raking all the way down his body, from his tailored waistcoat and pants to the shined points of his shoes. 

Hans preened.

"Nonsense. Besides, I don’t need a dimwitted boy to tell me I’m attractive. I’ve bedded more women than you’ve likely ever met.”

"S’that what ya tell yerself to make yerself feel better at night?” Henry drawled, shifting his weight onto one leg.

Hans laughed. “Again with your sass! Keep running your mouth like this and I’ll start to think you have a propensity towards vocal fetishes.”

"Y’ain’t gotta keep nothin’ up for me to know you got some kinda weird cow kink,” Henry said, rolling his eyes.

"Fine,” Hans whined, tilting his head back. “You got me, passed down to me from the chief bovine seductress herself.”

A soft snort, more air than sound, waved the pointed bottom of Henry’s bandana like a blue banner of victory. 

Hans must have looked as much the smarmy asshole as he felt because Henry sobered almost immediately and planted his weight back evenly on both feet. Tragic. It had lasted less than a second, but there was a twinkle in his eye that almost brightened those dark circles. It had made him look younger. 

Well. In theory, anyway. 

Hard to know exactly what age a person is when they cover themselves head to toe in threadbare cotton and denim. Hans could take an educated guess though. Henry was young enough to be missing the fine lines that accompanied a life well lived, but certainly old enough to have chest hair peeking out from under the loosened collar that his bandana would have otherwise tied closed. 

His shirt was missing a button there, and several others were well on their way, barely holding on. It was as if the shirt couldn’t accommodate the rapid growth of a young man into his adulthood. It spoke to a level of poverty Hans had only ever seen in his periphery, and was further emphasized by a pair of threadbare pants that were more dirt than denim at this point. 

Likely Hans’ age then, he gathered, and tried to swallow around the sudden dryness in his mouth. 

"So.” Hans cleared his throat. “Out of curiosity, what does a man have to do to get his hands back below his shoulders? I’m afraid I’m rather fond of them, you see, and I would hate for them to fall off from lack of blood flow.”

It was quickly becoming a real concern. He had lost any and all ability to move his fingers at this point, and who was he, really, without his usual phalangeal theatrics? 

Not Hans Capon.

There was a certain amount of urgency at stake here. 

It seemed to be lost on Henry, however, who kept his gaze cool and unimpressed. Hans liked to imagine he was born that way, considering it seemed permanently etched onto his face. 

Now down two options, Hans fell back on his most reliable form of communication.

A good old-fashioned eyebrow waggle.

"Yer keepin’ those puppies right where they are.”

Communications have never broken down faster.

"Now, now, Henry, don't be hasty, I’m open to negotiation,” Hans added quickly, “I could offer you a quid pro quo.”

"I told ya to quit makin’ shit up. I don’ want none of yer squids.”

“I’m surprised you know what those are, to be honest,” he mumbled to himself. “No, my new manure-headed friend—”

"Watch it.”

"— a quid pro quo. It's Latin. I suppose in your backwater language it would be something like, ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine.’” With a flair, Hans twisted his wrists to show off his leverage. “See these? Genuine gold cufflinks. You let me bring my hands down until the feeling returns, and in exchange I take these off and hand them over for you to pocket.”

Henry’s eyes trailed upward.

"You know,” Hans continued blithely, casually. “Before the boss man finds out.”

There was a ripple behind the bandana. Hans imagined Henry biting his lip in contemplation. He tilted his head back and forth too, like he was a stray dog being offered food he couldn’t decide if he could take. 

"How genuine are we talkin’?” asked Henry eventually. He pronounced the word “genuine” in the most repulsive fashion possible. Surely whoever invented the word was lashing about wildly in their grave. A true testament to the hubris and greed of mankind. Scholars would study this pronunciation and print scientific journals begging the populace to never let anything remotely similar come out of their mouths again. 

Fuck, if it wasn’t starting to grow on Hans though. Like black mold. 

“Fourteen karats, at least. I think.”

Henry raised an eyebrow. “Fuck off with that, like hell ya don’ know.”

Hans shrugged and let his eyes trail to the side. “They were a gift from my late grandmother, how should I know? Probably bought them in Europe, though, if it sweetens the deal.”

“Ya mean to tell me,” Henry started, “that ya’d trade off some nice gift from yer late granny just to get feeling back in yer fingers?” Hans was sure Henry was talking down to him now, as if he were the uneducated idiot. Maybe he could stand that treatment from someone else on another day of the week, but definitely not from an actual uneducated idiot. 

“Look, you don’t have to take them,” Hans snapped. “Unlike you I can have these things replaced. Easily. Besides,” he sniffed, if only to show Henry how it was really done. “Plenty of other supposedly priceless heirlooms of hers have gone missing. I’m sure dear old granny dear won’t mind one more.”

He once lost a diamond necklace of hers playing craps. He swore off moonshine after that.

For now. 

“You rich shits have more money than any damn sense,” Henry said, shaking his head. “Fine. I’ll take ‘em. But hands where I can see ‘em. And be quick about it.”

“Thank Jesus and all the saints,” Hans sighed gratefully. Immediately he let his hands fall, shaking them until that tingling, stabbing feeling rushed through them. He winced in pain. “Fuck, I hate that feeling.”

“I said be quick,” Henry hissed.

“I’d like to see you try and do anything while your hands feel like a thousand needles are stabbing them from the inside, you impatient bastard.”

“Hm.”

With all of the grace he could possibly muster, Hans managed to get the cufflinks unfastened and safely deposited into Henry’s outreached hand. The barbarian shoved them into his pocket. 

“Pleasure doin’ business with ya,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans, and Hans realized his golden cuff links were likely now drenched in fucking pocket sweat. 

Whatever. At least Hans could roll up his sleeves now.

“Can I offer you anything else, your highness? Tea? Coffee?” he snarked, crossing his now mostly bare arms and leaning against the door frame.

“Just yer life savings and the deed to yer house, ‘preciate it,” Henry said. He did not demand that Hans return his hands to the sky, but that revolver of his never left from where it was poised.

“You don’t want that, trust me.”

“Wait, don’ tell me,” Henry said with an extra layer of drawl that wasn’t there before. The cheeky shit had a sense of humor, apparently. “‘Nother thing ya can replace?”

Hans rolled his eyes. “No, unfortunately. Trust me, the thing is so musty you can’t walk two feet without breathing in more dust than in church on Ash Wednesday. You’d think competent help would be easier to find these days.”

Henry raised a pointed eyebrow. “Help?”

“Well, sure.” Hans shrugged. “Someone has to maintain the upkeep on that miserable place, its more cloth-draped furniture and spiders than manor at this point.”

“Shame, that.”

“Don’t get me started.”

“I wasn’t.”

“It’s just, fifty rooms? I might as well live in a graveyard.”

“I’ll just settle for what ya got there in yer cabin if it gets ya to shut up,” Henry said. 

“Oh…it’s mostly just clothes and books on me, I’m afraid. You might as well leave the books,” he said pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s not like you can read.”

Henry’s eyebrows pinched together, a crease running deep between them. “Beggin’ yer pardon but I can read just fine.”

“You’re pardoned,” Hans said, making Henry scoff. “Well then, don’t leave me in suspense. What kind of literature do they have out here? Mother Goose?”

Henry’s eyebrows furrowed. “Erm, usually them dime novels, when I can afford ‘em. What?” he asked at Hans’ scoff. “Somethin’ wrong with that?”

“No, no,” Hans smirked. “Please, do tell me more about these timeless classics.”

“Git outta here! We got other types of books.”

Hans raised a single eyebrow, sharply. “Like?”

Henry straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest, as if what he was about to say justified a large amount of merit. “Just last week I read that newfangled book y’all out East been talkin’ ‘bout. The one with the wizard.”

It did not justify merit. 

“You’ve got to be joking!” Hans gaped in disbelief. “You mean to tell me you’re just now getting around to that escapist drivel by Baum? That book came out almost ten years ago!”

Henry looked confused. “But the man at the general store—”

“Was pulling your leg! God, you’re almost as dumb as that—” Hans waved his hand, “—tin man, or whoever.”

“Scarecrow.”

“Same difference, idiotic all around.”

“Well, Mr. Smartypants, whadya got that’s so much better?”

“Real classics, dear Henry.” Hans spread his hands, happy to finally be able to illustrate his points properly. “Dickens, Tolstoy, Machiavelli. Even some poetry.” He scoffed and looked down the aisle, trying to assess if any of the uncultured miscreants holding them captive were even worth this discussion. Probably not. “Though I suppose a genius like Whitman would be lost on the likes of you.”

A tragedy, really, to have the most glorious set of words put to page be completely incomprehensible to their subject matter. It would be useless to try and dumb it down for them, like trying to explain arithmetic to an ant. What use do insects have for numbers? What use do cowboys have for the complexities of longing so deeply for something you can’t name nor fathom?

None. They’re all too busy shoveling manure and robbing trains, apparently. 

And being uncharacteristically quiet?

Hans may not know the man, but in the short time they had had together, Henry had not missed an opportunity to be a curt asshole. For him to go quiet now, well…

It was certainly strange. Disconcerting, at the very least. Maybe he had died prematurely from the sheer force of the literary talent that was awaiting him in Hans’ cabin. He chanced a glance back at his new friend. 

He wasn’t far off. 

Henry’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates, eyebrows raised so high they were lost under the brim of his hat. What little skin Hans could see had gone pale, whiter than those dust-covered sheets back home. He was staring. Just staring. 

“What the hell is wrong with you? Did you finally choke on your bullshit?” Hans asked.

The question seemed to snap Henry out of whatever deathly specter had overtaken him, and all of the blood that should have been coloring his face localized itself entirely in the tips of his ears.

“W-Whitman?” he sputtered. 

Oh, well now that was a surprise. 

“You know Whitman?” Hans asked, though all he got was a squeak in response. “Praise be to Jesus Christ, there is some hope for you after all. I expect you’ve read his Calamus cluster then, obviously.”

It was amazing really, to watch in real time as the red in Henry’s ears violently traveled downward, coloring his face in crimson splotches rising from the edge of his bandana, over the bridge of his nose, clear through to his forehead. 

Then, equally as amazing, Hans watched a full grown man double over in agony from choking on his own spit. 

His great, wheezing hacks drew the attention of the rest of the cabin, as if Hans hadn’t been gawked at enough on this godforsaken day. 

“What? What are you doing?” Hans snapped. 

“Calamus?” Henry wheezed out between coughs. “Are you outta yer mind?”

“No, but I’m starting to suspect you are.”

Henry straightened up and looked up and down the aisle, trying to catch his breath. He looked sheepish, as did the hand that waved in dismissal at the onlookers. He only received a couple of eyerolls in response.

“Here?” Henry hissed quietly.

“What are you talking about? Of course here!” Hans pointed over his shoulder back towards the luggage rack where his book had been safely stowed, but Henry’s eyes never left his face. 

“Now?”

He—

Hans was beginning to get the impression that he and Henry might have been talking about entirely different things.

But having no other answer, he replied: “Never a bad time for reading.”

Henry sucked air through his teeth and started looking Hans up and down. His face was still blotchy and red, but his eyes were focused, taking in Hans as if trying to redefine everything about him.

“Son of a gun…” Henry said with—and Hans might be really losing it now—a touch of appreciation. Admiration? He took a step forwards into Hans’ personal space.“I didn’ take ya fer that kinda guy.”

Hans didn’t back away. “I’m… full of surprises.”

“Yeah,” Henry murmured, staring at Hans’ forearms with more interest than was maybe warranted. He flicked his eyes back up to Hans’ face, eyelashes lowered as his gaze eventually fell firmly and totally on his mouth. 

“Uh…good. That’s…good?”

“Yer a funny guy, Mr. Capon.”

Henry’s husky drawl had nearly dropped an octave.

It was necessary, essential, imperative that Henry said his name. 

“Hans.”

Henry’s eyes crinkled at the corners. 

“Hans.” 

He said it long and slow, letting it linger on his tongue, behind his teeth. Yeah, okay, fine, it was definitely growing on Hans. 

“'Fraid we got off on the wrong foot. Ya should've just said somethin’ from the beginnin’. Really had me going there.” 

Hans sputtered. “What else was I supposed to say to a man holding me at gun point? ‘Hello, pleased to meet you, would you like to discuss the finer point of poetry?’”

Henry laughed and tilted his head. “Better than trying to rile me up like that. Gotta say, didn’t think a dandy like you would be interested in folk like me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, cowboy,” Hans said dismissively. He took his finger from where it was safely at his side and sent it behind enemy lines. It dragged along the waving edge of Henry’s bandana and flicked the tip, easy as you please. It was an impulsive gesture that happened faster than he had the right mind to think about—and more dangerous than he could have predicted. Henry’s eyes went darker than he had yet seen them. “Your lot doesn’t have a sparkling reputation in academic circles.”

Hans tucked his hand back to where it had been crossed against his chest, though he didn’t feel much safer with the way Henry was looking at him now. His gaze was intense—too intense, in fact. It made goosebumps rise on Hans’ forearms and down the back of his neck where a cold sweat had broken out. 

That might have been the most shocking thing of all, to feel coolness where heat had been oppressive on the outside and had begun to eat away at him from the inside, though Hans couldn’t pinpoint when.

“Good thing we ain’t talkin’ ‘bout no education then, right?”

Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhh.

Hans understood now. God, he had been such a fool. He was still unclear on how poetry, of all things, got him to this point, but he wasn’t going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. The rest was clear as day. They had been talking about different things, and with the way Henry had been acting and was looking at him now…

Hans was finally being offered that glorious, glorious fight he had always dreamed of.

Thank God Almighty. 

“Offer’s on the table,” Hans said, letting his voice drop to match Henry’s. “Take me outside and I’ll make sure an education is the last thing you’ll think about.”

Henry hummed in response, tilted his head, gaze fixed on Hans’ mouth again. Hans prayed he would split his lip open, make it swell. “Got somewhere better in mind, if’n you’ll have me.”

“Oh, I’ll have you,” Hans said, adrenaline sparkling in his veins. “You have no idea how much I’ll have you.”

“Fuck,” Hans heard Henry whisper under his breath. “Alright, just…” 

Before Hans could realize what was happening, Henry’s hand pressed firmly on his shoulder and slammed him into his door frame. He raised his gun back up from where it had long fallen slack. Hans’ heart picked up, jackrabbit quick, breathless from the impact and from something else entirely. 

“Follow my lead.”

Hans could barely find his voice. “What—?”

“I’ve had enough outta you!” Henry yelled, voice ringing through the entire car. “Žižka!”

Žižka? What was that, Polish?

“What?” snapped the boss man, or ‘Žižka,’ Hans supposed. He could see over Henry’s shoulder that this whole train robbing business was slower than he thought. They had barely made it halfway down the line and were currently trying to shake awake the snoring man who impossibly managed to cling to sleep. 

“This one’s givin’ me trouble. I’m takin’ him to the engine.”

“Thank fuck!” said the man with sandpaper in his throat gleefully from where he had started kicking sleeping beauty, to no avail. “Just lookin’ at him’s been pissing me off. Fuck him up.”

God, Hans hoped so. 

Žižka waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll knock when we’re done. You remember the protocol.” He looked straight at Hans. “No hard feelings, but you’re going to wish you had cooperated when we take all your worldly possessions.”

Hans didn’t care. 

Hans didn’t care. 

He’d give up all he owned and then some. He’d give up the world for this feeling, this precipice of something he had no name for. He knew with a certainty in his fucking bones that it was everything he had longed for. What he had yearned for. 

Henry shoved him, and Hans snapped his attention to eyebrows raised, obvious in their message.

Play along. 

“You vagabonds with rue the day—”

“Rue? Really?” Henry whispered. 

“—you decided to mess with Hans Capon!”

There was a collective murmur that ran through the train, gasps and whispers of recognition. Hans smirked at Henry and gave the most pointed sniff of his life. The grip on his shoulder tightened. 

“Well,” Henry drawled, “whaddya know. Looks like you ain’t completely full of shit.” He leaned closer, enough that the fabric of his bandana ran a course along the edge of Hans’ ear. “City boy.”

Fuck. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. 

“Hurry up,” Hans hissed around the lump that had lodged itself in his throat. Something had to give, and fast, or Hans was going to rip himself apart trying to satisfy the itch that had now become fiery and intolerable from the goddamn drawl. “Hurry up or I swear to God I’ll—”

“Quiet!” Žižka commanded, and the masses listened. He stared piercingly at Hans, frowning so deep it may well have reached his toes. He stalked forward, steps punctuated by the jingle of his spurs, until he stood behind Henry, one thumb looped behind his belt and gun held loose by his side. 

Hans wasn’t a threat. Bastard.

“I don’t care if you’re a fucking Vanderbilt,” Žižka threatened. “Names mean nothing to us ‘cow fuckers’, Mr. Capon.”

Henry snorted and Hans wanted to kick him. 

Play along.

“Get him out of here, Henry. I’m done talking to children.” 

Hans could handle a lot. Years of living under the pressures of expectation had hardened him into diamond hard enough to cut through words that would bring weaker men to their knees. He had trained his smile to be easy, practiced. Unflappable. 

But there was nothing, nothing, he hated more than being called a child.

Hans pushed forward, twisting himself to get out of Henry’s hold. Henry, however, grabbed Hans’ wrist and wrenched it behind his back with a twist of his hand, sending a spark of pain through Hans’ shoulder. He shivered, feeling the first hint of blessed relief of that damn itch, but the rose-colored tint in his eyes had turned crimson, rage real and frothing.

Whitman was wrong. There was nothing redeemable about the West. It was a hell on earth full of too much dirt and too many cowboys who needed to be put in their fucking place.

He sent a sharp kick backward that bore hard into the bone of Henry’s shin, making them both stumble and Henry hiss between his teeth. “Let me go!” 

“Quit squirmin’,” Henry swore into the back of Hans’ neck.

“Let me go,” Hans snarled and thrashed in Henry’s hold. “I’ll show you. I’ll show all of you who you’re messing with.”

There was the click and rustle of a gun being holstered, then Hans’ other hand was brought round to meet its twin. Henry’s grip was surely hard enough to leave red marks in the shape of his fingers. He yanked Hans back until they were back to chest, both breathing heavily. 

“What do you think I am? Some kind of fucking yo-yo?” Hans yelled, offended. “Unhand me!”

“Damn yer good at makin’ a scene,” Henry grunted, voice tight with effort. “Save some of that screamin’ fer me later though, darlin’.”

Hans sputtered, cheeks aflame as Henry kicked his legs to hobble him like a horse to the door at the front of the car. “How dare you! How fucking dare you!” Hans was going to beat him, black and blue and back to black and then blue again until he was nothing more than a smudge in the dirt. He would turn the rocks red with his blood—the only streak of color in this godforsaken place. “You motherfucker!”

Henry slammed his nose into the door, making Hans’ eyes water and sting. “Maybe if that's where you get yer looks from—” Hans threw his body back with his full strength, forcing the two of them back several steps and making Henry grunt. He had to catch his own momentum and shove Hans back forward into the door with a loud thump. “God damn yer strong.”

Hans’ breath was so heavy it hurt. “Forget outside! I’ll take you here and now!”

Henry shushed him loudly. “For fuck’s sake, ya want the whole world to hear? Don’t seem to me yer one of them, fuck whats the word, ‘boy ear’ types.”

“What the fuck is a ‘boy ear?’”

“Us, if you don’t stop and trust me,” Henry said, reaching around Hans to undo the latch. Be good an’ I’ll give ya what ya want.”

The door heaved open under their weight and Hans used every ounce of grace God had seen fit to give him to catch the two of them before they lost their balance and fell off the open gangway several feet down to the train tracks below. Hans stared down at wooden slats, and even though the train was stationary he felt as though the world was still moving beneath him. Dizzy from the heat, blinking in the sun, he had no idea how they were supposed to get down. 

“Where the fuck are we going?” Hans asked, looking wildly around for steps down, or a ladder, or something that meant anything other than jumping. 

…Unless Henry meant to truly send them into the engine room. He had assumed it was an excuse, but Henry let one of his hands go to shut the door behind them. Hans heard a rustle of fabric and felt a warm hand press into the back of his head, shoving him forwards towards the windowless, solid steel door in front of them. 

Hans was slammed into that too, and by god it was hot. The metal burned against Hans’ cheek, a puff of air burned against Hans’ ear.

“I told ya,” Henry murmured. He slid his arm down from the back of Hans’ head to his shoulder, to his shirt, his forearm, his wrist, and finally onto the handle. “I got a better place in mind.”

The door opened. 

There was a stranger Hans was trying to forget. 

It had been hot that night back home, everything slow and sticky like molasses, running down his arm in rivulets from where his sweaty glass had been raised in a toast at the local bachelor’s club. He couldn’t remember what it was for or who had started it, but an earlier fight with his uncle had settled another bone deep itch under Hans’ skin and the too-long speech was keeping him from his brandy-colored liquid calamine lotion. The air was thick, heavy, and sultry. Choking him alive.

The air in the engine room was choking him alive. It hurt to breathe, each gulp of air grating and coarse, stinging his nose hairs and burning this throat.

The brandy had burned down his throat. His taste buds had turned numb and the room had become hazy, caramel-flavored as the aftertaste in the back of his mouth. He was at the bar for a refill when he met the stranger he was trying to forget. His eyes were the color of whisky and crinkled in an easy grin that promised an opportunity, a chance to satisfy a yearning, long held and secretly pressed between the pages of Calamus. A hand placed itself on top of his own, and Hans smiled.

Hans frowned as he blinked the last of the sunlight out of his eyes. There was a furnace in front of him, a monstrous machine with dials and gauges for eyes. Its mouth was huge and filled with still burning coals that glowed bright and angry. It was the only source of light in the otherwise dark room. 

In the dark, drunk and giddy, they had laughed when they closed the closet door behind them. A coat smacked Hans in the face and he realized with sobering clarity that the walls were much closer than he had thought—but then a hand unclasped his belt, and Hans didn’t think much more at all.

When Hans invested in trains, he was going to make sure the engines were put into rooms bigger than this. Christ, he could feel the walls collapsing in on him. 

The world had collapsed under him when a letter had come in the mail demanding money in exchange for silence. With the reputation of Capon Bank on the line, Uncle Hanush paid. He demanded Hans go west to repay the debt in spite of the lies Hans pleaded, desperate, through his teeth. It was a threefold betrayal: an uncle who didn’t trust his word, a stranger who had used his body, and a poet who had promised something more to his heart. 

His heart lurched when he was unceremoniously pulled backwards, back slamming into the door behind him. 

And Henry kissed him. 

And Hans couldn’t breathe.

And Hans couldn’t breathe and Hans couldn’t breathe and Hans couldn’t—

He wrenched his head back with a gasp, banging it on the door and sending a metallic thump throughout the room. The impact stung, making him gasp again, and the too-quick succession of breath turned his vision dizzy. 

“Easy.”

Hans sagged against the door when the breath that had been holding him upright left him in a great rush. 

“Y’alright there?”

What an asinine question. Of course he was alright. There was nothing wrong with him. Whatever… whatever that was had been momentary. He just needed…

“Just need a second,” he said, winded, small. Fuck.

A hand pressed warmly onto his hip, thumb rubbing soothingly back and forth. Hans timed his breath to its path. 

“Should’a asked first…” Henry mumbled. 

Hans scowled, which made it decidedly harder to breathe for a second. He yanked a finger under his tie and loosened it. That made things infinitely better, air finally flowing deep into his lungs. “You think?” he asked when he felt he had his faculties together enough to make it sound properly pointed. 

“Just the way you were goin’ on, what with all the havin’ me and whatnot… I thought…”

Ah. 

Yes, alright. 

In hindsight, he could see how there might have been a misunderstanding. That wasn’t his fault though, he had been talking to a person with less than half a face whom he had only met not half an hour prior, how was he supposed to know that Henry had wanted to punch his mouth in an entirely different way? 

Hans sighed and opened his eyes. 

Seeing Henry’s full face was like putting on his reading glasses at night when the light was dim and his eyes were tired, blurry information becoming clear. He had been right about some things, like the sparse line of hair above his lip that bloomed into a patchwork of stubble across his entire face. Otherwise, he had been quite wrong. 

Henry was handsome, in a sad, wet dog kind of way. His face was too worn for his age, eye bags dark, and a permanent miasma of dirt radiated off him. A shower and a shave would go a long way into making him a proper show dog, but his pupils were wide and his lips were slightly swollen from where they had most recently been on Hans’. Hans was starting to find he didn’t much care for Best In Show anyways. 

“You thought…?” Hans asked mindlessly, eyes traveling across the blush-pink panes of Henry’s face. There was sweat beading under the brim of his hat and down his neck, shining in the dip of his collarbone. 

The light played in those beads when Henry swallowed. “Reckon I thought we were on the same page.”

Hans snorted. “No, Henry, I reckon we weren’t.”

But maybe they could be. God, maybe they could be. 

It felt insane, considering the last time something like this happened it blew up in his face so spectacularly.

But sometimes a bad day is just a bad day, and he had forgiven his beloved Whitman eventually so…

Fortune favors the brave and all that, and right now the brave wanted to lick that collarbone so badly—

Henry jerked back and put a step between them before Hans could properly follow through. “Mary’s tits, I’m sorry—I—fuck, were ya speakin’ ‘bout Calamus for real? I don’t know anyone who’s actually read it—”

There wasn’t a rug in this room, per se, but proverbially, Hans just landed flat on his ass. 

“What do you mean you haven’t read it?”

“Shoulda known you people actually read it—” Henry barreled forward, pacing and removing his hat to scrub a hand through his unkempt hair before swiping it back from where it had been plastered to his forehead. It was wet and the strands were sticking together in waves that Henry broke apart with nervous fingers. 

Hans could still feel where those fingers had been wrapped around his wrists, the warm thumb that lingered on his hip. 

He wanted them back.

“You know what? I don’t care,” he said, half crazed. “Come here, I—”

“Probably got some other fancy code, like—” Henry waved his hat in the air, “—argh, I dunno, ‘let’s tip hats together’ or somethin’—”

“Henry for the love of God, come here—”

“God, please don’t tell the sheriff, he’s still mad at me ‘bout that time with the chicken—”

“Henry!” Hans grabbed him by the collar, pulling him back close. Henry caught himself with one hand on the door next to Hans’ ear, the other still clutching his hat like a lifeline. “Shut up! God help me but you are irritating.”

Henry looked bereft. “I—”

“Absolutely not! No talking! You’ve lost your talking privileges.” He shook Henry a bit, because he could. “You’re going to listen to me. Can you do that? Do you even know how to keep your mouth shut? I’m starting to think you have a condition. No! Stop looking like that, Henry, I’m not angry!”

Hans was right, it must have been a condition, because even now Henry’s mouth was wide open, gaping like a fish. “Yer… not?” he asked. 

Hans reached down and let his fingers brush against Henry’s, felt them shake—the same ones that had held that gun so steady, now trembling when they need not. He took the hat and placed it gently back on Henry’s head. 

“No, I’m not.”

Hans punctuated the statement by giving a flick to the brim of the hat.

Henry’s eyes lit up like stars.

“Though,” he continued, hand falling back to Henry’s collar, “I do have some standards, cowboy. I’m not going fornicate with someone so uneducated. You understand.”

"Fornicate,” Henry snorted, an inelegant and charming sound. 

Hans was feeling too magnanimous to dignify that with a response, especially not when Henry’s hand returned to its rightful place on his hip. Instead, inevitably, he slid his fingers down to the top button of Henry’s shirt and released it from its hold. 

“Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,
Without one thing, all will be useless; I give you fair warning.”

With each stanza, he undid another button, and another, until finally his patience ran out and he ripped the final two, sending them pinging to the floor where they landed loud as a gunshot. 

“Before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.”

Henry was all hair and skin and sweat and strength. Barrel chested and his midsection stout, there was a thin layer of padding that indented slightly where his belt was fastened.

Hans’ mouth went dry from more than just the air. 

He pressed his hand to Henry’s stomach, skin haloing around each of his finger tips. If he placed his hand just so—

There.

“Who is he that would become my follower?”

Muscle, hard as steel.

“Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?’”

They flexed in a wave that rose to meet his palm and rolled down, breaking under his buckle.

“Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you—”

Henry’s pants were tented, his breath loud and uneven.

“With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss.”

“Pretty words ya got there,” he said, voice strained but gaze bright. “Where—” Henry took a second to breathe, to swallow. “Where’re they from?”

Hans looked up from Henry’s abs, grabbed the damp back of his neck.

“Calamus,” he whispered, and pulled him in. 

It wasn’t quite what he imagined.

There were no stars, for one, no crackling fire or soft whinny of horses. They were wildly off rhythm, one opening their mouth when the other closed it, trying to correct but then veering off-center. 

But damn it was good. 

Then Henry growled in frustration, tangled his hand into the back of Hans’ hair, tilted Hans where he wanted him, and then it got really good. 

Which was strange.

Hans liked kissing well enough but found it all rather tediously perfunctory. He was generally more interested in establishing his aptitude as a lover than enjoying the actual act itself. A peck here, a nip there, a pliant body melting in his arms—the rush of competency did more for him than the slick glide of tongues. 

There wasn’t a name for what was happening to him now, like his great unnameable something. It was the feeling of desert sunlight sparkling in his veins, of cigar smoke in his lungs, of watching a wingless horsefly squirm and knowing, if only for that moment, he had been its god. 

It was a shared madness. Hans pressed in as far as he dare and Henry met him at every turn, just as eager, and just when Hans thought they might eat each other alive, Henry’s hat pressed awkwardly into his forehead and knocked itself askew. 

“Sorry,” Henry said, not breaking away, not for a second, reaching up to remove it. 

“No,” Hans whined between kisses. “Leave it on.”

Henry laughed, a deep rumbling thing that started in his chest and rose into the upturned corners of his mouth, and soon he was smiling so wide it was impossible to keep kissing him. His hat stayed on.

Hans leaned back, annoyed, cheeks flaming. “What?”

“The cowboy thing really does it for ya, huh?” Henry teased. 

Yes. It did. 

“No.”

Henry’s aggravating smirk proved that he didn’t believe Hans for a second. He started laughing again, but had also started kissing his way down Hans’ neck, so Hans forgave him, because it felt nice, and he was nice.

“I just don’ see the appeal,” he said, lips brushing on Hans’ pulse point and making his toes curl. “‘Spend most of my day smellin’ of horse shit.”

“You do,” Hans said, once he remembered how to talk around the mark Henry was currently sucking into his skin. "And—ah—sweat.”

“Yer not exactly fresh as a daisy yerself.”

Hans’ tongue felt too big for his mouth. “Nonsense.”

“Like a musky train cabin, and cigarettes, and—” Henry buried his face into the collar of Han’s shirt, “—fuck—stale cologne.”

“Stale cologne?” Hans laughed, “The way you’re going on, you’d think my pheromones were made of nectar.” 

Henry licked a hot trail up to the spot behind Han’s ear, breathed him in and moaned gratefully. “Yeah,” he exhaled. 

Hans’ cock filled so quickly that he thought he might faint.

“Shit—”

“Damn, the things you say,” Henry murmured into the shell of Han’s ear, licked into it, which made Hans stand on his toes in some pathetic, primordial reflex. “Wish I knew pretty words like you.” 

Hans was a little out of his depth here. A fumbling hand job in a closet does not an expert of loving other males make. But, well, he knew how to make women scream, surely it can’t be all that different. 

So he ran his hand back up Henry’s side, dark hair catching on his fingerprints, up and up to circle gently around a nipple, felt it pebble under his touch. Henry moaned, a deep filthy thing that echoed in the small room, and Hans felt ten thousand feet tall. 

“I don’t know,” Hans said, lazily pinching it between his fingers. “You sound pretty enough to me.”

Henry bit down hard on his ear lobe in retaliation and the sting drove Han’s hips forward so violently it knocked them briefly off balance. 

“Whoaaaaa…”

Henry said it calm and easy, voice dropping as he let the syllable linger in the air around them. A hand on Hans’ hip righted them both, a steadying thigh placed between Hans’ own. The low timbre of his voice raised goosebumps on the back of Hans’ neck and made the hairs on his forearm stand tall. 

God in heaven, he really did have a thing for cowboys. 

The way he said it too, fuck, it reminded Hans of days spent outside, sunshine warming his face; the smell of the wind that carried the scent of trees and grass and living things; the crunch of dirt under his shoes; the steam that rises from a horses’ flank in the early morning light; the feel of their hair under his fingertips when they needed to be calm. The—

Wait a fucking minute

“Hold on! Are you joking?” Hans scowled, blowing hair off his forehead from where it had fallen. “Did you really just speak to me like I’m a spooked fucking horse—ah!” Hans choked on air, but it was impossible to tell if it was from rage or from Henry pressing his thigh up. 

He pushed at Henry’s shoulders. “Get the hell off of me! You can go choke on your hat for all I care! I’m a bank heir not a goddamn barn animal!”

“Nah,” Henry smirked, “yer not confusin’ anyone, what with how small yer pride and joy is—”

“What?”

“In comparison!” Henry laughed. “Y’aint got no horse cock now, do ya? Sides, looks to me like yer the one doin’ the ridin’ here.”

Henry’s eyes were staring down, hazy, entranced by whatever they were looking at. Hans followed their path and, in horror, watched his hips grind down in unconscious, small circles.

“Traitor,” Hans whispered at his dick, but did nothing to stop it.

“Real Judas.” Henry hummed in agreement from where he had moved to start smattering kisses on Hans' cheek. He slid his hands to his waist, paused there, then moved one hand to the small of Hans' back while the other… 

Hans’ brain was starting to go fuzzy again, the friction on his cock starting to take over his higher brain function. Especially when Henry sucked on the underside of his jaw. 

“I’m going to break you—hah—you have no idea.”

“S’alright,” Henry shushed him. “Let me make it up to you, darlin’.”

Henry’s hands came together on Hans’ ass, palming it and humming gratefully at what he found there. His fingers dug into the ironed fabric of Hans’ pants and ran gently up and down the seam in a secret tease of something more. 

“Heaven take me, been thinkin’ ‘bout this ass of yer’s since I pinned ya to the door.”

Hans rolled his eyes, but brought one of his thighs up to rest on Henry’s hip to give him more access anyway. “If this is your idea of ‘makin’ it up’ to me then you’d better—”

A gasp ripped itself from his throat as Henry pulled him closer, his cock sliding against the rough texture of Henry’s jeans to meet him where he was just as hard, just as hot. Hans could feel it through denim and linen and the infernal atmosphere pressing down on them. 

Henry kissed him wet and slow there, where hardly an inch lay between them. He ground his hips forward to rub their erections together, once, then tilted his thigh to let gravity drag Hans back down to his knee.

Then he pulled him up close again. 

And again. 

And again. 

“Couldn’t believe my lucky stars,” Henry murmured. “Opened that door and thought God saw fit to send me one of his angels. Most beautiful damn thing I ever did see. ”

Hans’ eyes fluttered shut and rolled to the back of his head—whether from exasperation or pleasure, he didn’t know. “Henry…”

“All big and handsome without any dirt under yer finger nails.”

“Would you be serious? Get back to the kissing,” he demanded, leaning forward, but Henry dodged him and Hans’ lips met the scrape of his cheek. The fucker. 

“Cross my heart ’m as serious as they come,” he said, looking at Hans with wonder. Wonder, of all things. Hans knew he was worth looking at, but like this? “Could stare at yer eyes all day. Blue as the sky, sparklin’ just fer me.”

The flush on Hans’ face must surely be all over his body by now, which would have been more embarrassing if Henry’s thigh hadn’t felt so damn good. 

“I’ll show you sparkling—”

“Teeth all pearly like the gates of Heaven with the devil’s own forked tongue whisperin’ the sweetest thing I ever did hear. ‘Nough to drive a righteous fella to sin.”

“God preserve me!” Hans whined. “Don’t tell me you’re a talker!”

“‘Fraid so.” Henry laughed, sounding entirely to unapologetic. He kept them rocking at a steady pace, not giving Hans an inch when his neen’t had any complaints.”

Hans groaned. “I should have known. Consider this your first.” Luckily for Henry, Hans prided himself on giving nothing but excellent, constructive feedback. “Shut up.”

There was an off-tempo beat in Henry’s movement, an inhale not quite complete. His hands gripped Hans so hard he could imagine the red indents that would be left there, secret from everyone, including himself. 

“Goddamn, yer such a brat. Don’t know how to close yer mouth. Used to gettin’ everythin’ ya want. Prolly ain’t worked a day in yer life.” Hans got a pinch on his ass for his trouble, but then, amazingly, a hand placed itself tenderly at his nape. “But—God help me if it ain’t enough to make a man think marryin’ thoughts.”

It was said sincerely, so sincerely, and Hans’ eyes snapped open in shock to look into Henry’s.

And he saw— 

Love-buds, put before you and within you,
whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms;

And he couldn’t bear to look a second longer.

Hans surged forwards, wrapping his arms around Henry’s shoulders, planting his leg back down and using the momentum to snap his hips forwards in a hard roll that made Henry gasp. He ducked his head under Henry’s hat, against his neck, until they were plastered together all along their fronts. He could swear he could feel the sweat from Henry’s chest set a stain in the front of his waistcoat to match the one on the back. 

At times in a man’s life he finds himself at a crossroads. On one side, the quick and easy path of letting his brain go quiet long enough to come spectacularly in a train car in the hands of a cowboy. On the other, the slightly longer path of getting the final word in before coming spectacularly in a train car in the hands of a cowboy.

As in most things, Hans’ mouth made the choice for him. In this he simply would not be outdone. If Henry liked his golden tongue, then by God Hans was going to use it. 

“Keep your ring,” he said between breaths. He could feel Henry’s heartbeat pulse against his lips, feather soft and fast as a hummingbird. “You can’t afford me or—or my stallion.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Henry threw his head back and guffawed so loudly Hans would have felt insulted if not for the glistening miles of skin now available to him.

“Awful! I—”

A long, slow lick up the side of Henry’s neck, Hans found, was an effective way of making him choke on air. 

“What? Not pretty enough for you?” Hans teased—or well, wheezed, really. Hard to keep one’s dignity when one was trying to get their rocks off. Henry didn’t seem to mind though, if the way he tilted his head further back to give Hans more access was any indication. The fact that his hat was still on his head could only be due to the Lord’s influence, at this point. 

He panted hotly where neck and shoulder joined, listening to the little breathless noises coming from the back of Henry’s throat. “You’ve got expensive taste, cowboy. Do you save all your money for the high end whores in town? Deny yourself for so long because you’d rather have something pretty, covered in gold or nothing at all?”

“Hans—”

This close, their cocks rubbed together with every movement of their hips, and Henry was abandoning the slow pace in favor of chasing his own pleasure.

“Look at you, greedy thing,” Hans crooned into his ear.

“Hah—ye—yeah”

“I bet they can’t treat you as well as I do. Don’t know the words to make you melt in the palm of their hands.”

Because he did. He did. 

Had known them for years, not knowing it was all leading up to this impossible moment. 

He leaned forward and breathed into Henry’s ear, “Not heat flames up and consumes, Not sea-waves hurry in and out.” 

The hands on Hans’ ass gripped him so hard he almost lifted off the floor. “Fuck—”

“Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer.”

Whatever rhythm Henry had set them on was now abandoned in favor of pistoning his hips against Hans’, hard and fast, his stubble scratching where they were still joined cheek to cheek and god the itch. Hans hadn’t thought about it since they entered the room.

It was that thought that had Hans grinning slowly like an imbecile, the flat of his teeth pressed against Henry’s ear as relief coursed through him. The damn smile didn’t break, not even when a sloppy thrust managed to slide just right against Hans’ strained cock. His loud moan was more laughter than anything; its echoing vibrations filled the room and filled Hans’ dick near fit to bursting. 

“That’s it Henry—hah—keep going. Keep going—”

He was so close already, already, but—

Damn, if only their pants weren’t still in the way. 

He wants to see Henry. Is desperate for it. Wonders if his dick would be as pretty as his eyes or as pink as his lips. Even just the thought of it sent a sharp thrill through him— of how he could take them both in hand and watch their cocks glide together without any barrier in the way, how good it would feel. 

But the thought of stopping was even worse. He couldn’t, not when he had this panting, writhing mess under his thumb, right where he’d wanted him all along, coming apart from nothing but Hans’ touch, his voice. 

Fuck, if that wasn’t hot. The hottest damn thing. 

He’s so close—

“Capon—” Henry whined, snapping Hans back from the brink. “More.”

Hans, historically, had never been one to deny himself his own pleasure in favor of his partner’s. Hadn’t left any high and dry, mind you, he had some standards, but the delay of his own self-gratification seemed as pointless as the kissing he had previously thought to be a waste of time. 

There was no other option now. There just wasn’t. He was going to make Henry come untouched from just the sound of his voice alone and it was going to be better than anything in the world. 

Hans bit him for good measure, hard and deep enough to brand. 

“Ask nicely.”

Henry choked on air. “You motherfucker—”

Hans bit again. “Ask. Nicely.”

“Please! Damn you! Goddamn!”

And again, a nip on the ear lobe. “Not these—O none of these, more than the flames of me.”

”Yesssss—ah—”

On the hinge of his jaw. “Consuming.”

“Shi— hah— fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“Burning.”

“AH—”

For his love whom I love.

The last words of the verse stuck heavy in his throat as Henry gave one, two more hard thrusts and shattered to pieces. 

Holy shit—Hans could feel the force of it through every point where they were connected, could feel Henry’s pounding heartbeat in his ribs, his groan through his teeth, his cock throb with his orgasm through his own. 

Hans was a god. 

“Good?” he purred.

Henry took another second to catch his breath, then peeled himself slowly away. His skin stuck to the front of Hans’ waistcoat and was flushed red. There were indentations where Hans’ buttons had dug deep enough. None of this, none of it, mattered more than the dark stain in the front of his jeans. 

Except—

The matching, far smaller but no less stark, stain on the front of Hans’ own. 

That came from Henry. 

Hans was a changed man. He wasn’t coming back from this, didn’t want to anyways. The sight before him would be seared into his memory for the rest of his days, playing behind his eyelids every damn second of every damn day. A filthy lullaby that would sing its siren song for him whenever he so much as thought of touching himself. Of sleeping with anyone else. 

What a day it had been. 

This whole…situation, he supposed, was really nothing like he had dreamed it to be. But when Hans lifted his gaze and saw the look in Henry’s eyes—

Oh, no, actually, it was like he imagined it. There were the stars.

Brighter than the Milky Way and twinkling, twinkling, twinkling. For Hans.

No one had ever— he had never—

“C’mere, city boy.”

Hans had spent a significant portion of his day being manhandled, but it still came as a shock when Henry grabbed him by the shoulders and deposited him on the bench running along the adjacent side of the engine room. It seemed to him that Henry was not at all interested in letting Hans have a moment to think about all of the new discoveries he was making about himself today. 

Which was fine by Hans. There were far more important things to think about in life than one’s own emotions. Booze, women. 

Henry. 

Henry. 

Henry, who was currently kissing Hans again within an inch of his life. 

It was a little awkward though. Hans had been plopped down at an angle that made his back arch and dug his shoulders into the wall behind him. His ass was halfway off the seat and one foot was planted almost straight out in front of him to keep him from sliding all the way onto the floor. A crick was forming in his neck from where he had to tilt his head to meet Henry, who was leaning over him. 

But the kissing was good. Hans was really quite in favor of that. So the crick in his neck could stay. 

Henry was relentless, licking into Hans mouth as though he meant to map its entirety and doing things with his tongue that made Hans desperate to finally get some friction on his now long neglected cock, which had not flagged even in the slightest. 

He reached his arms around Henry’s back and tried to leverage himself up. Or Henry down. He wasn’t picky at this point. 

Before he could put any weight behind his actions, however, Henry drew his mouth away slowly, so as to make Hans chase after his lips like a fool. An idiot. An utter madman. 

What had he been reduced to?

“Henry—?”

“If’n we were anywhere else,” Henry started, the rasp in his voice overtaking his drawl, “someplace quiet, someplace private.” There was a soft clink of metal as he undid Hans’ belt. “I‘d make you watch while I got myself nice an’ open. Sink on you, all nice an’ easy-like.”

He reached behind and tucked his fingers into the waistband of Hans’ slacks, starting to pull them down slowly. The fucker let his fingernails scratch along the curve of Hans’ ass, making Hans’ stomach drop from the pleasure and the realization that if he could feel that—

It meant his drawers were being taken down too, all in one fell swoop, holy shit. 

“I‘d show you how to ride proper.”

“Fuck—”

“Not like y’all in the city—”

A kiss was placed behind Hans’ ear as Henry slid his pants down, and down, and down until the edge was past his cock, which burst forth and slapped Hans on the stomach because mother of Jesus he was so hard.

Henry’s attention snapped to it and he exhaled a moan. Hans could swear he heard a “damn pretty” mumbled from under his breath. He licked his lips, let Hans’ pants fall the rest of the way down to his ankles, and trailed one finger lightly from base to tip. 

“—all stiff —"

The head of Hans’ cock was so red it could fit amongst the coals still glowing in the furnace. Probably just as hot too, and when Henry’s finger reached the top, a drop of early seed leaked out and ran down the side, like Henry had coaxed it out with just his touch alone. 

“—‘n straight.”

Hans could barely hear past the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, but there was a low noise made in the back of Henry’s throat when he took his other hand to palm at himself, somehow, already, half-hard again. 

Hans was liable to pass out at this point. In fact he might. Maybe he would even die. He could see it, headlines everywhere: ”Heir of Capon Bank found dead in a train in the middle of nowhere from the worst case of blue balls this world has ever seen!”

He almost cried in relief when Henry got down to his knees in front of him.

“Oh shit—” Hans let out a hiss when Henry finally took him fully in hand. The touch, all encompassing but gentle, so gentle, was almost painful from how hard he was. Henry’s thumb ran slowly up and down the vein running along the length of him, giving an appreciative hum when Hans gasped at the sensation. 

“I‘d take you loose, roll my hips fast and hard. Make ya forget all ‘bout yer damn name and legacy, and when I finally get ya nice ‘n close…” He started a loose and slow pump with his fist. Hans’ eyelids fluttered closed, the tease of it nowhere close to what he actually needed at the moment. 

Henry, the bastard, stopped. 

“Look at me,” he said. 

“Move, damn you!” Hans begged. Begged, of all things.

Henry squeezed his cock once, the act painful. “Look. At. Me.”

Damn him. God damn him, it seemed Hans had met his match at making demands in bed. But the way he had said it… Jesus save him, Hans could do nothing but look. 

Henry had a smirk on his face so wide it made the corners of his eyes crinkle. 

“I‘d make ya scream my name with no one but Heaven to hear.” He leaned forward to lick away the dripping mess leaking out of the tip of Hans’ cock. 

And Hans moaned. 

So loud. 

“Henry—God—”

The cowboy fuckface had the gall to shush him, breath lightly caressing the spot Henry had just had his tongue on a second ago. It was the only cooling thing Hans had felt all afternoon. 

“I know, I know, darlin’,” Henry said, and the bastard seemed genuinely apologetic about it too. “But yer gonna have to be quiet fer me right now. Can ya do that?”

Hans most certainly could not.

“I don’t, I’m—shit—” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I’m not—”

He was shushed again. He watched, dazed, as Henry reached around and pulled out that godforsaken bandana out of his back pocket. The thing probably reeked of sweat now, was probably soaked through too, and—

—was shoved into Hans’ mouth. 

God, yeah, it did taste awful, and smelled worse, but Hans’ dick jumped anyways, the traitorous thing. 

Hans maybe did understand now Henry’s fixation about scent.

Maybe. 

It was a good idea, anyways, and earned Hans a “That’s a good boy” for his troubles, so in his mouth it stayed. 

Wait, good boy?

No, absolutely not. Fuck that. Hans Capon was many things but a “good boy” he was not! Especially in this context. With the best scowl he could muster, he took the leg not supporting any weight and kicked at Henry as hard as he could, cursing him through the disgusting fabric currently lodged between his teeth.

Henry caught him by the thigh, tutted, and pinned Hans’ leg back to the bench, spreading him wide and open and—

Hans truly did not think it could get any hotter, but now there was warm, sweet pressure around his cock for a blissful, wonderful second. Enough to make Hans let out the dreamiest sigh he’d ever heard himself make, God help him, and melt into the seat. 

The damn cowboy was right, he was no longer an heir or even really a man anymore. He was just a sweaty pile of melted skin and bone that was meant for nothing more than pleasure. Hans could spend an eternity here, feeling Henry do lazy swirls of his tongue on the head of his dick, listening to the popping sound of his lips as he came off the tip and started licking stripes from the bottom of his shaft and back to the top. He felt him do it again and again until that delicious pressure was back, and Henry put in the work of bobbing and sucking properly. 

Hans was really glad about the bandana now. He didn’t think he could keep quiet even if he wanted to. 

And he really didn’t want to. 

Every exhale was a muffled moan, or sigh, or groan that he hadn’t thought himself capable of since the first time he ever properly bedded someone. Christ, that meant he sounded properly virginal, but Henry was making the same noises too. It was nearly romantic, the two of them discovering this new form of hedonism—

Henry did something with his tongue that made Hans’ eyes roll to the back of his head and black out for a second. 

Shit. The asshole had to have done this before. 

Hans took in as much air as he could, heaving gulps that barely made it into his lungs through the fabric barrier. It was just enough to keep him sane though, enough to keep him on this side of the mortal coil and realize that he had an experienced man sucking his dick and he wasn’t watching. 

He wanted to see. He wanted to learn. 

Upon looking down, however, he was greeted with nothing more than the top of a cowboy hat sliding back and forth, back and forth. 

He snorted, then remembered he had hands. A miracle he remembered anything at all. 

He took one and rubbed his thumb gently along the felt. Rough, likely from long days in the sun and dirt, just the way Hans longed to be. He felt the edge of the brim, the stitches starting to loosen and tear, before tucking that thumb underneath, cradling the top, and gently tipping it back, as one might care for a baby or fine china. Something precious indeed. 

The sight that greeted him was beyond anything he had ever seen. Henry’s lips were red and pulled tight along the length of him, their motion not stopping for even a second. His face was flushed, as though he hadn’t had the good sense to breathe in a long while nor had the desire to anyway. Long lashes fanned against his blushing cheek bones. Sweat rolled down the side of his neck and into his chest hair, sparkling like a perverse dew in the morning. 

And in a trance, like watching himself from a hundred feet above the earth, Hans took his other hand and goddamn caressed the pointed tip of Henry’s ear. 

It made Henry groan something fierce, a rumbling vibration that shot through Hans’ dick and licked all the way up and down his spine. Hans’ head whipped itself back of its own volition, thumping painfully into the wall behind him.

His ears were filled with the rushing waves of his own heartbeat, but distantly he thought he heard the clinking sound of a belt opening. Then Henry was moaning again, more this time, and fuck it was so good, it was so good, it was so good. 

He looked down again, and fuck he had heard a belt clink. Henry had taken himself in hand and was stripping at his own cock. And he was looking at Hans, eyes hazy and black. 

Henry was going to come again. Hans was going to make this man come twice and shit, he knew he was good but he didn’t know he was that good, and that did things to his ego that—

He was incandescent, Henry’s mouth heating him up from the inside enough to glow. The force of his orgasm must have lit up the whole damn car, the whole damn desert. 

A light bulb in the night, a shooting star across the sky. 

The bandana muffled him well. 

Henry swallowed him down, not a drop escaping, and didn’t release Hans until he was slumped down, well and truly empty. 

Once he deemed it satisfactory, Henry ripped himself off with a gasp and kept furiously jerking himself off. He pressed his sweaty forehead into the meat of Hans’ thigh, but kept looking up at him through his eyelashes and under the brim of the hat Hans had never let go. 

Hans was sated and lax, the world taking on a dreamy hue in his periphery. He took the bandana out of his mouth with his free hand and said—

“Henry.”

—and he must have said it some type of way, because the next second Henry came right there all over the engine room floor. 

For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of their uneven breaths and the creaks and groans of metal breathing along with them in the sunlight. 

Hans was sure his ass was permanently welded to the seat under him. He dreaded having to peel his skin away from it—so he wouldn’t. It was fine, he never wanted to move again anyway. Here was a fine place to die, all things considered. 

The company was fine too, he supposed.

Henry was still panting into his leg, but his eyes were bright and his mouth was pulled up in a lazy, self-satisfied smile that Hans matched with a scowl. 

“Well. Goddamn,” Henry said with all of the grace of a smug cat.

Hans immediately wanted to go back to the part where he believed they were about to punch each other in the face. “Don’t you start.”

Henry laughed. “Wha? Little ol’ me? Naaaah.”

He tucked himself away before Hans had really gotten the chance to get a good look at him, muttering something to himself about chafing. This also pissed Hans off, so much so that it made his nose wrinkle.  

“I‘m gonna take that look as a ringin’ endorsement,” Henry snorted, slapping his thighs as he bounced on his heels to stand himself up. He stretched his arms above his head, shirt and belt buckle still open. “Ya need help there, darlin’?”

“I rather think I can take care of myself, thank you,” Hans replied. And he would. Just as soon as his legs started working again. 

Henry had the gall to look fond. Again. “Bristle all ya want, tomcat, but I got what I came for.”

"Oh, did you?” Hans asked with mirth sneaking into his voice. “I suppose if your goal was a load full of come down your throat then you’ve certainly succeeded.”

“Well now, I’d call that a pleasant bonus.” Henry winked. Winked. 

Hans grimaced. “That’s disgusting—”

“A whole heap of rich man’s money,” he cracked his neck and rolled his shoulder under one hand, “plus a little somethin’ extra for the road.”

Henry reached behind him to pull something out of his pocket. Hans thought it rather a moot point to show off the gold cufflinks again, but no, those had been in Henry’s front pocket. In his back pocket—

Hans’ pocket watch. Now dangling lazily from its long chain between Henry’s fingers. 

“When—? How—?” Hans sputtered, flustered and mouth agape. “Give that back this instant!”

He made a grab for it, but his movements were clumsy and slow in the wake of—he hated to admit it—one of the best orgasms he had ever had in his life. Henry easily lifted the watch out of reach and leaned down to Hans’ eye level. 

“‘Fraid not. Though I’ll tell ya what. Why don’ I give ya one of them squids ya gave me earlier?”

Hans stamped his foot. “It's called a quid pro quo and my heirloom pocket watch is not up for negotiation you right fucking cunt—agh!”

His head was forced down, and when he looked back up again he could see nothing but the felt underside of the stale, worn in cowboy hat that had been placed unceremoniously upon his own head. 

“You can keep it, seein’ as how you liked it so much.” Hans tipped the hat back with the pad of his thumb and looked at Henry, aglow in the light of the coals, standing easy as you please. “‘Sides, with all the money I’m ‘bout to pawn it for I can buy myself a better one.”

And before Hans could say one another word, Henry leaned forward and murmured in his ear—

“Pleasure doin’ business, city boy.”

—then kissed Hans wetly on the cheek with a resounding smack. 

Hans could only stare, stunned, as Henry opened the door of the car and walked out, having done nothing to hide the evidence of their tryst and positively reeking. 

“Henry! What—”

The door slammed shut.

And it was there, with a cowboy hat on his head and his pants around his ankles, that Hans had the slow, sinking suspicion that his great, unknowable something—

Had been named Henry all along.