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The moonlight made its way through the wooden slats that held up the small window, as if it were trying to escape the world outside and seek shelter inside the tavern.
The light painted a delicate pattern across the old wooden table. Slowly, Henry raised his hand, reaching for the rays. Perhaps, he thought, they might be warm like the sun. But the moment the light touched his skin, he was overcome by the same cold that already filled the room. Disappointed, he watched the silver glow slip through his fingers, unable to hold on to it, unable to keep the moon from sinking beyond the horizon.
He didn’t want the quiet night to end.
The alcohol must have numbed his senses. Perhaps, that was why the noices of the tavern bothered him so little. For such a small village in the middle of nowhere, the place was remarkably alive, as if the villagers had somehow known that Henry had come looking for silence and all decided to deny him the courtesy. Still, the fizzy liquid in his mug did what he had asked it for. It softened the world around him and within him. The familiar tightness in his chest loosened its grip, and the knot somewhere deep in his stomach seemed to forget why it had been tied there in the first place. His heart stopped longing for warmth, for the company of a certain someone whom he knew he could never have.
Henry sat alone at a small wooden table by the window, one bench beneath him and another standing empty across, as if it waited for someone to still come and take the seat. He liked it that way. The empty bench gave his loneliness somewhere to sit.
The table itself reeked of old ale, soaked deep into the wood by Henry and countless strangers before him. Every spilled drink had left a mark behind, a trace of someone who had once sat where he sat now. People coming and going, laughing and crying, raising their mugs and emptying them, and eventually vanishing into lives no one here thought was worth remembering. Women and Men whose names had long since beeing forgotten, whose faces had faded from memory. Only the stains remained. The wood had swallowed them all, stain by stain, until there was no telling where one person's mess ended and another's began.
Perhaps that is the cruelest thing about being human, Henry thought.
To spend a lifetime believing that everything you do matters, only to become indistinguishable from every other human beeing. To choose comfort over courage, familiarity over the unknown, until your life begins to resemble the lives of those who came before you. Until, in the end, you were nothing more than another nameless beeing in an endless chain, living a life that could have belonged to anyone else.
Unless, of course, you did something worth remembering.
Henrys mind grew quiet, and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying beneath soft covers, surrounded by a familiar scent, one he could directly tell who it must belong to, showing him that the bed he was lying in wasn't his own.
Hans Capon sat on the floor before the fire, Mutt resting his spotted head on his leg, one of Hans hands between the dog's floppy ears.
When Hans noticed the rustling of the sheets behind him, he would rise and make his way over to Henry, repeating the same words he seemed to say every morning after nights like this, when Henry could only remember what must have happened because of the headache and the alcohol in his breath helping his memories.
»This can't keep happening.«
»I was worried.«
»Me, searching for you in the middle of the night. Where were you?«
»I care.«
But Henry knew Hans could never care for him in the way he yearned for, his words only tightening the knot in his stomach. He knew, that the only way to quiet his restless heart was to drown it.
And so, as the days passed and the seasons changed, Henry kept doing what he had always done. And for a while, nothing changed.
It was another quiet evening, the sun long gone behind the wooden roofs of yet another village Hans had been sent to for some mission.
And Henry followed him like a lovesick fool.
Like a loyal dog.
Like Mutt, always at his heels.
Henry had truly tried to stop with the drinking. Tried to stop sneaking out of whatever camp or room Hans happened to be sleeping in whenever the tightness in his chest became too much to bear. He couldn't even remember where they were staying tonight.
But as the day came to an end, the men sat around the fire, sharing bread and cheese bought from a local trader. And then later, when Hans ans Henry hat retreated to their beds to welcome the quiet of the night, Henry found himself with one hand pressed against his aching chest, as though he could force the pressure back down with his palm. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
So, when he sneaked out, careful not to wake the sleeping Lord, he had no other choice but to stumble into the next tavern that came into his sight.
After countless refills he paid for with groschen he hadn't even known he owned, a man dressed entirely in black lowered himself onto the bench opposite of their now shared table, occupying the place Henry had left waiting for no one.
Henry hadn't noticed the man until he spoke.
»All alone again?«, the man said in a deep voice, seeming even quiter because of the beard covering his face.
»Hmmh«, Henry couldn't answer with more than hum. He didn't bother looking up.
»Funny.«
»Hm?«
The man gave a nod in his direction. »You are.«
That made Henry lift his eyes from the cup.
The stranger was watching him. There was something abnormal about his face, though Henry couldn't say what. Perhaps it was the darkness of his eyes, paired with his black clothes and hair, or the way the light of the torches seemed to avoid him. He almost appeared invisible in the dim light.
»What?«, Henry let out a small laugh, or something similar. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed. »I don't know you.«
»No,« the stranger said. »You don't.«
Henry frowned and reached for his mug, the ale now loosening his tounge. What was the man even talking about? Henry didn't know what to make of him.
»Then leave me alone.«
But the man didn't move. »It seems like you spend a lot of time asking people to do exactly that.«
»What do you want from me?« Henry's fingers tightened around the cup.
»Nothing.« The stranger shrugged.
»Then why are you here?«
For a moment, the man seemed to stare straight into his soul, Henry suddendly feeling naked beneath his gaze.
»I was wondering when you would finally start to feel tired, y'know.«
Henry stared at him. Who was this man? What did he want from him? All these questions, and yet the longer the stranger continued, the more Henry wanted to hear what the man had to say. So he played His game.
»Tired of what exactly?«
»Running.«
The word settled between them, leaving a uncomfortable silence behind.
»What? I'm not running.«
»No?«
»No.«
»Then why are you sitting here? Drinking your head off in some random tavern for the hundredth time when you could be fast asleep?«
Henry looked down at the ale in his hand. He didn't know what to say.
»You follow him everywhere, you know?«
For the first time, something in the man's expression changed. Not quite a smile. Something gentler. Something almost pitying.
»And yet you spend every night trying to escape him. That's a strange way of loving someone«
Henry's mouth went dry. He clenched his hand into a fist, his fingernails digging into his flesh.
»I've never seen you before. I don't know who you are, yet you sit here acting as if you've got me all figured out. You don't know anything about me.«
»Perhaps not.« The man reached for Henrys mug, taking it out of his grip and emptying the ale in one go.
»But I know what it looks like when someone wants something they are too afraid to ask for, and I know what it looks like when someone is so afraid of becoming himself that he would rather become no one at all. Why fear the life after death, when you've never had the courage to truly live the one you were given?«
The tavern suddenly seemed unusually quiet. Henry stared at the man before him, a stranger who should have felt entirely unfamiliar, yet somehow seemed to know him better than anyone ever had.
The man smiled faintly, reaching for Henrys hand over the table.
»So tell me, Henry. How long are you planning to keep doing this?«
And then, the door to the tavern swung open, Hans entered and made his way through the bustle toward Henry’s table, his blond hair plastered to his sweaty forehead.
Henry couldn't tear his gaze away from the glowing figure.
Hans had found him. Once again.
»There you are! I've been searching for you the whole night. Jesus, you can't keep doing this, I've been worried sick! I thought we talked about this.« Hans said when he reached him, and Henry suddendly felt a warmth coming from Hans Body, his words slipping like honey down into his heart. But he couldn't answer him, his earlier eagerness to speak had vanished, as if the alcohol were only now taking effect of his beeing.
Hans placed one Hand on Henrys shoulder, trying to keep him from falling off the bench, while he took the empty cup from Henry. Henry hadn't even realised he was still holding onto it.
The blonde man pulled Henry up to his feet by his shoulders.
»Come on. Lets get you out of here. I think I really should start considering tying you to me.«
»M-wait!« Henry tried to say, but the words barely made it past his lips, nothing more than a quiet mumble. On unsteady legs, he turned toward the spot where the stranger had been sitting. »What's your name?« Only then Henry noticed that there was no man, no stranger dressed in dark clothes.
The man was long gone, vanished into the thick air of the tavern as if he had never existed. And Henry didn't even asked him his name.
Henry's eyes darted across the small room, searching the crowded place, but the dark haired stranger was nowhere to be seen. His gaze wandered aimlessly until it finally came to rest on Hans's nervous face.
Why was he nervous?
He tried to place one hand on Hans' flushed cheek, his fingers trembling and his head spinning from the ale, so it took him a few tries.
»Henry...? You didn't forget my name, did you? How much did you drink again?«
Hans let out a small sound that might could have been a laugh.
Henry's hand, still resting against his cheek, now tried to catch the sound between his fingers. To keep it safe, somewhere close to his heart, where it probably would work better than the ale ever could.
The most beautiful laugh he had ever heard, Henry thought.
»Lets get you to bed, shall we?« Hans whispered towards Henry's ear, his warm breath brushing softly through his hair.
The blonde man wrapped an arm around Henry's tired body, steadying him as he guided them out of the tavern.
The words of the stranger spooked in his mind. Maybe one day, Henry thought, he would be brave enough to live his own life. To become the person he had always been, somewhere deep inside, without the fear of being seen for who he truly was. Without having to drown his feelings in bitter ale, sitting alone in some stinking tavern, pretending that the numbness was enough to lock the yearning in the darkest place of his heart.
Maybe, one day, he would finally find the courage to stop hiding from himself. Because, after all, the choice had always been his.