25. The comforting touch and smell of a loved one in your arms
Summary: A fucking tree branch takes out Jasper’s room in Heliodor Castle during a storm so Hennie shares his bed with Jasper for the night.
Word count: 754
Story under the cut!
The storm outside rages as another clap of thunder shakes the castle.
Hendrik sighs, dipping his head further into the parchment in front of him when another boom sounds off, only this one is different.
Hendrik has witnessed destruction before. Hell, he’d experienced the destruction of Zwaardsrust firsthand, after all. So when he hears the crumbling of rubble and the shouts of voices, he rises from his seat and marches into the hallway, uncaring that he is dressed in only his pink pajamas with a greatsword clasped in his hand.
Across the hallway, Jasper’s bedroom door is swung open. Jasper stands in the threshold drenched with rain, yelling at the guards who run toward him and into his bedroom. Hendrik approaches, beginning to glimpse the shattered window and hulking tree branch lying in the middle of the carpet.
“What fucking idiots build a castle that topples at the mere strike of lightning?” Jasper shouts as Hendrik finally draws up to him.
Ah, so it was not a monster at all. Hendrik sighs with relief, moving to sheathe his sword before realizing he doesn’t have a scabbard.
“Jasper, I must ask you to refrain from using such foul language,” Hendrik says, hoping his tone doesn’t betray the simmering fear still leaving his system.
“Or what, you’ll destroy my room? Oh wait, it’s already been turned to rubble in front of me.” Jasper turns to one of the guards surveying the damage. “You there. Prepare me a room, and a bath.”
“No can do, sire. All the rooms’re occupied by the Gallopolitan dignitaries—”
“Damn them!” Jasper cuts off with a scowl.
“Jasper,” Hendrik begins, reaching to rest a consoling hand on Jasper’s shoulder. “You are always welcome to my room, if that may serve you better.”
“Tch,” Jasper scoffs, yanking his shoulder away as another jolt of thunder sounds. “Fine, but only because I’ve been standing sopping wet long enough. Soldier! A bath!”
That night, against Hendrik’s initial expectations, Jasper shares the bed with him. Hendrik’s whole body is sore from the training he’d undergone earlier that day, body straining from the extra mental exhaustion of the storm and the things it’d destroyed. Though it has now dwindled to a gentle patter on the windowpanes, Hendrik’s body is restless.
He ought not to be uncomfortable in the presence of his fellow knight. They have shared more than a few rooms, and beds, in their youth. But something feels different this time.
Perhaps it is Hendrik’s memory being cruel to him, reminding him of that siege on Zwaardsrust that has left everlasting scars on his mind. But Hendrik does not want to be reminded of such things, so he busies himself with something else instead: Staring at Jasper in the dark.
Jasper lies on his side, faced away from him. His hair looks white under the moonlight, like a ray of sunshine parting through dark clouds.
When another low rumble travels through the castle, Hendrik heaves a heavy breath and squeezes his hands together.
“If you want to hold me so damn much, you could just say so,” Jasper grumbles, somehow coming off soft despite the tone.
“If you would allow me to…”
“Get on with it already.”
Hendrik shifts across the silk sheets and curls his arms around Jasper’s upper torso. Hendrik might have done so a little shakily — he’d tried not to show it, but he feels rather vulnerable at the moment. Not a good look for a knight, surely, but in Jasper’s company, Hendrik is not worried about such things.
Instead, Hendrik shifts to nudge his nose into Jasper’s hair.
Jasper smells like a home that Hendrik has never known.
Like bread, the sort Hendrik used to eat as a child, freshly baked from the Zwaardsrustian wheat mother used to grind into flour.
He smells like lavender and the special soap that he uses on his hair to keep it shiny and soft. His body is a little cold, but when Hendrik shifts a little and presses closer to him, nothing but warmth radiates from him.
Hendrik is secretly grateful for the lightning that shot through the sky and destroyed Japer’s room because it means he does not have to feel ashamed to seek his company, can even revel in the convenient excuse of sharing a bed with him because of the storm.
When Hendrik begins to fall asleep, his eyelids drooping, he swears Jasper holds his hands in his, gently squeezing the fingers and shifting to hold Hendrik’s arms against his body.
