Chapter 7
Hans doesn’t really care who’s order exactly is it to throw him in the cell. Probably Lieutenant Muller, but he’s not sure. He’s still blinded with rage when he and whoever convoys him here reach their destination, and he doesn’t really pay attention to his surroundings. It’s awfully dark here, and he trips over the threshold once he’s being tossed into the cell. His hands are still slippery from blood, which not just drips but gushes out of his nose, and he scratches the stony floor, as his hands try to get a grip on something to keep balance.
Pain shoots through his hands, but he doesn’t utter a sound. He freezes in that position, crouching on the floor, grasping at the damp wall with one hand and leaning on the floor with the other. He feels a warm streak of blood rolling down his forehead and he can’t remember when exactly he hit his head. Was it during the fight or after? Or did it happen just now, when he got thrown in here? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t try to analyze it either: everything is so fuzzy before his eyes that he doesn’t really acknowledge things anyway.
“What do I do with him next?” he hears a rough voice behind him, and he suspects it belongs to the person who brought him here.
He just stiffens and tries to move as little as possible. Maybe if he doesn’t draw too much attention, he’ll be left alone. Everything hurts so much his entire body feels like a huge lump of pulsating cells. He can’t handle any punishments right now, he’ll just clock out for good.
“Would be nice to knock some sense into him, I reckon,” now, that’s Lieutenant Muller for sure. This time Hans recognises the voice immediately. Knock some sense into him, he says. He throws a cornered look behind his shoulder and measures the man with a contemptuous look.
“If General von Purple Beurer was here, you wouldn’t be so smug,” he spits out furiously. A sharp hit in the jaw comes the next moment, and he doesn’t feel the pain for another few seconds, breathing hoarsely and penetrating Lieutenant Muller with a bloodshot gaze. That man can hit him as much as he likes, he’ll pay for every drop of blood Hans feels rolling down his chin now. He remembers that day he met General von Purple Beurer for the first time, and he remembers darn well how Lieutenant Muller was practically dancing around him just to keep him satisfied.
“You little shit, I can kill you here and now, if I want to,” Lieutenant Muller hisses, stepping towards him, but Hans doesn’t flinch away, raising his head proudly.
“Why don’t you fucking try,” he mutters, wiping the blood from his lip that stings the more he talks. Probably got split in two when he was punched just now. “I’d like to see you touch anything that belongs to The Blackberry.”
Silence.
They just stare at each other, and Hans takes that long-long moment to fully understand what he just said. The realization is horrifying, but he doesn’t let it show, bravely looking back at Lieutenant Muller from under his eyebrows.
A second passes. Two seconds. Three. He’s going to be either killed or left alone now. He bets all of it on The Blackberry’s name, he uses it as a shield, and he doesn’t even know if he’s allowed to do so. Probably not. It’s too late to change anything now.
A gust of wind rolls across the cell and he hears the door slamming behind him and the key turning in the lock with a loud clicking sound.
His hands tremble from exhaustion, and he has to lean on the wall with his entire body in order to not collapse completely. It’s not the first time he was threatened in this garrison. Only this time he actually had a reason to not lower his sight, he had a reason to not apologize, to dare that man to do what he so often threatens to do.
He doesn’t move for a few more minutes after that, trying to stabilize his breathing, because something in his chest prickles with every inhale. Hans slowly raises his hand and carefully touches his cheekbone. It stings under his touch, and he flinches his hand away, but he manages to feel a sharp cut across his cheekbone, like it’s been split in two. Not ‘like’. It fucking is split in two, he feels the stinging burn across his face exactly where his fingers just touched it.
The burning feeling all over his face sobers him up a little, and he slowly inspects his face by touch. By the end his fingers are sticky with blood, and he wipes them on his shirt, which is a torn mess anyway. What just happened. He got into a fight in the middle of the cafeteria, and then he was thrown in here, he was threatened by a lieutenant, and he threatened him back. With The Blackberry’s name.
Well. There he has it. Now he’s officially dead.
His back gives him a sharp twinge, and he almost gasps, because that first jolt of pain is breath-catching. Of course his back would do that. Of-fucking-course. He’s useless in combat, right? At least, that’s what that stupid document on Herr Muller’s desk was saying. He slumps on the icy surface of the wall, ignoring the way his shirt immediately gets damp and sticks to his body, and stops fidgeting entirely, his chest heaving quietly being the only movement he’s allowing himself.
He just has to wait a little bit. Maybe the pain goes away if he sits still. Sometimes it does. Either that, or the painkillers. Or Herr von Purple Beurer’s magical touch, of course, but that’s not an option anymore, right?
The corner of his mouth twitches into a dark smirk when he imagines how Herr von Purple Beurer would react if he saw him right now - somewhere deep in the garrison cellars, slumped against a wall so damp his shirt is soaking through, his face a battered, bloody mess, and one eye so swollen and bruised he can barely see through it. He was supposed to be the “beautiful boy”, if he remembers correctly.
He suddenly wants to go to Herr von Purple Beurer’s office immediately after his release. He doesn’t care that last time it took him thirty minutes to gather the courage and actually walk into that room. He would do it this time, just for the sake of the great Hanns von Purple Beurer seeing him like that.
Because everything is so perfect in that man’s world, right? So easy. A dinner in the fanciest restaurant of the city? Please. Sex all night long, without any worries about consent? Enjoy. A random passerby looked at him the wrong way? The execution is tomorrow.
He would probably show Hans the door, if he dared walk into that office looking like that.
Hans shifts on the cold floor slightly, because his position starts to feel uncomfortable, and everything, every fucking inch of his body responds to that movement with sharp ache. He doesn’t even wince. The darkness seems to consume not just hope but also time, and he doesn’t really know if it’s been a few hours or a few days. He simply doesn’t care.
He hears sharp steps behind the door echoing across the hallway, and he flinches, because he thinks he recognises them. Those steps. Nobody else walks that way. He doesn’t let himself believe that it’s actually Hanns. Why would he be here. He’s just dreaming or something. Maybe he underestimated that moment when he got his head smashed against the floor, and he actually got himself a concussion. This doesn’t feel real.
The key is being turned in the lock sharply, making hundreds of shivers run down Hans’ back. No. No, no, no. Can’t be possible. He cowers against the wall, his hands squeezed into fists so tightly he feels his fingernails dig into the skin, and he stares at the figure storming into the cell so forcefully the door gets slammed against the wall.
Him. It’s him.
For a few seconds he can’t really tell what he sees in Herr von Purple Beurer’s eyes. It looks like all-consuming fury at first, and then their eyes meet, and that flame that is raging in the man’s eyes disperses completely. Hans is still so numb with fear he only presses harder into the wall, not sure what’s going to happen next.
He just knows that if Herr von Purple Beurer decides to give him some other punishment besides this cell, he’ll take it without a word. He waits for it. He knows it’s coming.
“I’m here just to let you out.”
His heart goes still, and at this point he practically reads Herr von Purple Beurer’s lips, because blood throbs in his ears so loudly he can’t really tell what’s going on. He’s being asked something. Persuaded. He hears Herr von Purple Beurer’s - Hanns’ - voice dropping from a ringing “Listen to me” into a rustling “Can I come closer?”, and that’s the question that pulls Hans out of that stiff fog he’s been in for the past few minutes.
General von Purple Beurer just asked him if he could come closer. Asked him, even though he could’ve just done it. He could do anything he wants to, Hans knows that very well. He chooses not to. He chooses to ask. And to wait for Hans to actually figure his mind out.
He nods sharply, of course, of course Herr von Purple Beurer can come closer, Hans longs him to do so. Hans is starved for his touch, and deep-deep down he still tries to fight that dirty little voice that says that Herr von Purple Beurer will never want to be anywhere near him again, looking like that, covered in sweat and dirt from the damp walls of the cell, with his face probably so swollen at that point he can’t even open his eyes properly-
The man approaches him immediately after Hans nods. No hesitation. No disgust. Hans sees none of that, no matter how hard he searches for it in Herr von Purple Beurer’s eyes. Their fingers entwine, he feels the gentleness with which Herr von Purple Beurer lifts their tightly locked fingers up, whispering to him that this, this right here - it can last. If Hans lets it last.
And Hans… agrees. He agrees to everything, he’s completely lost in the man’s hands, he stops resisting and allows The Blackberry to brush the entire world away. Are they still in the cell? Had they already left? If they did, where did they go? Blackberry’s office, or straight to the bedroom? Hans doesn’t know and he doesn’t really care. He would go to the end of the world with this man if he was required to.
It does look like a bedroom - the chamber they end up in, and Hans catches Herr von Purple Beurer’s wary gaze on himself as he puts his hand on the doorknob, attempting to close the door behind them. His eyes probably give out his inner fears, even though Hans does everything in his power to shove them as far away as possible from his mind, and he doesn’t find it in himself to respond when Herr von Purple Beurer asks him if he feels okay, with the door being closed.
He doesn’t know. He wants to be. He knows he’s difficult, but he really can’t help it.
“Okay. Okay, sweetheart, sh-h-h,” Herr von Purple Beurer leaves the door as it is, half-opened, and hurries towards him, sliding his hands around Hans’ waist and dragging him closer. Hans takes another frantic inhale - so hoarse and loud it doesn’t even sound like breathing anymore. He straight-up chokes, and he can no longer pretend he’s fine.
“It’s okay. I’m not touching that door if you don’t want me to,” Herr von Purple Beurer promises, while Hans hides his face somewhere on his broad shoulder and tries to stop those suffocating noises that bubble in his throat. He clenches his fists furiously, pressing them against Herr von Purple Beurer’s chest, and he breathes - in and out, in and out. That’s all there’s left for him to do.
“Ja, exactly, sweetheart, you’re doing so good,” Herr von Purple Beurer hums into his ear, and Hans hears a slight smile in his voice. “It’s okay. It’s nothing. I’ll make them hold open every single door in this building, if that makes you feel better.” Hans feels the man’s hold of him becoming weaker - or he thinks that it does, he can’t tell at that point - and he grasps at Herr von Purple Beurer’s jacket tighter. “Oh- I’m not letting go,” he hears a hasty whisper, and this time the hold around his waist definitely becomes tighter. “Breathe, sweetheart. You have all the time in the world, I’m not letting go.”
He does exactly that. In and out. At some point he feels Herr von Purple Beurer’s heart thumping under his palms, and he just inhales and exhales in the same rhythm. It’s hard at first, and he has to practically shove every gasp of air down to his lungs. He just knows if he doesn’t do at least that, he might collapse, and he can’t have that. Back in that cell he promised to trust Herr von Purple Beurer, and he will.
He takes a deep inhale, then he breathes out, and he earns a kiss being pressed on top of his head.
“Sweetheart, it’s alright,” Herr von Purple Beurer says quietly, his fingers slipping into Hans’ blonde locks. “I know it must be hard - to trust someone like me. And with people constantly talking behind my back, - I get it. I heard those stories, I sound like a fucking animal in them. Only half of them is true, Hans,” he adds, and this time Hans definitely hears joking tones in his voice. What is it with this man? He just doesn’t let things get to him, does he?
Hans raises his sight on him and gives him a weak smile - not even a smile, a hint of it, just to let Herr von Purple Beurer know that he gets it too.
And then he gently wrestles out of his hold, approaches the door and closes it quietly behind them. There. He did it. It’s his decision, not The Blackberry’s. For whatever reason this makes it so much easier for him, and he takes a few more seconds to rub his thumb against the polished doorknob, as if making sure this is real.
“The beautiful boy better not get too smug about this, I can still do whatever the hell I like,” he hears Herr von Purple Beurer’s voice now ringing with laughter, and he can’t help but smile as well. The smile turns into a frown the moment Blackberry’s words get to his brain.
“Not so beautiful anymore, am I, General von Purple Beurer,” he whispers bitterly, and his face responds with a sharp sting across his cheek. For a moment, silence lingers in the room, deafening and heavy, and then Hans hears flying steps cross the room. The next moment Herr von Purple Beurer’s strong hands wrap him into a hug.
“Don’t,” he feels a whisper brush against his cheek - the one that is not sliced in two because he was stupid enough to start a fight in the middle of the dining room - along with a hasty kiss on his temple. “Don’t. Pretty boy heard me? Do. Not.” Hans catches those words one by one in between the breathless kisses, which are scattered wherever Hanns can reach, apparently. With all this haste, the man still does a darn good job at not upsetting any of Hans’ wounds.
“Come on. Let me patch you up,” he is being led to the couch, and Herr von Purple Beurer doesn’t let go of him until he’s comfortably seated on the cushions, almost not believing this is happening for real. Too much luxury for one little him. Too much luxury for a single room, for that matter. How does General von Purple Beurer even live with all this?
His sight trails shiny vases and chiselled figurines - Hans is not sure if it's crystal, but it looks very expensive. He notices a double bed at the back of the room - a room so large that it would be enough for twenty cadet "box-rooms". God, he is practically drowning in the soft pillows himself, barely feeling his own body. It’s so unusual to feel so comfortable for the first time in his life, without his body tensing from constant pain.
Herr von Purple Beurer rummages through the pharmacy supplies on one of the shelves, and Hans seizes the opportunity to slowly reach for a small statue on the coffee table by the couch. Is it glass or crystal? He can’t tell, but it’s so tiny and beautiful that he finds himself admiring it for what feels like several minutes. Rays of sunlight filter through the window, falling on his hands, and the figurine glimmers in his fingers, catching every shade of colour.
“Okay,” Herr von Purple Beurer walks away from that shelf with a bandage and a few bottles in his hand, and Hans flinches, just now realising he took that thing without permission.
“Oh god,” he whispers, for whatever reason just gripping harder at that damn figurine in his hands instead of putting it back where it was. “I’m- I’m so sorry, I just wanted to- to look closer, I don’t generally- do that…”
Herr von Purple Beurer furrows, and it looks like he doesn’t understand Hans at all for a moment. Then his eyes trail down to Hans’ hands, and a flicker of understanding dawns in them. He sits on the couch next to Hans and gently takes Hans’ hand, leaving a casual kiss on his wrist, before proceeding to unscrew one of the antiseptic bottles.
“You can take whatever you want here, beautiful,” he says calmly, moistening a piece of cotton wool with a disinfectant. “I’m just going to have to ask you to put this down for a few minutes, for me to treat those pretty hands of yours, ja?”
Hans puts the shiny statuette on the pillow next to him and allows Herr von Purple Beurer to take his hands into his palms, slowly inspecting the bruises and the faint cracks in the skin, his touch gentle as he examines each small injury. Hanns presses the damn cloth against his knuckles, wiping the blood and dirt away, and Hans ignores the sharp stinging in his hands, as Hanns bandages his them.
“Okay, sweetheart, all done. You can take that shiny thing back if you want to,” Herr von Purple Beurer throws over his shoulder, as he rummages through the bottles on the coffee table again.
“What is it made of?” Hans takes the opportunity to ask, again observing the way the glassy surface flickers in his hands under the golden streams of sunlight.
“What?” Hanns asks absent-mindedly, looking up at him from the labels he's checking before pouring more disinfectant onto the cloth. “Oh- Beats me, to be honest. We were at this auction of some sort, me and Adolf had this bet... I honestly couldn’t care less for that thingy, but he started raising the bids, and I just couldn’t fall behind, so I placed the highest one,” he shrugs, his focus still on preparing the supplies, while Hans just stares at that tiny little statuette in his hands, trying to wrap his mind around what he just heard.
“When you say ‘Adolf’, you mean… Chancellor Hitler?”
“Oh, ja, ja,” Hanns says, still looking like it is the most normal thing. He reaches for Hans’ face and cups his cheek with his palm, making him turn his face to the sunlight. “Look up, sweetheart… Now, this is going to sting, but don’t move,” he warns and slowly presses the cloth to Hans’ wound, wiping the dirt off. “Alri-i-ight,” he drawls, when Hans stoically ignores the sharp stinging in his jaw. “Lovely, lovely boy… I guess I’ll just clean that cut and leave it to dry for a bit. If you just don’t touch it for a while, it’ll heal on its own. Or you want me to plaster it? How fidgety are you, usually?”
“I won’t touch it,” Hans promises, and he receives an approving look from Hanns, who gathers all the supplies and takes them back to their shelf. The next thing that happens makes Hans’ heart go still, because he stands up too - out of pure habit of not being allowed to sit when a higher rank is standing as well as because his legs feel stiff, and the crystal statuette he put next to him on the couch slips down from the puffy pillows. Hans doesn’t even have the time to react, when it’s already scattered on the floor in a thousand just as shiny pieces.
He watches them tumble all over the floor, rolling under the coffee table, one particularly big piece is already somewhere by the door, and Hans is just… there. Here it is, that reaction of his. Freezing on the spot. He should probably start picking up those things, instead of just standing there, unable to move, just staring under his feet.
His heart is already pumping in his throat, as if ready to jump out at any moment, and breath catches in his throat when he tries to say something. This was expensive. And beautiful. From some auction, where apparently, Chancellor Hitler was himself. And he just broke it.
Hanns turns sharply at the sound of breaking glass, and Hans takes a sharp step away - almost involuntary, his body just does it on its own, and he forces himself to stop immediately. He has to say something right now, or he’ll get kicked out of this room for sure. He has to apologise.
“I’m so sorry-”
That’s not good enough. That thing was expensive. And beautiful.
“Oh god- I didn’t- I don’t fucking know how that even happened, Hanns, I am so, so sorry-”
An elusive sparkle shines in the man’s eyes, and he slowly steps towards Hans, not paying attention to the broken pieces that crunch under his feet. Hans watches him slowly cross the room, not looking at anything but Hans, and then when they are so close he can practically hear his breath, Hanns stops, their eyes just locking on each other.
“What did the pretty boy just call me?” he asks quietly, and Hans in his mind goes through all the words he just said, trying to figure out where else had he managed to fuck up. Hanns. Hanns. He actually dared to-
“Look at me,” Hanns demands quietly, his voice remaining as soft and soothing as ever. “Don’t- Don’t look away, sunshine, don’t do that, okay? I’m right here.”
Hans raises his eyes back on him, not sure what is happening. Is he mad at him or what? You can never tell with this man.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers once again, and Hanns lifts his hand, gliding the back of his palm against Hans’ cheek gently.
“Don’t be,” he says, and Hans just now realises he’s speaking so quietly because his voice is trembling. “Don’t be, beautiful. If that’s what it takes for you to call me by my name - you can break every stupid statuette I have here.”
Hans knows he’s not kidding when he sees that familiar fervent flame in his eyes. One day. One day he will be able to give this man all the same that he’s so generously gracing Hans with now. Once, when he is not broken, not numb with fear, he will make this man feel exactly the same way.
He promises himself that, and if a promise ever meant anything to him - it’s in this moment.