Page 19 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)

“What do you want?” Gerhardt called across. “Besides us… Would you like… Is there some way you’ll let us pass safely?”

Deep silence, with a hint of humiliation.

“Fine. It doesn’t speak,” Gerhardt muttered.

“The meat,” said Hansel, splatting his cargo to the ground.

Gerhardt dropped with it, slapping a protective hand across the furry flank. “Don’t you dare.”

“It wants meat!”

“We’ll starve!”

The look in Gerhardt’s eye turned from fear to panic, grounding Hansel, making him reach for Gerhardt’s arm. “It’s only a day or two.”

“No,” said Gerhardt, turning away from him to walk a short pace of the clearing. “I can’t do it.”

“As soon as we get to the tower—”

“You don’t know what it is!” Casting a hand up towards the impenetrable canopy, “You don’t even know what direction we’re moving anymore.”

“I believe we’re going the right way.”

“And what if we’re not? What if we meet more of these things? What if they throw us off, and we’re lost, and—”

“We’re going to be okay.”

“We’re not going to be o-fucking-kay! Not if we give our food away.” He let out an angry breath and made again for the vines that criss-crossed their way out. He thrust his torch out and held the burning flame beneath.

Nothing.

He waited, kept it burning, intent on destroying the thing, or at the very least inflicting some sort of pain on it.

But nothing. No sizzle, no slit, no juice, and no break.

“Fuck!” Gerhardt shouted. He fronted up to the tree, next to Hansel again, who had never moved, only waited patiently for him. “Well, how does it eat us, then? It’s not like I’m just going to crawl into that mouth.”

Hansel concurred. “And those vines haven’t reached for us yet. It makes no sense.”

“Why can’t I burn it?”

“Magic?”

“That’s your answer for everything.”

“You’re in a magical—”

“Argh! Fuck this fucking forest!” Gerhardt yelled.

With a decided stomp of his foot, he made for the tree, bravely, stupidly.

“Alright, you fuck! How are you going to try to eat me? Because I’ll tell you now, I’ve survived worse than you.

” He swept his flame menacingly towards the thing, as though it might flinch back.

It did not. Gerhardt threw at it, “Just as I thought. A coward!”

Hansel took a step forward. “I don’t think you should make it angry.”

“Fuck this tree!” And with that, he took up the sharpest stick in his vicinity and threw it directly into the jagged hole.

A gurgling sound vomited out of the tree, as though a great gullet had been set to spasm, and the long stick flew back out, turned mid-air, aimed directly at Gerhardt’s heart. Hansel shoved him aside, but still it caught Gerhardt’s shoulder, splashing a line of blood across Hansel’s face.

Gerhardt fell to the ground, his still-burning torch rolling away from him.

He put all his weight on one arm to push himself up, then flopped back to the earth as the forest floor crumbled beneath him.

Skinny roots wrapped around his wrist and fingers, and it was only because he recoiled with such extreme horror that they didn’t get a hold.

He rolled to the side, unaccountably towards the tree itself, where the dirt collapsed behind his shoulder blades, sinking him into a thousand grotesque, white and stringy fingers that clamped down on his shoulders, twisted around his biceps, and moved him.

Working as one huge and foul organism, the roots rolled in unison to drag Gerhardt irresistibly towards that waiting mouth. As one thick clasp unwrapped, so another took hold further down, thighs and ankles retained, taking him foot first to his doom.

Gerhardt was terrified into incoherence.

He groaned out the only sounds he could manage, some conglomeration of ‘no’ and ‘fuck’ and ‘why’ and ‘fuck I hate this fucking tree’, but it was all perfectly useless.

If the tree heard, it cared not, and it wrenched Gerhardt in as unfeelingly as a bear might disembowel a bunny.

Up went his feet with terrifyingly swift efficiency, the click and lash of hairy roots filling the air as they swished over his body, pulling him, pulling him, one foot disappearing into the mouth.

Hansel dived without restraint or caution, locking fingers with Gerhardt’s just before his foot went into the cavity. He pulled so hard they almost broke before he slammed another hand around his wrist.

Gerhardt cried out in pain as his body was stretched out long, then, over the hurt, he yelled, “Save yourself, Hansel!”

“I’d rather die!” Hansel shouted. He flipped his body around, bracing himself with a heel in the dirt as they were both wrenched in.

Gerhardt kicked at the trunk. “There’s no point us both—argh!—dying! Hansel, go!”

“Never!” Hansel searched the ground for anything, desperately wishing they’d had a second to plan their escape—had taken a single weapon. There was nothing but the carcass. The carcass that sat there with the portion of its head still attached, dead eyes staring at him, mouth gaping open.

Hansel wrapped a leg beneath Gerhardt’s arm and locked it across his chest, while his other foot skidded hard into the ground.

He reached both hands across to grab the face of the dead boar.

Ripping the mouth in two, the lower jaw came off in his hand.

He turned, he slammed it down, and the boar’s incisor ripped into the root that held Gerhardt’s thigh.

Red splashed up Hansel’s arm, onto his face, and the tree screamed . A high-pitched cry came from the mouth of the thing, and the root he’d attacked uncoiled.

“Hansel!” Gerhardt exclaimed in terrified delight.

Hansel lifted the boar’s jaw and wielded it again, with deadly precision, stabbing a thick root that had hold of Gerhardt’s waist.

Another screech, and the root pulled back.

Hansel made fast work stabbing and slashing where he could, loosening one bind then another, on and on, cutting away the tendrils that tried to claim his own limbs, until there was only the remaining root which held Gerhardt’s ankle.

They worked together, grunting, straining, scraping at dirt with fingernails as they inched their way back onto safe ground.

Then, very suddenly, as if furious, the tree seemed to gather strength. It snapped out one long root, which wrapped around Gerhardt’s chest, turning him, and it yanked back its dinner.

“Hansel!” Gerhardt cried as he was ripped from Hansel’s grip. His arm flung out for him, sending the jaw bone flying into the trees, out of sight and out of reach.

Hansel froze, in shock at the power of the tree, knowing full well that to follow meant only death for them both. His hands settled into the dirt as he prepared to stand and fling himself back into the fray. But his left fingertips met fur.

The carcass.

He was up in a second, taking the dead beast with him.

“No!” Gerhardt cried, kicking out against the roots even as his back was pinned to the tree. “No! You will survive this! Take it!”

Hansel shook his head, eyes on the mouth of the monster. “Not without you.”

“Please, Hansel.” Gerhardt’s fingers felt over the bark, scraping on the rough wood of the mandibles. “I need to know you went on. Please.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous.” Hansel lunged forward, huge feet stomping the roots as he ran to Gerhardt. The roots came for him, but he ripped his leg up fast, never allowing them to take hold until he was at Gerhardt’s side.

“I,” he gritted out, taking the carcass in two arms, “would never ,” he breathed, wrapping fingers around the ribcage of the corpse, “leave you behind!” he yelled, ripping the body clean in two.

One great arm lifted half the animal high and shoved it into the mouth.

In one fluid motion, his now-empty hand returned to the corpse and ripped free a rib bone.

He stabbed it into the trunk with such force it snapped in two, and he brought the sharp and broken edge down on Gerhardt’s ties.

Gerhardt may have been tethered to a tree, about to be devoured alive, but he wasn’t blind. He had no word for ‘sexy’, but he discovered it in Hansel’s bulging muscles, his flinty-eyed determination, and above all, in his protective fierceness.

He heard the scream of the tree as Hansel slashed him free.

He felt the release of the roots as the briefly sated plant dropped his ankles while digesting its bounty.

But rather than run, he more melted into the arm Hansel wrapped around him, and swooned his way out of the clearing, dragged and kept safe against that brave chest.

Hansel didn’t stop for a second. Meat in one arm, Gerhardt in the other, he fought on through darkness, their torch long since lost in the battle. On and on until it was Gerhardt that finally took a hand across his waist and pulled him to a stop. “Come, Hansel. Rest a moment.”

“Are you okay?” He halted quickly, and it was a new emotion for Gerhardt to realise Hansel’s only thought was for him.

“I’m fine. I’m…” He felt for Hansel’s hand in the dark. “Hansel, I’m…” How was he to say it?

He chose not to.

He traced his trembling hand up Hansel’s chest, over his wide shoulder, up his great neck, and, standing on tiptoes, Gerhardt planted a kiss on his lips.

The meat hit the ground with a slap, and Hansel’s arms enclosed Gerhardt in a hot and desperate embrace.

He lifted Gerhardt clean off the ground, and Gerhardt brought his legs and arms around him, shocked and enamoured by the strength those limbs still held after everything.

But Hansel was running on pure love. Grief, for almost losing him, desperation to feel him alive and real in his hands, and disbelief that he’d kissed him—an all-consuming need to kiss him now, to show him he was loved, for how long until it was all taken away, either by death or choice?

Hansel, devouring him, stumbled until Gerhardt’s back met a tree.

Leaning him there, he ran his hands up his thighs, squeezing them so deliciously Gerhardt’s dick throbbed in his breeches.

Gerhardt ground forward against him, needing the feel of him on his cock.

He caught his cheek, breaking the kiss just long enough to whisper, “You’re wonderful. Thank you.”

“Gerhardt…” It was the smallest compliment, but coupled with the physical expression of his ardour, it floored Hansel. “I want to do what we did last night.”

“Now?” Gerhardt’s full dick searched out the relief of Hansel’s abs. “Here?”

Hansel wrapped a hand around Gerhardt’s cock. “You want to.”

“I do.”

He stroked his dick, his tongue grazing over his neck. “Does that feel good?”

Hansel’s dick pressed hard into Gerhardt’s breeches, firm and searching against his ass, and Gerhardt sank his hands in Hansel’s hair, grasping a hold for purchase to shift himself against his cock, losing his reality to Hansel. Beautiful Hansel. Brave Hansel. “It feels too good.”

“I want you to come in my hand again.”

Gerhardt let out a little gasp of approval. “Then, will you—”

“Who goes there?” A man’s voice, deep and unfamiliar, cut the close dark like a knife.

Hansel and Gerhardt froze.

It was human sounding.

A flicker of light in the woods spoke of the person’s too-near proximity.

Gerhardt’s hand found Hansel’s chest, pushing him back. Set on his feet, he hastily retied the string on his breeches, then reached a hand for Hansel’s arm to be sure he was close.

Hansel moved his shoulder against him, and they stood in perfect silence, watching the light. It was too far and too weak to illuminate any clear objects for them.

Both knew there was at least one hunter in the woods. Both thought of the traps they’d been told about. Both held their breath until every sign of sound or light had long since dwindled to nothing, when Gerhardt finally said, “Let’s follow it.”

He moved forward, but Hansel caught him. “What if it’s danger? Shouldn’t we just go our own way?”

“What if it’s not? We’ve lost our fire, and that man has some.”

“But Gerhardt—”

“Hansel.” He turned his full body towards him and caught his lips in a kiss sweeter than anything Hansel had once experienced in his entire life.

His chest seemed pulled out of his body, opened like a jewellery box, the prize of his heart spinning there like a ballerina, waiting for Gerhardt to pluck it out and keep it as his own.

And Gerhardt said, “We will stay together, and we will stay safe. I’ll be more careful, and I won’t let anything happen to either of us. ”

Hansel, helpless to resist in his complete devotion, asked only, “And when we get to the city? You’ll come with me?”

“Yes,” said Gerhardt. “Yes. Every city and town and beyond. I promise you that. Hansel, if you really want me, I’m yours.”

“I do!” Breathless lips met Gerhardt’s, which kissed his back just as enthusiastically.

“Now get the meat. We need his flame to find our way through this forest, and to eat. And as soon as we’re out, we’ll start our life together. Just like this.”

“Okay.” Hansel kissed him again, then felt around until he found what was left of their food. Taking Gerhardt’s hand, he moved with him, as fast as they could, in the direction they had last seen the fire.