Page 29 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)

A Soft Place

A shimmer of light reflecting in bulging eyes shot fast fear into Hansel as he scrambled back against the wall. The door slammed, obliterating the horror from his view.

“Hansel? What is it?” Gerhardt, on his knees by Hansel’s side, looked back at the closed door. “Something out there?”

“The…” He could no more form words than he could name the beast. He clambered up, lunging for a dressing table. He scraped it across the floor, flinging it in front of the door, then pressed both arms and all his weight against it, awaiting an attack.

But the house fell just as quiet as it had been before. No more the clacking of that thing’s laughter or movement. No more the tacky-tack of its toes on the wall and in the ceiling. No more the tapping of chunks of hard sugar falling to the floor with every incision.

Hansel let out a cry and jumped as Gerhardt’s hand came down softly on his shoulder. His breath fast, he turned to behold the face he knew well, but this the calm version, the sweet one he’d fallen for.

Gerhardt said, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Gerhardt’s hand on his cheek, Gerhardt moving close to him for the first time in so long.

Overcome, Hansel raised a shaking hand to cover Gerhardt’s, his tears falling fast. He flinched when Gerhardt’s fingers came close to the cut on his cheek.

Or should have come close. He was aware, somewhere deep down, that he felt no pain at the touch.

Perhaps he’d moved away from Gerhardt fast enough.

This remained barely acknowledged as he wrapped his own hand across Gerhardt’s cheek.

“It’s not safe. You can’t go out there.”

“But what is it? Hansel, what’s happened to you?”

“Shh.” Again Hansel listened, while Gerhardt stilled in front of him, all quiet concern and searching eyes. Hansel scanned the door, waiting for a movement, a flicker of light across the crack.

Nothing.

He took Gerhardt’s two hands and placed them on the edge of the dresser. “I need you to hold this in place. Use all your strength. Be ready for it to move.”

Leaving Gerhardt to look curiously after him, though he held his position, Hansel made for the small window, assessing the chance of their escape through it.

The window was small, chocolate-framed, stretched across with transparent sheets of sugar.

The grass below was shimmering green, bucolic in the night.

The forest was black all around, but only metres away.

A quick run, and they could lose themselves there, with all the other quiet and cowering animals that shrank from their hunters.

Hansel’s two strong hands came down on the frame, determined to shove it out, to smash it to pieces, nothing but flaked chocolate as it appeared to be. But it didn’t budge. Again, he slammed against it, twice as hard. Not the slightest movement.

Shaking all over at the impossibility of the thing, at the imminence of their death, he formed a hard fist and rammed it into the sugar-glass.

The thing resisted him, throwing back a sharp shock of agony that jarred through his knuckles and his fist, right up his arm, so that he cried out hopelessly.

“Hansel, please talk to me. What’s wrong?” Gerhardt took up his injured hand, took it to his heart and held it there, running his fingers over his forearm.

“There’s something in the hall,” Hansel whispered, eyeing the door. “It attacked me. It’s coming for you, I’m sure of it.”

But Gerhardt did not run back to brace the dresser against the door. He didn’t try to loosen the window from its binds. He only took a cool hand to Hansel’s forehead. “I don’t think you’re feeling well.”

Hansel grabbed his hand, took it to his own heart. “Don’t you hear me? There is a thing out there. It attacked me. It licked my blood.”

“What blood? Where?” Gerhardt’s other hand roamed through Hansel’s hair now, sweeping it back from his temple, trying to calm him with every stroke. “I think you have had a bad dream. Sit with me.”

“No!” Hansel pushed his hand away. “Does this look like I dreamed it?” He turned his face to the light for Gerhardt to see the cut.

But Gerhardt’s eyes searched his cheek, his forehead, his lips. All over. “Dear brother, you are deathly pale. It pains me to see you like this.”

“No, no! Here. See where it has sliced my skin open with its tongue.” He brought Gerhardt’s fingers to his cheekbone, where they caressed him, smooth and painless.

“There’s nothing there.”

“But there must be!” Hansel ran his own fingers over the unbroken skin, his brow etched with deep lines as he tried to process it.

“You are dreaming. Are you still dreaming?” Again, that cool hand on his forehead, the backs of four long and beautiful fingers, and the face he adored downcast with worry.

Hansel didn’t know what to tell him. He’d seen it. He’d felt it. Had that been another hallucination? Had his arm turned to biscuit earlier? Had he seen his father at the table?

Or was he really going mad?

“You are not well,” Gerhardt said again, only this time with more conviction. “You will sit with me.”

He brought Hansel to the bedside, forced him to sit. And Hansel, dazed, did as commanded, as if under Gerhardt’s hypnotic control.

Gerhardt turned towards him, one knee up on the bed. “You have such vivid dreams, Hansel. You always have. And you’ve been under a lot of stress.”

“I know what I saw.” Even faced with the appalling truth, evidenced by the missing injury, Hansel scanned the door for any sign of movement.

Gerhardt brought his attention back with that caressing hand on his cheek. “You’re exhausted. You’ve barely eaten in days. You’re seeing things, half asleep, half awake. Hansel, it’s a waking nightmare and nothing more.”

How could it be true? How could that visceral horror be nothing more than his own twisted imagination? “It was there. In the hall. Didn’t you hear me calling for you?”

“I heard not a thing. Not a thing until just now, when you tried my handle. And I immediately let you in.”

“Perhaps you slept through it.”

“I haven’t slept. Not a wink.” He grasped Hansel’s two hands and, clasping them in his own, brought them to the bedspread between them. “I felt terrible. For everything I said tonight. I didn’t mean it.”

Low eyes, ashamed behind long lashes.

How Hansel wanted to look into them, free and clear. “Why did you say it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know because I don’t think that.” He looked up then, and there was so much undeniable and desperate love in his eyes. But love tempered with sorrow. “I have never thought that. Never once.”

Hansel’s palm covered his cheek, fingers edging into this thick, dark hair. “It’s not you. He’s done something to you. And we need to go. Now, while we have the darkness of night to hide us. Now, while he sleeps.”

“Yes.” Gerhardt gave a firm, sure nod. “Yes, I’ll come with you. But Hansel, before we go…”

Gerhardt leaned forward, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to Hansel’s.

He kissed him with all the hunger and the passion they’d felt in the forest. And Hansel was a wreck in his arms. Horror, upon horror, upon horror, all tumbling all around him, drowning him, day after day, all his life, and that kiss.

That kiss, that when he closed his eyes, felt as though it were lifting him up to the heavens.

That kiss that made his heart beat full and strong again.

That kiss that gave him every reason to live.

To live on long and strong, and to fight for Gerhardt.

Hansel broke the embrace as a new energy readied him. But Gerhardt fell back with a touch of hurt surprise. “Was that wrong?”

Irresistibly, Hansel reached for him. “No. No, not at all. But we need to go now. Quickly.”

“But Hansel, do you really believe the Dark Forest is safer?” Fevered hands clasped Hansel’s once more.

A touch of confusion painting his brow, “It has to be. Even if that was a dream, all the horror I saw tonight, the rest hasn’t been. You have not been yourself since we arrived.”

Gerhardt lunged forward, kissing him again, threading fingers into his hair. “Why don’t we wait until light, at least?”

More voraciously still, Gerhardt’s lips met his own, only now one of his hands wandered over Hansel’s chest, squeezing his muscular pecs, running a thumb over his hard nipple.

“I…” He was smothered with more kisses before he could talk.

A delight, but an unaccustomed one. He pulled back, as much as he hated to.

“I fear what will happen when he wakes. You must admit things have been strange…” More kisses stopped his speech, Gerhardt shifting closer, arms dangling around Hansel’s neck.

“Very well,” Gerhardt finally breathed against his lips. “But it’s a long way that we must travel. And you are tired. So…” Gerhardt’s hand slipped a little lower, down Hansel’s chest, feeling over his abs to the top of his breeches.

Despite everything, Hansel’s dick was hard. He could hardly help it after an impassioned embrace like that. He wanted Gerhardt with every fibre of his being, and it would have taken very little from Gerhardt to have Hansel on top of him. “So?” Hansel begged.

“So…” Gerhardt sighed, his hand drifting softly towards Hansel’s cock. “I think maybe you should eat something.”

Hansel caught Gerhardt at the wrist. “What?”

Gerhardt looked down at his imprisoned hand, then up to Hansel, a confused smile on his face. “I’m trying to help.”

“The food is poisoned. You know the food is poisoned.”

Gerhardt gave the slightest shake of his head, his beautiful hair glistening. “One little taste won’t hurt you, surely.”

Hansel stared into his clear, warm eyes, dazzling in the moonlight. “He still controls you.”

“No, he does not. I speak only out of care for you.”

“You would not try to make me eat it. Not the Gerhardt I know.”

“I’m doing nothing of the sort.” He attempted to pull his hand free. Failing, his eyes flashed up. “Two days’ walk north to the tower. How far do you think you’ll make it in your state?”