Page 24 of Hansel and Gerhardt
Hansel was more than happy to help. He clasped fingers together to receive Gerhardt’s boot.
Gerhardt was up in a second, grasping the branch that was still high over his head. “I’ve got a hand around it. Just a little more…”
Hansel wrapped arms around Gerhardt’s thighs,his face pressed into his pert ass, which he was not inclined to complain about that day.Though his body trembled with the effort, he found the strength to lift him.
Once he’dachieved the branch, Gerhardt moved like a squirrel. There had been very little to doaroundtheir miserable home beyond climbing trees, so both were expert, but Gerhardt’s lighter frame made him nimble with it. Heskippedfrom branch to branch, higher and higher, until it began to make Hansel’s head spin to watch him.Until visions of Gerhardt’s precious form smashingdownthroughbranch after branch, landing atHansel’sfeet a bloody pulp, catapultedHanselinto a frantic paceof the forest floor. “Careful, Gerhardt!” he called up.
If Gerhardt heard him, he showed no sign of it. He worked his way through the canopy, to the tallest pine tree, and to the very tip. And there he stopped, silent, searching.
Silent for so long.
Too long.
And Hansel began to lose heart.
This was all the plan he had. All the means of preventing Gerhardtfromtearing into the dirty and ageing meat. He couldn’t keep stopping him. He simply did not have the heart to see thatcavitycarved out where a plump belly should have been. To see the lost, ravenous lookinGerhardt’s eyes. To see that look of anger.Not ever again.
Gerhardt began to make his way down, and Hansel’s heart shrivelled in his chest. Down and down he came,no call of victory, only a long and careful descent.
He jumpedto the groundfrom the final branch,Hanselraised reluctant eyes, and he found the wide and beautiful grin he’d come to adore. “About two miles deadsouth. We should make it by nightfall.”
Meat of the Matter
The two stared at the crackling flames, their stomachs growling, the meat on the fire dripping with delicious juices, sizzling where the flames licked it. And the smell. Oh! The smell! Gerhardt’s breath came shallow, his fingers white on the rock he sat upon. Hansel, on a fallen log next to him, watched him even closer than he watched the food.
Gerhardt side-eyed him, once, twice, “Can we just eat it now?”
“Yes! Yes, get it!”
Gerhardt was up, ramming a long stick into the fire, flipping the meat out. He dived on it, burning his fingers repeatedly as he tried to tear it apart.
“Let me help.” Hansel dropped to Gerhardt’s side, taking the burning meat in hand. His calloused fingers resisted the heat, and the strip of meat broke in half, the bigger part ending in Hansel’s hand, where it was ripped again, and this latter half shoved back at Gerhardt. He took it unthinkingly, falling against a log, sinking his teeth into the first food to pass his lips in two days. His mouth watered painfully, his limbs shook with theexcitement and urgency for it. He tore chunks off and gulped them down.
Hansel, trying his best not to swallow the lot in one go, urged Gerhardt to slow down.
“I know,” Gerhardt said, a relieved but sad smile meeting Hansel. “It’s been longer than this before. I know how to handle it.”
Hansel gave a small nod, then concentrated on counting how many times he chewed the meat to control himself.
“I almost died that one time,” Gerhardt said. “Do you remember?”
“Very well.”
“I was so angry with you when you tried to take my food away.”
Hansel moved forward to throw fresh meat onto the fire, so as not to meet Gerhardt’s gaze.
“And then I threw it all up again. And you were gone by then, out working somewhere. Cutting my share of wood.”
Hansel pulled the leg of meat across, stabbing a sharp stone beneath the fur to skin it.
Softly, Gerhardt said, “I don’t think I ever said thank you.”
Still, he didn’t look up. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I think I do.”
Hansel worked on, head dipped low. There was the faintest haze of a smile on his face, and he kept up the movement of the stone, shy.
