John eyed that night’s cheese dubiously. It had become a ritual between them—cheese every night, just before dinner, so they could drown out the taste with whatever meal they had.

The fire was crackling; the brace of pigeons he’d fetched with his sling roasted merrily on a spit. When he stretched his arm, he could almost straighten it all the way out before his shoulder complained. He could mark the passing of this journey by these little things.

“The cheese is delicious,” he said.

“Say it as if you mean it, John.” Henry spoke from across the fire.

John looked up. Looked into his companion’s eyes—wide, open, inviting.

“The cheese is delicious.”

Speaking of things they were lying about…He didn’t know why he did it—maybe for no better reason than it made him happy in a way that was deeply selfish—but he always tried to make eye contact with Henry when he said those words. He emphasized the word delicious, rolling the syllables off his tongue.

Delicious.

Henry flushed, right on cue. And if John’s own cheeks heated, well, that was no business of anyone’s but his. Henry would never detect the blush.

John wasn’t sure when Henry had transformed from pretty British officer, not to be trusted into friend, definitely should be teased. He wasn’t sure if he was teasing himself or Henry. Both, he suspected.

That low sense of awareness built between them, coiling in John’s gut, buzzing just beneath his skin. It simmered at night when they lay back-to-back.

But Henry hadn’t said a word about it, for all his blushes, and if Henry didn’t want to have a conversation about a topic, there was probably a reason. When Henry wanted to talk about his attraction to men in general, and John in particular, John trusted that he would do so. At length.

“Well?” That faint pinkening of Henry’s cheeks—his entire face, nose, forehead—deepened under John’s perusal. “If the cheese is delicious, eat it.”

John put it in his mouth.

Maybe it was because he was still watching Henry. Maybe it was because he was thinking about Henry’s attraction to him and avoiding the more salient, pressing matter of his own attraction to Henry. Maybe it was just the cheese.

Whatever the reason might have been, John’s life changed forever in that moment for one undeniable reason.

He forgot to hate the cheese.

He forgot it so thoroughly, looking into Henry’s eyes, that he didn’t cough. He didn’t spit out his mouthful. He chewed. He swallowed.

“My God,” Henry murmured worshipfully. “It’s happening. It’s finally happening. I told you it was happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“I told you,” Henry cackled. “I told you that it was starting to change. I told you that there was a richness to the flavor, but did you listen? No.”

Oh. God. Damn. John straightened where he sat, tasting the lingering flavor on his tongue with something close to horror. It had been bad, hadn’t it? Wretched? Disgusting?

“It wasn’t good,” he said defensively. “Don’t get me wrong. There was nothing good about it. Contempt for the Cheese of Death has wrought familiarity, that’s all.”

“Just wait. I’ve been doing this longer than you. This is how it starts.”

This was how it started—watching the play of fire over Henry’s skin, the shift of his smiles. This was how it started, treasuring the flash of his eyes, the ripple of the muscles in his behind when he stood and bent over the fire, poking the pigeons, sending a few drops of their juice to land sizzling in the coals.

It had started with teasing and friendship, and John had no idea where it would go.

John just shook his head. “This is how it ends.”

* * *

“The cheese is delicious,” Henry said a few nights later, biting into his sliver.

It wasn’t delicious, not at the moment. But it had gone from utterly disgusting to almost palatable, and at this rate of progression, it would likely be ambrosia by the end of the year.

“The cheese is delicious,” John echoed, sliding his own bite into his mouth. His tongue was shockingly pink, the cheese a white morsel against his skin. His skin drank up the firelight, reflecting orange and red and pink. Henry wanted to chase the sight of those colors with his fingers, tracing them, warm, along the path up John’s neck. He shouldn’t think of John’s lips, but he did.

Also, he didn’t think John minded him thinking of his lips, as he hadn’t said anything like why are you staring at my lips? John would definitely have said that if he objected.

Possibly not.

“God rot it,” John said in annoyance, frowning up at the starry firmament. “The cheese is improving. We can’t have this.”

“It’s only natural.”

“It is not. This should not work. You can’t change the world around you just by claiming it’s different.”

“Of course you can,” Henry said. “Once upon a time, somebody said ‘Look, this piece of paper here equals a bit of gold,’ and then everyone agreed that it was and here we are.”

“Well, that’s—”

“And once upon a time, someone stuck a bunch of sticks in the ground and said ‘All the stuff inside these sticks is mine,’ and everyone else said, ‘Right-o’ and went to fetch their own sticks. Most of the things we believe to be true are only true because we believe them, instead of the reverse.”

“So if I believed you to be a rabbit…” John smiled at him.

“Ah, me!” Henry brightened. “My favorite topic of conversation. As it turns out, I am an excellent example of this phenomenon. You see, my father always believed me a frivolous man.”

“Incapable of seeing beyond his nose, more like,” John muttered.

“And so did everyone around him,” Henry said. “Was he wrong? Or was his belief so powerful that he rendered me frivolous?”

“The fact that you can consider so ridiculous a question without bursting into laughter at the nonsensical nature of it rather agitates for the conclusion that you are not frivolous.”

“My father told me, when he purchased my commission, that he hoped I died valiantly in battle, as it would be the only way I could do credit to the family.”

John lifted the lid off the pot on the fire and poked at something inside it. “Your father is the anti-cheese. On inspection, he grows worse and worse.”

“And then I arrived here,” Henry said, “and I read that circular, and I had my thoughts. I engaged in the most frivolous treason anyone has ever engaged in. Even with him half an ocean distant, I couldn’t undo his beliefs, though. I had made my peace with dying because he believed I should. It’s hard to explain, but… I felt my choice was between living in England, frivolous and stupid, or dying here with a brain in my head. I couldn’t imagine any other alternative.”

“And now?”

“Now?” Henry sighed. “I’m living in a dream. In my dream, I’m on a journey. It’s a place removed from reality, and so I’m able to believe whatever I like.”

“Yes,” John said with a snort, “now there I very much disagree. I am not some figment of your dream. I exist. I am real. This is life, not some walking nightmare.”

“For you it is,” Henry said, eyes meeting his. “At the end of this journey, you’ll have family and a home there to greet you.”

John glanced sharply away.

“You told me to walk away from my life and not go back, but…” Henry sighed. “It’s not practical. I have no skills except cheesemongering, and even that is suspect, as it takes any person weeks to find my cheese passable. Also, we are on the way to running out.”

John did not point out that a potter’s son ought to have had some skills. He didn’t ask where the officers’ commission had come from. With the exception of a few tiny comments, he let Henry’s falsehoods lie when he could have made much of them. Henry was grateful for that. Still…

“I have sisters who are no doubt worrying about me, and a mother who is weeping, and even my terrible father may yet regret advising me to perish in a blaze of glory. I don’t want to be a frivolous, irresponsible fellow, but walking away from the British Army in a fit of pique in the middle of battle may be the most frivolous thing I’ve ever done.” Henry looked at John. “I don’t want to die, but I don’t know how to live, either.”

John didn’t say anything. He just stood, moved to sit next to Henry on the log. Having John close, having him sit down, his thigh warmed by the fire next to Henry—it was too much.

“And here you are,” Henry said, “being kind to me when you have so many more non-frivolous things to worry about, and I’m spilling this rubbish on your shoulders.”

John just took his hand. His fingers traced a pattern on Henry’s palm. “Well, you know I can’t outtalk you.”

Henry’s breath stopped. John was touching him. After weeks of distance, weeks of keeping a few careful inches between their backs at night… His mind ceased to function. He could feel his whole body shut down in appreciation. He looked blindly up at John, and even though his entire being was being consumed, he found he could still talk, because of course he could. “Nobody can outtalk me. It’s a fact of nature.”

“I don’t know how to tell you to live. I rather think that’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.”

His fingers traced a vein up Henry’s arm, and oh, Henry wanted. He wanted to curl his fingers around John’s wrist in return. He wanted to live.

“Yes, but—”

“But if I had made this trip alone, I’d have spent the entire time worrying myself into nothingness. I’d have had no conversation, nobody to make me laugh, nobody to feed me cheese, nobody to make me think.”

“Nobody to save you from bandits with ridiculous stories,” Henry said.

John reached out. The tips of his fingers brushed Henry’s face, and Henry felt his heart stop.

Oh, God. If he believed his heart was stopping now, would he actually be dead? Was it possible to perish from a sharp influx of pleasure? Could one pass away from delight?

Henry took a breath, then another.

Apparently one couldn’t, because John was touching him, and Henry had not died. That slow caress continued down his cheek.

“I don’t know what to say to you except this,” John murmured. “You have not been frivolous to me. You have been the foundation on which this journey is built. You have been necessary.”

“Necessary?” Henry echoed.

John’s thumb touched his lips.

“Necessary,” John repeated.

Henry exhaled. He set his hand over John’s. He should say something—anything. He didn’t.

“When you figure out how to live again,” John said, and he uttered when as if it were a foregone conclusion, not if, and Henry wanted, wanted, wanted, wanted to believe that when with his entire body. He wanted that when from the tips of his fingers, brushing against John’s hand, to the thud of his heart. He wanted it from the aroused tingle that traveled down his spine all the way to his still-silent lips. “When you figure it out, then let me know.”

Like smoke, John’s hand slipped away.

* * *

For some reason—a haze of lust, perhaps, or inexplicable happiness, or some combination of the two—Henry found himself babbling throughout the next day.

No topic was too stupid for him not to remark upon. Chicken sexing (a noble career, although impossible to do, which Henry knew because he had tried when he was seven to no avail). Dogfighting (an ignoble career). Familial infighting (not a career, all too easy to do, but never as satisfying in reality as imagining a far superior outcome to the conversation in one’s head).

He talked about everything except the one thing on his mind. Or perhaps it was not on his mind. Perhaps it was on his cock. In his cock? The particulars escaped him. How had they managed to not talk about this one thing over the course of their journey?

Henry had talked of literally everything else under the sun; why not this?

It wasn’t that the topic was taboo.

Well. So. It was, technically, but that had never stopped Henry.

It wasn’t as if he feared that John would fly into a rage or express disgust. They’d practically kissed last night.

Maybe it was simply that they had not talked about this one thing yet, despite its glaring obviousness, and it had now become awkward.

That awkwardness grew from morning to noon, from noon to late afternoon. By the time they were setting up camp that evening, the awkwardness—at least the awkwardness in Henry’s mind—had grown to epic proportions.

So Henry did what he often did with awkward situations. He blurted out precisely what was on his mind, just as they were unrolling their blankets.

“So,” he heard himself say, “I know I’ve never mentioned this before, but I’m certain you realize that I’ve fucked men?”

John’s face went utterly blank for one heart-stopping second. Then he laughed. “Oh, God. Henry. Only you. Only you would announce it in that fashion.”

Henry felt his face heat.

“No,” John said, “I did not know that, not for certain.”

“How could you not know? Was I insufficiently obvious?”

“Well.” John considered that. “You were very obvious. But that only told me that you admired men the way I do.”

Well. Good. They were both speaking about it.

“But I could hardly conclude anything about past behavior,” John said.

Why had they not spoken of it when it was so easy? Apparently that was all that needed to be said to make it not awkward any longer. Henry laid his sleeping roll out, then fetched water while John skinned the rabbit he’d snared that morning.

They made the fire together. Henry clipped wizened bits of carrot and turnip into the stew pot while John broke down the rabbit carcass.

He peered into his pack, rummaged around, before sitting up with a frown. “We’re out of bread.”

“Ah well,” John said. “We’ll live.”

They would. They’d done so before. But Henry liked bread, and he knew that John regarded him as just a little soft in comparison. He bit his lip. “There’s a household not a mile back. I could pay for a loaf, I’d wager.”

“We’re both exhausted. Rest; we need to make our miles tomorrow.”

“But John…” Henry tried to think of his very best argument. “Bread.”

“Oh, you think I’ll give in if you bat your eyelashes prettily? Well, it’s your coin and your feet. But you could stay here and tell me more about the fact you’ve fucked men.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Yes, and you don’t dislike it. Did your father know? Did he do anything terrible to you?”

How John got to the heart of the matter so swiftly, Henry would never know.

“Here I am.” Henry gestured expansively. “Sent into the army to atone for my terrible sins, preferably by dying valiantly.”

John brought one hand up to his mouth as if to hide a smile.

“What? It’s actually not funny. He was most insistent. He said awful things.”

“I’m sure he did.” John bit his lip, his eyes dancing. “I’m sure he was thinking, ‘Oh, no, the infantry, that will definitely solve everything.’”

“He did!” Henry said. “How did you know? He said almost exactly those words!”

“I’m sure he said to your mother something like this: ‘Dear, our Henry likes to fuck men, so let’s surround him with men, preferably fit ones used to a march. Make sure they’re dressed in tight trousers and sharp uniforms.’”

“There you veer off from reality. I am certain he did not say that.”

“‘Let’s make him an officer. It will be his duty to watch them march. Let’s surround him with men all the time.’”

“I see what you’re getting at,” Henry said, “and I believe he was thinking of military discipline.”

“And did that stop you from fucking men?”

“Well—no.”

“You and half the infantry, I’d wager. Henry, I hate to tell you this, but your father? I am going to guess he’s something of a fool.” John laughed. “He sent you into the infantry to teach you proper behavior?”

“Almost his exact words! In his defense,” Henry said, “he’d never joined. How would he know?”

John laughed harder.

“And in his defense,” Henry said, “I have become more circumspect. I’m much better at judging who is safe to talk to.” He threw that out, holding his breath.

John looked over at him. “‘Talk.’ Is that how fancy British officers describe fucking?”

Henry’s heart hammered in his chest. He looked John in the eyes. “What do you call it?”

John stirred the stew and shrugged.

“I’ve never had a commission bought for me. I’ve no choice but to be circumspect. I don’t call it anything.”

Henry exhaled slowly.

“I just do it,” John said on a hoarse whisper.

Not a whisper. An invitation.

Their eyes met again. Henry felt a tug of energy go through him. In an ideal world, Henry would have intuited the perfect thing to say, something sweet and romantic, something that matched the growing lightness in his soul. He’d have said something that somehow captured the inchoate feelings that John aroused in him, and they’d have fallen—very slowly, very romantically—into a conveniently placed bower of petals.

Henry had never said the perfect thing in his life, and besides, it was almost winter and the closest they’d get to a bower of petals would be a pile of moldering leaves. With the wind whipping around them, even that was absent.

So what Henry said was this: “You must have done a great deal. You’re so very pretty.”

John’s eyes widened. “Nobody has ever called me pretty before.”

“No? Whyever not?”

“It’s just not…done, I suppose.”

“And now it has been done, and should be done a thousand times over. You’re very pretty, you know. And intelligent. And—” He bit off a thousand other adjectives that came to mind. “If it were spring, I’d make you a daisy crown and prove it. But you have lovely, mobile, expressive eyes and a strong chin and a sharp jawline, and…”

And, oh, God, where was that bower of petals! He wanted to hide his face in it. His whole body, in fact. He’d just said, aloud, that John was pretty, in a tone that let all his more flowery sentiments show.

It was a pity there was no bower of petals. Henry could crawl inside and perish of shame. Hell, he’d settle for hiding in that pile of debris.

“Henry,” John said easily, “you eat terrible cheese and think that Thomas Jefferson has good qualities. You’ll excuse me if I find you lacking in good taste.”

Ouch. John said it with a smile on his face, but it hurt. It hurt with an almost painful intensity. It hurt as if John were extending an invitation for just a fuck and no more, after all their weeks together. He’d had relations that meant no more, but this—

Henry stood. “You couldn’t be more correct. I am an utter idiot. I should never have said any such thing.”

John looked at him.

“I should have said,” Henry said, “that you were devastatingly beautiful.”

John still didn’t say anything.

“But then, I have no taste,” Henry said. “Me and my terrible taste, we’re going to get bread.”

“Henry.”

“Good thing you’re used to swill,” Henry muttered. “Who knows what I’ll come back with? After all, I have no good taste.”

* * *

It took about ten minutes of disconsolately stirring soup for John’s sour mood to fade, and for him to recognize the truth: He’d made a mistake. He knew how Henry longed for acceptance, and his words had been hurtful. However he might try to justify his sentiments, it was not right, nor was it fair, to treat Henry as he had.

Compliments… They made him uneasy. They always made him feel as if someone was trying to get something from him. And while Henry obviously wanted things from him, those things were mutual and pleasurable and not to be argued over.

John was in the process of constructing an apology when the dust from the road presaged Henry’s return.

Henry, I was unfair.

Henry, I’m so deeply sorry that I hurt you.

Henry, I never want to see you with that hurt in your eyes again.

Henry turned off the road and came up to their camp under the trees. John had to get this right.

Oh, damn it. Henry had become important to him. He cared what Henry thought, felt a stab of pain in his own heart when he saw the hurt reflected in the other man’s eyes.

“Oi, John!” Henry called as he approached, waving madly. “You’ll never guess what happened!”

Oh, no. John was glad to see him. So glad that his heart lifted. They were less than a hundred miles from their destination. How dreadfully inconvenient.

“Let me guess,” John said dryly. “Your traveling companion was an unconscionable ass, and you’ve obtained a cold shoulder to give to him.”

Henry blinked at him. His lips compressed.

For a moment, he tilted his head in confusion. Then he laughed. “Oh, ha! I’d forgotten completely! I was annoyed at you for ten entire minutes, John!”

“Good God! Ten entire minutes.”

“I know!” Henry set down the sack he’d slung over his shoulder and took out a loaf of bread, some radishes, and a bunch of carrots.

“Ten minutes on just one topic,” he said, slicing bread. “How utterly single-minded of me. But then I got distracted! Guess what distracted me.”

“Ah…”

“No, don’t guess, it will take too long and I have no patience. I’m just going to tell you. It was cheese. That farmwife up there makes her own cheese.”

“We have so much cheese. Why would you buy cheese?”

“First, we’re running out. We do not have so much cheese. Second, I mean actual cheese. Tasty cheese. Cheese that one likes to eat. We don’t have any of that. I was going to buy a small portion just for myself, so I could taunt you by saying you didn’t want any of my cheese since I have no taste.”

“Fitting punishment.”

“But something happened. I tasted her cheese and…it didn’t taste right.”

“It wasn’t good?”

“No. I’m afraid…” Henry swallowed. “I must confess. I’m very afraid that it was good. Objectively speaking.”

“Oh,” John breathed. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“John. It has happened. My tastes have become objectively terrible. You were completely right.” He unwrapped the Cheese of Death and cut off a slice. He popped it in his mouth and chewed morosely. “I’m doomed. I like it. I actually like it.”

“You should still be angry at me.”

“Hush, I don’t want to be. It’s no fun.”

“I shouldn’t snap at you when you compliment me. That was terrible. I’m sorry.”

“Well, then, boo.” Henry wagged his fingers at him. “Consider yourself chastised. Want some cheese?”

“Henry. I’m trying to be serious.”

“I am too. I realized it on my walk home. I ought to have been beaten to death for my mouth long before now. I’m scarcely tolerable as a white man, and people have been trained to tolerate me.”

“Stop talking about yourself that way,” John said. “Stop saying you don’t deserve respect or care, because you do. It’s not acceptable to me for anyone to dismiss you that way. Not at all. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise, especially when it’s me.”

Henry looked over at him. Their eyes caught, held. There was something—something bright and yet inexplicable in Henry’s face.

“Oh,” Henry said. “I wonder when that happened.”

“When did what happen?”

“When did your good opinion become so utterly necessary to me?”

“I…” John trailed off. There was that word between them again. Necessary. It felt so much heavier than all the other words—lust, want, care, attention. It didn’t fit, it couldn’t fit, not with Newport so close. But Henry kept going.

“I feel pity for my former self, not knowing you at all. I can’t garner a single ounce of regret for my childhood felonies any longer.”

“What?” John pulled back. “Felonies? How did we get to felonies?”

“I was sixteen when I committed my first executable felony, you know. Buggery.”

“Ah, that.” John waved a hand as if batting a fly. “That’s hardly even a felony. Henry, we were talking about—”

“Treason is my second felony. Being a hardened criminal dedicated to tearing down all the old institutions rather agrees with me, don’t you think?”

There was nothing to do but give up and wait for the conversation to take them back to where they’d been. John tried to lead it there. He looked at Henry and said in his lowest, most sensual voice: “Felony looks good on you.”

“Oh.” Henry flushed. “I like it when you say it like that. Maybe I should add sedition to my list. My father will be so… What’s the opposite of proud?”

“Annoyed? Dismayed? Outraged?”

“It will be glorious.” Henry set his hand atop John’s. The weight burned into him. “Let me lead you into a life of crime.”

“Lead me? You can’t lead me. I’m well ahead of you.”

“Never! I cannot admit it. Name your crimes, sir. I must be the more dastardly.”

“Aiding a runaway slave. Running away myself. Aiding another runaway slave. Fraud, blackmail in obtaining papers for my mother and sister.” John shrugged. “The ever-present buggery.”

Henry leaned in admiringly. “Damn you. You’re right. You win. What excellent felonies. The best felonies. I have set my sights entirely too low! I need to break more laws.”

“Ah.” John smiled. “I’ve been an even worse influence than Thomas Jefferson, I see.”

“What are friends for, if not to urge you on in the commission of crimes required by all men of moral character?”

Here was the tug he could give the conversation. John leaned in until he could see nothing but Henry’s smile, the freckles on his nose. “Is it friends, then, that we are?” Their breath danced on each other’s lips, warm and perfect.

Henry pulled away. “Here,” Henry said in the way he had that suggested he was speaking in perfect non sequiturs—or maybe not. “Have some dreadful cheese. It’s still objectively terrible.”

He cut a slice.

Oh, what the hell. John didn’t take the cheese from Henry’s hand. He leaned forward and took it in his mouth, letting his lips brush Henry’s fingers.

He knew what to expect. He’d eaten the cheese often enough.

There was a burst of salt on his tongue, then a deep, rich flavor. Something that filled his mouth with an astonishing intensity.

And beneath that, there were layers—something sweet, something bitter, something sharp, coming together with a complexity that made absolutely no sense at all but formed an almost perfect balance…

“Oh no,” John said. “It’s happened.”

“Has it?”

“How?” John pulled away. “How is this possible? How can this happen? How did the Cheese of Death turn into…this? What did you do? What were you thinking?”

“I was really thinking,” Henry said, “that if you were going to kiss me, we had better both taste of cheese. But I can explain. It’s simple. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that…all cheese is created equal.”

“You are the most impossible man to try to kiss.”

Henry just grinned at him.

“That when any form of cheesemongering becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to abolish it—”

“Do not continue, Henry. By no means are you to do this.”

“Make me stop.” Henry’s eyes twinkled. “Where was I? Ah. It is the right of the people to abolish it and to institute new cheesemongers—”

In the end, there was only one way to shut him up.