Work Text:
[...] every shadow is a memory,
memory… As he said to me
once, That’s all garbage
down the river, now. Turning,
but as the utterly lost—
because addicted— do:
resigned all over again. It
only looked, it—
It must only look
like leaving. There’s an art
to everything. Even
turning away. How
eventually even hunger
can become a space
to live in.
***
Carl Phillips, Civilization
Even before his shadow moved across the grass in a misshapen likeness, silent and careful as a cat’s, Bjorn was certain that he would follow.
But he lingers for a while outside the door, motionless, scarcely breathing. Doesn’t knock. Bjorn thinks about the stories of gods visiting in disguise to try and keep the presence he knows is there, waiting, from irritating him too much. Wonders what’s keeping him, if he still had to decide or just couldn’t stop hesitating. He sets a brick of peat down in the hungry flames and it burns the smell of moss and soil into the air, and maybe it’s the light and heat that finally draws him in.
He doubts Thorfinn even pauses to consider why he chose a place without a lock.
It’s become dark enough Bjorn can’t look out when Thorfinn slips in, just hears some men talking in the distance over something that could either be a hysterical laugh or a full, heaving sob. When the door latches shut it goes quiet and Thorfinn’s standing there, and he’s got blood congealed on the front of his clothes and his face is set into something usually only seen at the start of a duel, fierce and determined. The firelight reflects off of his eyes like a night animal’s, something as reddish-brown as sunlight through autumn leaves.
He doesn’t even bother to grunt in acknowledgement when the kid slinks further in. He’s limber enough to casually pull off the saunter at his age even if it makes Bjorn suppress a grimace. He just peels another bite of the roast meat off with his teeth and chews and stares into the fire. Thorfinn’s got his own morsel— gone a little cold from the time he spent just outside the door, but usually he doesn’t complain about the condition of the bones thrown his way. He sits cross-legged and tears into the char with relish only true hunger can manifest.
The room is little more than a shack with a firepit and a bed. Thorfinn can reach over and pilfer his tankard of ale whenever he pleases and that’s just what he does, drinking it in big gulps and licking his lips after. He’s small so it doesn’t take long before he’s got a glazed look in his eyes but it doesn’t dull them so much as give him a wild look, unfocused yet alert. Bjorn just waits, letting him help himself to liquid courage before he begins his attempts.
They throw their cleaned bones into the fire. The smell of earth from the peat is dry and strong, and breathing it makes him want his ale but Thorfinn no longer bothers to set the tankard back and keeps it clutched in his hand.
“None of the women to your taste?” he begins, feigning a type of boredom that’s precisely the same as Askeladd’s.
It disturbs Bjorn but he manages to keep his face motionless. Though Thorfinn hardly resembles Askeladd in appearance, at times they are strikingly similar in gesture, uncannily so. He makes no reply and Thorfinn grunts. Boys his age shouldn’t be still for so long, but he’s hardly moved anything save the arm that brings the rim of the cup to his lips again and again.
“None of ‘em pretty enough? Or… too pretty?”
Bjorn glances up. Despite his body’s leanness his face still has a certain roundness to it, and his chin and upper lip bear only a few sparse hairs. He’s looking at him from across the pit, the disarray of his bangs keeping his eyes in a flimsy shadow, one Bjorn wants to squint to peer past. He knows what the kid’s getting at, of course, so he can’t help but scrutinize him like he hadn’t before: being so young lends Thorfinn a certain kind of androgynous prettiness he’ll probably grow out of soon, but he’s got the same sour scowl on his face he always does and there’s a jarring incongruity with his eyes, the sharpness in them of someone who’s seen more than his share of hardship.
“Maybe you don’t even like women,” he sneers, his lips in an ugly twist. “Guess we usually kill all the others before you can have your pick.”
Bjorn doesn’t say anything. Merely studies Thorfinn, who stares back in challenge. He’s gotten better at this, though it would take a lot more than implication to get a rise out of him. Something about the way he resorts to insults makes him feel a twinge closer to pity than anything approximating frustration and he’s sure if Thorfinn figured it out he might leave him alone for good. He wonders why he doesn’t do just that, why he bothered sleeping in an unlocked room when he could’ve picked something that would leave him in comfort and peace.
He glances to his left where normally another man would be sitting and quickly returns to staring at the kid as if stung. There was never really a hope of Askeladd joining him in this shack, Bjorn was well aware they wouldn’t reconcile until he finished licking his wounds and went crawling back. It was only his own stubbornness that prolonged it. Even knowing this and feeling the shame it brought down on his heart wasn’t enough for him to have the willpower to prevent it; it was like something that already happened and he just hadn’t got there yet, like a story heard many times. He grinds his teeth. Outside the wind howls faintly, a sound borne from faraway.
Thorfinn sets the cup down on the stones that circle the firepit, demanding his attention, and from the way it sounds Bjorn can tell it’s empty. He pushes some of this tangled dirty-blond hair back behind his ear in a way that’s supposed to be casual but is too unsteady to be smooth. He shifts, his small hands reaching up to carefully pull the laces at the front of his mantle, working open the first two holes before he pulls the garment over his head. His face disappears under the fabric a moment before he’s free of it, and his cheeks are pink with ale and nerves.
“If you tell me what you like, maybe we can keep ‘em alive,” he suggests, voice dipping low. He hasn't come closer yet, but his voice makes it seem like he wants to, sliding over to Bjorn like a hand with trailing fingers.
Despite the obvious ploy, Bjorn feels the forwardness affect him— Thorfinn never undressed before, even just an outer garment, and a filthy one at that. There’s a clean boundary on the tunic where the hood usually covered, and the lack of it made Bjorn realize he had gotten just a little broader in the shoulders, that it wasn’t just the illusion of the cape. He’s still slim and probably always would be, but he was growing fast; by Bjorn’s reckoning he’d reach legal manhood this winter.
“You gonna talk or just sit there dumb?” Thorfinn snapped, impatience beginning to colour his words, so shocking after his low suggestions.
Bjorn resisted the urge to sigh. He supposed it was about time for him to lose his cool, Thorfinn was well-known for his short fuse.
“You like blonds, right? What about beards?”
Thorfinn shifted, scowling at his continued silence. He’d touched his chin when he mentioned beards, as if drawing attention to his own lack knowing that Bjorn would prefer something coarse with his kiss, his fingers pinching the end of an imaginary goatee in a gesture so familiar it made Bjorn’s heart ache. He couldn’t think like that now— no point. Thorfinn’s chin was five hairs short of bare and Askeladd wouldn’t seek him out no matter how long he waited.
There was a simmering heat that wasn’t from the fire just under the surface of things, straining towards tangibility. As it was now there was no word for it; close to anger, perhaps, or zeal. Intense but not yet physical.
“No, you like ‘em old and decrepit, don’t ya? Do you like when they ignore you too? Huh? Everyone knows your his loyal dog and all he’s gotta to is call you to heel—”
Bjorn couldn’t help himself: he laughed. He laughed that deep belly laugh that could not be suppressed, and he even felt tears at the corner of his eyes. Really, what else could he do? He was sure Thorfinn would bark if it would earn him a duel, and even as Bjorn wound down from his laughter and looked up at Thorfinn, who was now standing upright with his fists clenched, his face beet-red, he could imagine it. He wiped away the wetness from his eyes with his sleeve and slapped his hands on his knees as if he’d been told the best joke of his life and then he sobered. Bitterness filled him, ruining any lingering mirth.
Thorfinn may lack self-awareness, but Bjorn was painfully aware of his own shortcomings and didn’t like that it was obvious to everyone else too. Yet instead of making him angry that Thorfinn had hit the mark dead-on like any man should be after such an insult, he just felt sad. Like a weight on his heart, anchoring him when he’d rather be elsewhere, in other company. Well. Bjorn knew sometimes you had to take what you could get; seemed Thorfinn did too.
“Sit down, kid,” he said calmly, voice husky with the strain of laughter-turned-sour.
Instead, Thorfinn sprung forward, close, livid, eyes widened in an almost crazed expression. Bjorn didn’t move but he prepared for some sort of attack just in case— his father’s seax was sheathed at his waist as it usually was, the hilt worn from years of grip right in front of Bjorn’s face.
“I’m not a fucking kid,” he spat, voice tremulous.
He jabbed at him with his finger, stooping over him so Bjorn could see the ire gleaming dangerously in his eyes. Like berserksgangr, Thorfinn was volatile, unpredictable at the worst times.
“I’ve killed and fought just like anyone and I didn’t hafta rely on kissing ass to earn my place unlike you.”
Bjorn pursed his lips, unmoved. Thorfinn’s nostrils flared with rage and he bristled, the lines of his body taut as a bowstring. He patted the spot next to him where there was still space on the fur he rolled out as a barrier between him and the pounded earth floor, and Thorfinn looked down, fuming but with a gleam of opportunity Bjorn wasn’t sure he’d notice. That was the problem with him and one that lost him duels: he let the anger get to his head and then all thinking stopped.
Not this time.
He sat down within arm’s reach, cheeks still visibly pink even in the low light, his nose wrinkled and teeth bared like an animal, looking down at his lap where his hands remained clenched shut. Bjorn considered him a moment, the shadows long across one side of his face and smudged under the pout of his lips. He let out a great sigh through his nose and made up his mind.
Sitting here alone and brooding about Askeladd’s detachment just wasn’t appealing anymore, he was too old for that shit now and too jaded. As their crew’s main healer, Bjorn knew the best thing for a festering wound was to cut off the whole limb: when you couldn’t do that, distraction from the inevitable was nice.
Hard to teach an old dog new tricks, especially when the master was unwilling. But not impossible. He picked a place without a lock, after all, and he knew it wouldn’t be Askeladd that would follow him in no matter how much he wanted it to be.
“Lotta shit-talking,” Bjorn said quietly, trying not to rile him again but not wanting to be charitable. “When you could just tell me what you want like a man.”
Quiet challenge: If you’re a real man like you say you are, then act like one. Thorfinn’s eyes snapped up to him and his lip curled but he bit back whatever immature response leapt to his tongue and forced out his anger with a shaky exhale. He glanced over at the door and back again and screwed his mouth shut into a harsh line. It’s a long while before he says anything, and the apple in his throat bobbed as if wanting more ale. Bjorn lets him be, pokes idly at the fire even though the peat would burn long and hot without stoking.
“I want you to do it to me,” he mumbles. It mingles with the hushed sound of burning.
“What?”
Thorfinn’s eyes jab up like his two daggers.
“You deaf?” He takes a deep breath. “I said I want you to do it to me.”
Bjorn stares at him long and hard. He knows, of course, what he means, he just isn’t sure how he means it; the kind of act that is done to someone was usually taken and not asked for, and for some reason it makes his blood run a little cold to think about pinning the kid down. No. If he was going to humor this pitiful enticement, he needed Thorfinn to say what it was he wanted and he needed it to be clear. Everyone knew he thrived off of direct orders, even the hothead before him.
Thorfinn looks up at him defiantly, but there’s a vulnerable edge where he’s put his desire to words and Bjorn’s well aware of that too— his hands twist the end of his belt and his cheeks burn just as feverish and bright as the peat fire.
“Do what, Thorfinn?” he asks wearily, folding his arms over his chest.
And really, he is tired. Bad enough he had to deal with the crew after fighting through the tipped-off village, patching them up and ordering the watch rotation, counting their loot, breaking up squabbles over who got what from which body… And all while Askeladd was still giving him the cold shoulder, his hard eyes not even deigning to meet Bjorn’s as he yawned, stretched, retired to a different cottage. ‘I’ll leave the rest to you, Bjorn.’ He could hear the lock click behind him.
They both grit their teeth.
“Stop bein’ a prick,” Thorfinn growled and his hands shut to fists once more. Then, lower:
“You know what I mean. I’m not askin’ much, everyone knows it’s no big deal if you’re the one doing it to someone else. And I’m still a—” he looked away but even then he couldn’t say it and his mouth snapped shut.
A moment ago he was insisting he wasn’t a kid and now he almost admitted he was; speaking with Thorfinn was always a headache because he had the impressive ability to believe in exclusive opposites simultaneously, so one had to keep both half-truths in mind. Bjorn frowned, wondered how someone so undersized could fit so much contradiction inside of them.
“Listen, I’m not trying to play games with you, Thorfinn, but I need you to be direct,” he said, unable to keep the exasperated edge from his voice. He ran his hand over his face, looked back at him sitting there. He was very still again, almost like a piece of furniture in the room.
“So tell me what exactly you want me to ‘do to you’ and then we’ll go from there.”
His face crumpled as if he were in pain and then the wrinkles around his lips and nose smoothed until he was blank. The hair at the back of Bjorn’s neck stood at attention— he always hated that look, the big emptiness as near a living being could come to the death-stare. He imagined that’s what a draugr would look like newly risen from the grave. Thorfinn shrugged, though his nonchalance was unconvincing and his shoulder sank down, limp.
“I want you to show me how two guys fuck. You know, between the legs.”
His voice was flat, and when Bjorn stared back it was like walking into a vacant room, one where the lack of presence was itself a presence. Bjorn had seen him get up from hits that would’ve sent many veterans of their crew crying for their mothers, and always with this same expression. He often found himself wondering where Thorfinn went when he was in such a state, as if his hugr flew somewhere else while his hamr remained behind like a cracked eggshell.
“Why?” He couldn’t help but ask.
Anger was a welcome thing to the blankness, even one as unpredictable as Thorfinn’s. He didn’t necessarily mean to set him off again, but it wasn’t a difficult thing to do and he wanted to know. Or. He thought he did. There was a sense— the gut-sense— that cautioned him, told him he was treading towards something tender, something that couldn’t be mended if it broke. Wasn’t Thorfinn’s anger proof of that? You know why, a derisive voice hissed in the very back of his mind, and Bjorn didn’t want to but he remembered the way Thorfinn looked that night—
“I’m not ergi,” Thorfinn spat with such disgust he actually hawked into the firepit.
“Never said you were,” Bjorn sighed, rubbing his forehead. The light pulsed through his eyelids and lit his vision in a fleshy red glow and he decided to let it drop, heeding the warning of his own intuition. It didn’t necessarily matter why, just that it was.
Thankfully this settled him down, perhaps because the sincerity came through; Thorfinn was many things, but he was no sissy, even if he was asking to be taken like a woman no matter how he framed it. But Bjorn wasn’t one to judge that desire of all things, nor did he think it negated all that was proved of a man before. Thorfinn sat back, shifted a little bit. He shrugged again and looked up at Bjorn through the fall of his hair. His tongue wet his lips but he said nothing.
He trusts me, Bjorn realized. It fell upon him like a strike that breaks a shield and he tendered that wound like a burden foisted upon him but which he had to accept. He trusts me to do it and that’s why he’s come here to ask. He felt his mouth drop open a little but quickly shut it again, looking at him in a new light. He wasn’t sure what it was that made the realization hit: if it was the success Bjorn had at calming him down from such a grievous insult, even if only perceived, or the way Thorfinn came back again and again, putting on a misguided show of seduction. Now Thorfinn was looking up at him with big, watchful eyes, pupils blown wide from the low light and his body taut with silence. Silence except for the dry roar of the fire and the wind which blew intermittently through the cracks where the roof disjoined from the walls. And a little breath Thorfinn made, almost imperceptible.
Despite himself, Bjorn felt the first flush of heat bloom up from his neckline to his cheeks and he swallowed around the mix of disappointment and excitement it brought. Even if it was Thorfinn and not another, he dreamed for so long that he would be approached in just such a way: with trust tucked behind every action and word, fragile, recoiling from perception. Oh, how he imagined taking that vulnerability into his hands like a sick bird, tending to it surreptitiously, feeling more connected to it for its reliance on him. Hadn’t he bared his own heart long enough? Earned at least the company of another person? Hadn’t he shown time and again he could be trusted?
Thorfinn trusted him. Thorfinn who slept with his seax in his fist. Thorfinn who flinched whenever the crew got too chummy with him. Thorfinn who had a perpetual crease between his brows and a scowl on his face.
And just like Thorfinn, Bjorn wasn’t in the habit of complaining about the bones thrown his way.
“No games,” came an unsteady voice. Thorfinn stared at him intensely, trying to understand his silence.
Bjorn tipped his head towards him.
“No games.”
He leaned back and sighed and instantly the tension in the room flagged. It was as if they’d shaken on a deal. Thorfinn blinked for the first time in recent memory and Bjorn fussed with the fire again, poking at it with a long iron fork he’d found in the shack when he first started setting up for the night. He thought about his proposal a bit more with the awareness of how impatient Thorfinn was becoming: not that it could’ve left his mind long, since he was staring at him again. Two holes in his back just like the prongs of the fork in the peat. Smell of burning earth.
Glancing over, he set the fork down. Smoke curled around them in a fine bluish haze.
“Come here,” Bjorn said at last, gesturing for him to come closer as he reached for the small leather pouch he set to the side with the rest of his things. He fished for the ivory comb tucked into its pocket and grunted when he didn’t hear any movement. Kid hadn’t gotten good enough to be that silent.
“I’m gonna tidy your hair,” Bjorn specified, gesturing again but this time with the comb.
Thorfinn had his face pinched and he looked over at Bjorn as if he asked to pull a tooth. He was so baffled that he forgot to be angry, and Bjorn thought it funny enough that he forgot to be annoyed for a moment.
“What? Why?”
His hand unconsciously went up to touch his tangled hair which was oily at the scalp and visibly dirty at the ends, thick as the hide of a wolf. He parted it back enough with this gesture for Bjorn to fully see one of his eyes, a rare sight, along with the fine, dark line of his brow rising as he turned a doubtful glance at him. If he didn’t know any better he’d think Thorfinn was plucking his brows, a thought that graced him with a smile.
“Are you supposed to comb first?” he asked earnestly, and it was all Bjorn could do not to laugh.
“No, it’s not needed,” he said, quickly turning to his pouch so Thorfinn couldn’t see the amusement threatening his lips; not that it was successful, for he was sure to hear it in his voice.
“Though it does help,” Bjorn quickly added, trying to make him feel less foolish knowing that such a slight could end up disastrous. He didn’t really want to deal with more outbursts, the idea of being unconscious still tantalizing, or merely horizontal if that couldn’t be managed. No one ever complained about a clean lover, after all.
He turned back after fumbling pointlessly with the leather flap. His bag slouched to the side. Wind howled. He shrugged.
“We’re not gonna get that far today anyways.”
That did it. Bjorn inwardly grimaced. Thorfinn glared at him in a half-crouch, his hair falling back down over the very top of his eyes and his small frame poised as if at the beginning of a fight. He growled:
“What the fuck do you mean? That’s what I’m here for!”
Bjorn sighed, looking down at the comb pinched between his fingers resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose instead. He could feel the bristling ball of anger just shy of his left arm. He looked back up sharply and thrust his chin at the door in explanation, and the kid glanced at it with momentary panic, assuming he meant that someone was coming. Silence lunged upon them like a night predator and Thorfinn braced for steps at the door. Only… no one, at least for now.
“Tell me, that door look like it has a lock to you?” Bjorn drawled, falling back at ease.
The panic worked wonders on Thorfinn. He humphed back from his ready crouch onto his ass and folded his arms over his chest, clearly pissed with his trick even if it did get his point across. Neither of them wanted an interruption, and outside there were a hundred half-drunk men that could stumble into the wrong shack at any moment. Flickering firelight and the half-charred buildings of the unfamiliar village could make one get turned around. Thorfinn grimaced, and Bjorn knew he was thinking the same at the same instant and he smiled.
“Didn’t think so.”
He shifted, turning his whole body so he was sideways to the fire, facing Thorfinn. Blaze on his skin, cool on the opposing side. He leaned forward. They were closer than they usually were, only a small space between their folded legs. Bjorn could smell the stale sweat and something fainter, the blood or even the savory smell of the meat they’d eaten.
“What you’re asking for takes time, and the longer it takes means the more likely there’s an interruption.”
Glaring up at him, lips twisted into a pout, he insisted: “I’m not some weakling, we can go faster.”
Bjorn shook his head, running his hand back through his own hair, willing the beginnings of his headache to recede back into the stone-quiet of his mind. Not for the first time he wondered if this was more trouble than it was worth, but the deep, low warmth that had bourgeoned behind his ribs and down into his loins insisted that he never had an issue trying for things that were more trouble than they were worth. Still, the bags under his eyes felt heavy and he wondered what Thorfinn would do if he just crawled into the shitty bed, turned to face the wall, and went to sleep.
“Remember when Steinarr tried to pick you up when he was drunk last winter?” Bjorn prompted, studying his face.
Thorfinn said nothing. He looked past Bjorn and into the firepit, the light reflecting in his eyes the movement of those dancing flames. There’s an emotion there among the dancing flames that Bjorn can’t pick out. Big brown eyes, red-gleaming. Steinarr had survived but he lost most of one hand and they called him Steinarr Stump-Fist, though for a while they referred to him as Runt-Bitten until Thorfinn put a stop to that too.
Plucky kid. Maybe too eager.
“Yeah, I’m not babying you,” Bjorn said, completing the thought. “I’m keeping my own skin in mind. When I say we need more time and space, we need it.”
Thorfinn looked back up at him and they locked horns for a minute, but Bjorn didn’t budge and willed him to concede or get out of his shack: he wasn’t going to do it here. Not with the wind seeping through the cracks, blue-smoke hanging, the rickety door.
“Fine,” he mumbled, his nose wrinkling into a snarl that didn’t quite manifest. He crossed his arms. “Why’re you combing my hair then?”
Now they were getting somewhere! Bjorn praised the gods and let Thorfinn turn around and settle in front of him so his legs were pressed against his backside, not in his lap but against it, touching. Slip of contact, pale sliver of a moon in a dark sky.
“You can decide if you really want me close,” he said, holding out one hand as if to say see? before carefully setting it against his shoulder. His hand almost engulfed the entire space, clasping down to the hard line of his collarbone through his thinned tunic where his skin bled through with warmth. Thorfinn’s head ducked a little, hunching as if his hand were too much. Barely keeping himself up, let alone any added weight.
But rigid, one hand conspicuously near the hilt of his seax. He didn’t go for it, gripping onto nothing but air, and in the silence Bjorn could hear the thoughts grinding together in Thorfinn’s mind like the laborious turn of a millstone. War: to flinch away from the touch of a large man so close to his back, or to accept it as necessary for what he wanted. He said nothing, didn’t pull away but nor did he relax. Stubborn. Bjorn shook his head silently, taking the lack of response not so much as permission as it was acquiescence. Easier to make no decision sometimes.
He petted his hair awkwardly— sometimes he cut Askeladd’s hair for him, since it was troublesome to get the length right in the back when it was so short— but it wasn’t often. His Second privileges only got him so far. Thorfinn stayed shock-still, even as he carefully began to try to get the comb to run through more than a finger’s breadth before it stopped, holding the locks at the root so as to not pull at his scalp. Maybe if he made it pleasant enough, Thorfinn would actually be more willing to cooperate.
Maybe he’d even let him do it again. But why? His hair was blond, but it wasn’t the right shade. He was much too small anyways.
“You can ask questions,” he suggested, trying not to breathe on his neck. Trying not to ask his own. There were fine hairs there at Thorfinn’s nape, lighter than the hair he worked at. Delicate, like a duckling’s.
Thorfinn was quiet. Then, after a while he said in a voice Bjorn thought of as his ‘tough-guy’ act:
“Does it hurt a lot?”
He ran the comb through and caught halfway down the first lock of hair, pleased he hadn’t yet seen a mass of fleas jumping off of it like a burning ship. Just flecks of what could be dirt or could be long-dried blood.
“Not if you’re patient,” he replied, wishing he could stress the word patience without setting him off. He wasn't sure if Thorfinn was capable of patience save in battle— a battle not with Askeladd. It’s a good thing Bjorn was patient as ever, even if the thought tasted bitter on his tongue.
He could wait forever and that door wouldn’t open. Contrary to what excuse he had for Thorfinn; no one would come through that door.
“Have you tried your fingers?”
Thorfinn’s shoulders tensed again, slight but noticeable. Bjorn was glad he was facing away from him— he was sure his scrutiny would only make him unwilling to answer.
“Yeah…”
“Kinda feels funny, huh?”
Thorfinn nodded, and Bjorn cursed under his breath trying not to pull on the lock of hair he still had in his hand, finally getting through to the split ends and trying not to grimace at the fine particles coming off onto his lap. He’d have to clean his comb with some boiling water later when the kid wouldn’t see it. Run his fingers along the teeth.
“What lube did you use?” Bjorn asked, continuing to try for casual conversation— it would be good to get him used to talking about things, even if it made him uncomfortable now.
“Lube?”
Bjorn stopped, nearly setting down the comb. Instead he paused and looked up as if to peer into the face that was currently turned away from him. Ahead of him: the darkness of the cabin, the light on the walls. Low howling wind.
“Gods, please tell me you at least used some spit!”
Thorfinn twisted around just to deliver Bjorn a scathing glare before settling back, pushing against him as if to prove that he knew what he was doing. His body was warmer than Bjorn thought it had any right to be through their clothes. Feverish for life. Small-boned as a bird, lean as a starved dog.
“I did! You coulda just said spit if that’s what you meant.”
Bjorn snorted, but the comb’s teeth picked up a stray clump as he was dragging it down and snagged in the piece that he hadn’t held back with his other hand harder than he would’ve liked and his own reflex took over before he was even aware what the blur before him meant: Thorfinn had drawn out his dagger in a flash of silver, swinging around with his arm for his neck but easily intercepted by Bjorn’s grasp, twisting the wrist back in a move that had it pinned to the small of his back and the blade clattering to the floor after glancing off of Bjorn’s knee.
He grunted, blocking the punch Thorfinn attempted as he turned and lunged at him, and he cursed yet again as he wrangled the boy by both arms until he recollected himself and stilled, the comb still hanging in his hair and a crazed, bloodthirsty look died off into something briefly stinking of shame and panic. Wild. Cornered. Remembering. Bjorn held him there in front of him, arms spread, chest heaving, cheeks stained a dark red. Strands of hair fell against the bridge of his nose and his lips hung open in a gasp.
“Thorfinn what the fuck—”
He yanked himself away and Bjorn let him, releasing his grip on those wrists so much like the limbs of a small animal, sinewy and narrow. He couldn’t forget that; changeling child. That’s what it felt like. Go howl at the moon. Sitting back and heaving, a shadow passed over his eyes that could be the shape of anything— grief, anger, even madness. Bjorn felt his heart hammer in his own chest from the surprise, vindicated in his weariness. The fallen blade gleamed in the night of the room.
Thorfinn shifted.
Face red, Thorfinn bit down on his lip and couldn’t face Bjorn when he realized he saw— and Bjorn had seen, sure as he saw the way his tunic parted enough at the middle, pale hands darting to right it before he plucked his seax off the floor and sheathed it quickly. Drew his knee up slightly as if it could change Bjorn’s memory of the tent between his legs. Bjorn stilled, though his heart still thumped furiously and the blood rushed in his ears. Wanted to squirm just like Thorfinn.
“I can suck you off,” he blurted out, his face still red.
Bjorn felt like his eyes would pop out of his own head and his palm came up to his head instinctively.
“What?”
Hands clenched into fists and Thorfinn was like a kettle about to boil: heated, simmering, voice high-pitched. He huffed, hands without purpose fumbling.
“Said I can suck you off. That won’t take too long. Don’t care too much if they see.”
Bjorn felt the headache come back like a pulsing vein threaded through the space behind his temples.
“This is something you know how to do?” he asked, incredulous, image still branded into his mind.
Thorfinn’s face screwed up like a piece of mangled armor. He sat upright and puffed out his chest. Something about his eyes made Bjorn feel stupid, and he shirked at the intensity of that feeling. He didn’t want to see it lest he have to acknowledge it, though his occluded mind briefly flashed like a landscape visible between lightning strikes of memory: high summer, late, campfires just like those outside now. Another village in another year that could’ve been anywhere or anytime, made memorable only by what he’d seen differently: not the village-women, but Thorfinn kneeling before a grunting body.
“Yeah,” he accused. “You saw once.”
Vivid and stark. Bjorn remembered standing there wondering what to do, half in the circle of firelight and half in the soot-black night. Something had seized his throat: he thought the crew left the kid alone but the noises coming from the barn were unmistakable. How long…? The night-insects droned. Leaves, thousands of them. Choking. Gasping. Long groan of release: could’ve been pain, but Bjorn knew well enough it wasn’t. He decided.
“Thorfinn! Where’re you at? Askeladd has a job for you.”
Some of them tucked themselves back into their pants and went out the other door, Bjorn could see them slink back from the crack they left open. One of them grinned, looking back at another. There was a shine of Thorfinn’s lips that disgusted Bjorn, yet he didn’t seem to notice it across his lips, his eyes darting until he found him standing there in the dark silently. Even now Bjorn shuddered. He’d seen it so many times done to others, so why did it bother him then? Maybe the sweat-close smell. Bjorn grimaced, told him to wipe his face. Askeladd played along when they found him; maybe he smelled it on him too. Maybe he always knew— his eyes never gave anything away.
He said nothing. Thorfinn stared him down.
“No, Thorfinn.”
Before he could protest, his mouth open in a shout—
“You nearly took my head off for pulling on your hair.”
His face twisted under his fringe, half-combed. Bjorn reached forward and he flinched— a small movement of his eyelid twitching and his lip jumping, a tension along the line of his shoulders. His throat soft where it met his neckline. Bjorn plucked the comb still dangling from the knot in his hair carefully, and by the time he got it free he could tell the point settled like a bruise between them: tender, to be avoided.
“So it’s a no then?” he seethed, though there wasn’t much heat to it, only a certain relinquishment. Like boiling water that has since cooled to something tepid.
Bjorn shook his head, standing up. His knees ached from the battle, thigh-muscles sour with exertion and tight-wound as cords. There wasn’t even a step between his spot on the floor and the bed, so he sat down just as soon as he stood. Flat and cold, more like a plank of wood to lay on.
“We can try again when we’re overwintering,” he offered, like a plate of food that’s been sitting out too long. That is to say; take it or leave it.
(Nighttime. Thorfinn wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His eyes, guarded. ‘Where’s Askeladd?’ His voice sounded ragged on Askeladd’s name, as if that word were what made him sore.)
He brought his own hand up to his mouth unconsciously, immediately felt disgusted when he did and dropped it. The blanket was thin so Bjorn had unrolled his own. Thorfinn’s breaths came out quiet but harsh, looking back at the door. Lingering there, the firelight outside faint, a mere thread under the doorjamb. He could get up and leave: he always had the out, but Bjorn knew looking at him that he wouldn’t take it just like he knew he wouldn’t take his own outs.
Laying back on the hideous crunch of the cold straw mattress, Bjorn felt like he could sleep for years, and certainly not due to any comfort. He had yet to draw the blanket up over his body, pooling there at his feet.
“C’mere,” he called out. “No sense in you sleeping on the floor.”
Thorfinn turned to him. His face fell into complete shadow so that only the tip of his nose was covered in a small spot of warmth. It wouldn’t be the first time they shared a bed; being on a ship necessitated sharing body heat sometimes, and Thorfinn had come to him on other nights, climbing through the hole in his roof as they endured a snowstorm, his body pressed close and as frozen as an icicle. His nose, nudging into his skin. Bjorn thought he’d seen blue lips once, as faintly blue as the smoke hanging around them now, shivering.
Thorfinn stood up, determined. If Bjorn wasn’t so tired he’d probably smile to himself.
Prove you wrong, those eyes said.
“But—” he held out his finger. “Seax stays on the floor.”
Bjorn couldn’t see the face he pulled but he could feel it unrestrained over his features, the precariousness of it. Wrinkled shadow where his mouth was. His pale hand came out of its fist and curled over the hilt of his dagger instead, pulling it free like a baby tooth, as if it pained him vaguely. The blade shone, skinnier than when he first held its point in the air after years of sharpening. An ugly shard of metal. He held it a moment and Bjorn grunted, bending down to pull the blanket up to his chin.
The mattress barely made a sound when he slipped in, something like a gasp. Not so much weight after all, and not so much warmth either. Bjorn felt his brows draw up as the bony elbow pressed into his side, and he let his arm under Thorfinn’s half-rat’s nest of hair. Like sleeping on a board next to another board, Bjorn thought, if only to keep out the thought that said: this is what I really needed and the ache forever tucked with him under the blanket which had been his only company for as long as he could remember.
Wind howling. The firelight seemed to concentrate on the blade at its stony border, an eight-pointed star in the room. Eventually, slowly, Thorfinn relaxed. Shivered. How did he survive so cold? From this angle, the hairs on his chin were illuminated gold and his mouth was, for once, set into something other than a frown, what seemed to be its natural repose.
Bjorn felt his eyes slip shut as the body next to him thawed. He knew no one else would come through the door anyways.
***