Work Text:
By Vera d'Auriac
It begins with Athelstan declaring he would leave. He runs up to Ragnar, the sun streaming through the windows and cracks bathing them both in an ethereal light. After years of searching and questioning, Athelstan found himself returning to the God of his life before Ragnar, the God he had always heard in the gentle fall of rain.
Ragnar has only to look at Athelstan’s ecstatic face to know this discovery in Athelstan’s soul means everything to him. And yet Ragnar wildly hopes that, perhaps, it isn’t quite everything. If Athelstan needs his Christian God, Ragnar is happy to let Athelstan have him. But Ragnar cannot permit Athelstan’s God to separate them. God will have to share Athelstan, because allowing Athelstan to go, to be parted from Ragnar’s life, exceeds anything Ragnar can live with.
“You cannot leave. You cannot leave me. I love you. You’re the only one I can trust, so you must stay.”
Ragnar’s vehemence catches Athelstan by surprise, although it should not have. What have these two not been through? What have they not meant to each other? They have lived with one another, saved one another, healed and loved one another, for so long that the time before the other feels like another life and not merely an earlier time in this one.
Ragnar’s embrace, his words, the passion in his voice changes Athelstan’s mind. He does not know how he transitions so quickly from certainly leaving to speaking: “It does not matter where I go. What matters is where you’re going.” But there are no other words he could speak.
Ragnar embraces Athelstan, afraid of the hunger he experienced just now when confronted with the thought Athelstan might be leaving. His touch is tentative, so as to stop himself from either devouring Athelstan or weeping for the sorrow barely averted. The two of them do not realize that this near separation has been the necessary element to bring them irrevocably together.
So without understanding this shift, and yet sensing it in the tips of his fingers, in the phantom ache of his scarred palms, it is Athelstan who grips Ragnar tighter. Now that he knows he will never leave Ragnar, even with the certainty of Christ in his heart, Athelstan must cling to this man who represents everything he needs for his earthly survival. He breathes in the scent of Ragnar, nose brushing neck, and it is the smell of home as much as the scent of incense and ink once were.
From there, the rest becomes inevitable. Ragnar’s fingers weave themselves into the braid of Athelstan’s hair, just as the sweat of his throat coats Athelstan’s lips. They caress and move as one, no further words necessary to bring about this long overdue consummation. Ragnar pulls Athelstan’s body close to his own, hands drifting to places admired but never touched. And Athelstan trembles in that embrace, the sweet feeling of physical love so seldom experienced nearly bringing him to tears.
What can be said about their lovemaking? The songs of old have said much, some of it accurate, but none of it able to fully touch what happens between these two men, so different and yet so imperative to the other. As natural as their movements are—disrobing, kissing, tracing the curves and planes of the other—Athelstan is nervous. Ragnar whispers that all will be well, asks Athelstan to share every thought, fear, and desire with him.
“I am afraid,” Athelstan admits, as his heart is a book open for Ragnar’s endless perusal. “I am afraid this cannot last. I am afraid now that I have found God, He will reject me if I do this. I am afraid there will be pain.”
Ragnar’s kisses comfort Athelstan, his open, slow mouth more reassuring than words. But after this long kiss, he employs words as well. “I will never cause you pain. You trust me?”
Athelstan blushes. “Of course.”
“Good.” A hint of a smile tinges Ragnar’s lips at this moment and everything feels so normal to Athelstan again, even though he wears no shirt and Ragnar’s hand is on his thigh. “And how can this not last? I will destroy the world if it means keeping you with me.”
Athelstan knows this to be the truth, his heart as sure of this statement as he is that fire is hot, and so he nods. But there is still his last objection, and he cannot quiet his heart where it is concerned. “But what of God, Ragnar? I found Him again today. He is real and He is with me. I do not want to lose Him again.”
Ragnar, however, refuses to lose Athelstan to his Jesus Christ. “You have told me much of your holy books, yes?” He brushes lips just below Athelstan’s ear, and Athelstan wishes at that moment the Bible did not exist.
“Yes. And it says men should not lie together.”
“But it has many contradictions, you have told me so. It celebrates love and passion, too. I remember what you told me about the garden and plowing.”
Long ago when Athelstan began telling Ragnar stories from the Bible, he spoke much of Christ’s life and His sacrifice. But he also told Ragnar the tales of the Old Testament kings, believing these stories would appeal to Ragnar. And then he drank too much one night, and he recited the poetry of the Song of Solomon, and Ragnar had been entranced. Athelstan had been equally rapt, watching Ragnar’s reaction.
“That is the love of a man for a woman,” Athelstan says. “You and I can sow nothing in the other.”
“I disagree. We can sow love in one another, and I know your God wants you to sow love.”
And with that Athelstan is won over. The brothers back at Lindisfarne would surely argue Ragnar’s theology, but Athelstan does not. He gives himself to Ragnar more willingly than even the most enthusiastic bride. And when they are coupled, their bodies joined in passion, the most beautiful seeds are planted in their breasts, ready to bloom into fullness with the simple application of love from the other.
Ragnar is right, he is careful, and he causes Athelstan no pain, but a sweet soreness lingers as a reminder, which Athelstan cherishes. Neither wishes to dress or move or remember where they are or that other people exist. Finally, knowing they cannot stay where and as they are, they develop a plan as they dress. They tell the first person they see that they must close themselves away at Athelstan’s to discuss Paris. They must not be disturbed for any reason. It will take them all night. At least.
And in that night, what do they not become to one another? Lover, confessor, protector, guide, and comfort against the world. They are to each other what rain is to the earth and wind is to a sail. No spot remains on Athelstan’s body that Ragnar’s mouth has not blessed. Ragnar’s joy at the light in Athelstan’s eyes nourishes him more than food. The world beyond these four walls hold no import to them.
Ragnar brings Athelstan to his crisis over and over again until he can give no more, and so that Ragnar also aches. But they still act touch-starved, the literal contact between them constant, clothes discarded in favor of skin. The only remaining decoration on either body, Athelstan’s cross.
When Ragnar begins caressing the cross, because to him it is as much a part of Athelstan as hands or legs, Athelstan begins to softly weep. Ragnar pulls Athelstan to his chest, whispers reassurance that he loves Athelstan and that all will be well and there is no cause for tears. But the weeping continues, Athelstan wrapping his arms around Ragnar, burying his face where neck and shoulder meet. Athelstan does not know how to confess his sin to Ragnar. Christ may have found him again that morning, but he is ashamed that he thought that meant he must lose Ragnar.
“You must tell me what is wrong,” Ragnar begs. “It is killing me not to be able to help.”
Athelstan worries his confession will kill Ragnar just as surely, but he speaks the terrible words anyway. He should not have worried. Ragnar hears that Athelstan threw the arm ring into the water, as if the loss of that matters next to the joy of having Athelstan in his arms now. Ragnar kisses Athelstan’s tears from his cheeks.
“If you want it, we will find it in the morning. Do not cry anymore.”
“I do want it, Ragnar. I want the world to see upon my body the symbol of the man to whom I belong.”
Ragnar brushes his fingers once more over the cross on Athelstan’s chest. “I thought this was a symbol that you belong to your God.”
“I do belong to him. But I belong to you as well.”
“And you can live, split in two?”
“You will help hold me together.”
Ragnar lifts the chain over Athelstan’s head, slips the cross around his own neck. “Now you have to look but one place to see where you belong. And people will see this and know that I belong to you.”
Athelstan smiles at this, charmed at the combination of Ragnar’s tender care and disingenuous modesty. “No one will ever believe you belong to another, Ragnar Lothbrok.”
“But we will know I do.” And these words are as honest as any either speaks that night or any other. “I could not belong any more to you if you tied a rope around my neck and made me follow you.”
“That’s not belonging. That’s slavery. You could not do it to me, and I could not do it to you.”
“But I am a slave to you.”
“You are a free man. Free to love me.” Athelstan stops to kiss Ragnar, his attempt to express his depth of emotion with this gesture where words failed him, successful. “It is love, freely given, alone that is worth having. I would not make you a slave for anything.”
“But know I could not belong more to you if you did make me a slave.” Ragnar presses the cross hard against his chest, its outline marking the skin. “You are here, and this connects me to you.”
“Let us go.” A fire lights Athelstan’s chest and eyes, and he cannot possibly wait for the dawn. He does not know how they will find the arm ring, even with the bright full moon, under the weight of all that water, but he must have it now.
Ragnar follows Athelstan to his feet, although he would have preferred spending a lifetime stretched out before the soft fire. “Go where?”
Athelstan pushes open his door, and Ragnar feels the breach of the world into their Eden most fiercely. But he follows Athelstan out into the quiet night, all the way down to the water’s edge. Athelstan has splashed in, and Ragnar hesitates not at all to follow. He immediately understands why Athelstan has come here, and while he would have waited for daylight, the fact Athelstan cannot makes his heart threaten to burst.
“I was here,” Athelstan announces once the water brushes his hips. “I couldn’t throw it far, and I know it went straight out.”
They begin to dive, groping the mud and pebble bottom. The moonlight penetrates through the murk, but not enough to discern shapes. Still they slide under the water again and again, Ragnar soon growing as determined to find the missing symbol of their connection as Athelstan. Ragnar hopes the arm ring has not fallen onto the deepest floor, which starts so close to shore, but he is growing cold, and he can only imagine that Athelstan is as well. He thinks of taking Athelstan back inside, this search important, but he does not want Athelstan to suffer, when the bright moonlight blinks off something just before Ragnar’s feet. He goes once more to the bottom, wraps his fingers around it triumphant.
Without thought for who might be peering out at them in the night, they embrace and kiss in joy. Only Bjorn sees, awake with anxiety for his new baby, but he says nothing, hiding himself deeper in the shadow to keep from disturbing a moment so long in coming.
Back in Athelstan’s, Ragnar swaddles Athelstan in a blanket and builds the fire high. As soon as it blazes, he turns back to Athelstan, who has a new dry blanket ready for the both of them. Bundled together, Ragnar takes Athelstan’s hand, slips the arm ring from his own wrist, and places it around Athelstan’s.
It is all that Athelstan desired when he rushed out to the water, and the emotion of the moment nearly overwhelms him. But he suppresses the tears of love and meaning he senses forming in his throat and uses the fingers of the hand beneath the arm ring to hold the cross firmly to Ragnar’s chest.
“'Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
ardor is fierce as the grave.’”
Ragnar’s kisses are devouring, and Athelstan welcomes the consumption.
“Those are the words of your god.”
“Yes. And they are our words now for each other. We are upon the other’s body, and nothing can alter that but death.”
“Not even the sea.”
“’Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.’”
And they lose themselves once more in the love they will never deny or hide away again. Eventually, they sleep, twined together. When the light comes for them in the morning, they do not know what will befall them, but neither do they care. They go forth wrapped in their love of each other, which has been blessed and baptized in the night.