Chapter Text

01

Eivor

 “You have a delicious talent for violence–” the man breathed against his lips.

Eivor pressed forward suddenly against the man in front of him, crashing his lips against the other’s, cutting him off. He didn’t want to talk. That’s not why he was here. If all there was between them was simply a deep admiration for his skills in battle, he doubted that they’d have found themselves groping at one another clumsily in the dark. 

Hands slid up his torso, strong fingers kneading into his muscled chest. The man moaned into his mouth as Eivor took his lower lip between his teeth. Pulling back, Eivor dipped his head and bit at the man’s neck, his teeth grazing across the vein he knew, all too well, was the source of a quick death.

He didn’t make a habit of going back for seconds, and the man writhing against him now would be no exception to that. Sex was not so mysterious, after all. It was easy once you got the hang of it. All it had taken was a look across the campfire, letting his gaze linger for just a moment longer than was necessary, hungry eyes meeting in the fire glow, to bring them crashing together behind a tree at the outskirts of camp a few minutes later.

This was convenient. It was easy. And best of all, it meant absolutely nothing.

Laughing and drunken song erupted from the encampment. They’d just finished a successful attack on one of Kjotve’s smaller holdings and came out far richer than they’d expected. On top of that they’d be returning to Fornburg the next day. Fatigue had settled over the raiding crew, so when Sigurd had announced they’d be returning home, relief had bloomed amongst them all. There was much to celebrate, though Eivor’s idea of celebrating required a little more privacy than a hastily erected tent could provide.

Eivor pressed his body against the man before him, rutting his hips against the other. The man knew his name, of course, which he groaned against Eivor’s ear as their matching arousals ground together. But Eivor did not know, nor did he care to know, what to call the dark haired man before him. They’d been fighting together for months now. He had probably been told his name–perhaps several times–and still could not, for the life of him, remember what it was. His hair was shaved on the sides to show off intricate tattoos along the curve of his skull, and his face was rugged and handsome in its own way.

The man fumbled with the edges of his tunic, sliding the fabric up over his hip bone and found the waistband of his trousers. A soft, throaty, expectant sigh escaped his lips as the man slid to his knees before him. He leaned forward and held his weight with a hand against the tree, the bark digging into his palm. As warmth enveloped his cock, Eivor dragged his fingers over the side of the man’s shaved head. If he tried hard enough, he could sometimes put himself in another place, in another time, with another person... 

Just the thought of being elsewhere had Eivor losing himself in the moment. It wasn’t that he didn’t find his current company pleasurable–truly this man was quite to his liking. But it didn’t change the fact he could never be what– or who –Eivor burned for. The shaved skin under his fingertips did something unspeakable to his resolve, and he snapped his hips forward, eliciting a deep groan from the man.

Fingers dug into his hip bones and he only barely managed a grunted warning before his muscles tightened and he spilled himself into the man’s mouth. His breath settled as he came down from his orgasm and he pushed himself away from the tree. He looked down at the nameless man, his lips swollen and his own erection visible through his pants. Reaching down for the man’s arm, Eivor pulled him up to his feet and surged forward, twisting him around so that his ass was pressed against his exposed cock. The man looked at him out of the corner of his eyes as he rested his forearms against the rough bark, eyes hungry.

Good , Eivor thought as he pulled at the waistband of the man’s pants. He still had quite a bit of celebrating to do too.

***

Eivor awoke the next morning with a raging headache. Pale light filtered through the open flap of his tent. As his mind caught up to being physically awake, the furs covering his naked torso suddenly became stifling, heavy and hot. He grabbed at them hastily, clambering to get them away from his sweat-slicked skin. His mouth felt like it was lined with sheep’s wool and his stomach roiled dangerously. And he had to piss.

He groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. 

Fuck .

Cracking an eye open and glancing towards the opening in the tent, he could see figures moving across the opening, backlit by the wan light of a breaking dawn. If he didn’t get a move on, he’d have hell to pay. The others had already started preparations to leave, and his absence would be noted sooner rather than later. At least it would be a beautiful day from the looks of it, perfect for starting their voyage back home.

Home . The word tumbled around in his groggy, sleep-muddled mind. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go home. They had been away for three months this time. Not very long in the grand scheme of things, but just long enough to get used to life on the move, out in the wild, away from the need of being civilized all the time. He liked it out here, where there were fewer rules and he could exist with only the sky above him and the earth and sea below him as his witnesses. The beauty and cruelty and adventure of it all never ceased to tear at his soul and leave him desperate for more.

With not an insubstantial amount of stumbling and a moment where he almost lost what little was left in his stomach, he managed to clothe himself. It took him a while to assemble all of his gear, what with pieces of clothing and armor strewn haphazardly about the tent. He’d been careless after he’d no-doubt stumbled in drunk, at gods-knew-what-hour, and stripped down to his trousers, casting everything else to the winds. Despite his best efforts, he was still missing a sock by the time he shakily trudged his way to the campfire for breakfast.

“Alright there, Eivor?” Sigurd quipped cheerfully, a plate of roasted fish perched in his lap. Something that looked like stew bubbled away in a pot atop the hot coals. The smell of fish turned Eivor’s stomach sour and he swallowed against a sudden wave of nausea.

“Is the sun brighter than usual today?” Eivor choked out through the dryness in his throat, his hand held up to shield his eyes.

Sigurd chuckled at him as Eivor scrunched up his face against the relentless sunshine that assaulted him. His head felt like it might crack open. Yep . The sun was definitely brighter than normal. Eivor answered his own question with a groan as he sank onto the ground beside Sigurd.

“Good night, was it?” Sigurd poked at the fire, kicking up sparks. He lowered his voice and slid his gaze back to the flames sputtering back to life. “I missed you during Bragi’s rendition of Hárbarðsljóð. You always did love how that old ferryman gave Thor so much shit.”

“I found myself rather busy,” Eivor sighed, trying to avoid Sigurd’s gaze. Even if Sigurd had seen him slip away with that other drengr , he wasn’t about to throw it in his face. One of the only things that he and Sigurd had somehow silently agreed upon not discussing was their sex lives. Which was probably for the best. “Besides, I’m not entirely sure it was worth this.”

Eivor pointed at his temple where the majority of pain from his headache radiated from and Sigurd chuckled again with a knowing raise of his arched brows. If Sigurd was bothered by the suggestion that Eivor had occupied his time with activities of a sexual nature instead of listening to Bragi’s stories, he didn’t show it.

From what little he actually remembered, the evening had been decidedly transactional, though satisfactory. He’d gotten what he wanted out of it, and he was fairly certain his partner had as well. He briefly thought about looking around to see if he could spot the man, but realized it would do nothing, and mattered little. Best neither of them acknowledge the rendez-vous.

“Perhaps not, but it is good to see you enjoying yourself. You fight hard. You deserve it.” 

Eivor turned to look up at Sigurd. Something shifted in him, the smile on his face slipping for a brief moment, only to return to barely mask a sort of sadness in his eyes. It made Eivor’s chest feel tight. Sigurd definitely knew.

Quiet fell over them as they ate their breakfast of leftover stew and roasted herring. Sigurd was pensive, caught up in his own head. It was sometimes like this. Everything would be fine between them one moment, then a strange quiet would settle over them the next. Every time it happened, Eivor wondered if it was something he’d said, or if it was something Sigurd hadn’t said that had caused the silence.

“How many days out do you think we are?” Eivor asked finally as he finished his meal. His stomach had settled some, and the pain in his head had slowly dwindled to a dull pulsing ache.

“Three, maybe four days. If the winds are in our favor we’ll set a good pace.”

“Seems strange to be that close to home and feel so far away, doesn’t it?” Eivor mused, taking a sip of water from a flask he’d managed to scrounge up.

“I suppose. Though all of this land starts to look the same after so long,” Sigurd gestured dismissively to the wild, untamed land behind him; the tree-covered hills and craggy mountains cutting severely across the grey morning sky. He sighed and smoothed a hand over his slicked back hair. “I sometimes think that I am competing in an unwinnable race.”

“How do you mean?”

“All eyes are on me, Eivor. My father, our clan, this crew… they all look to me to have the answer to a question I’m not sure any of them know how to ask. I’m not sure I even know what it is. But gods, they demand more from me each day... It’s–it’s...I don’t know. What’s the word…?”

“Crushing?” Eivor offered up cautiously.

“That sounds about right,” Sigurd’s eyes slipped closed as he took a long deep breath.

Eivor thought back to the last several months. Sigurd had seemed stressed as of late. More so recently. But he hadn’t exactly verbalized any of this to Eivor. Sigurd usually kept most of his problems close to his vest, but if Eivor was being honest, he had noticed the older man being particularly close-lipped and guarded as of late.

“So what is it that you feel you are racing against?” Eivor mused quietly.

“Time. Knowing that others have done so much more with less time than I’ve been given. You heard the other day, the stories they tell of Ubbe and Ivar Ragnarsson in those Christian lands. Of their conquests. They have lived but a few years more than I, and yet have accomplished so much while I sit and rot here in this grey, dead land. And for what?”

Sigurd’s face hardened and his tone positively dripped with contempt by the time the last phrase slipped from his lips.

Eivor thought quietly for a moment, turning his brother’s words over in his head. He chose his tone carefully, endeavoring to keep it light and unchallenging, “For our people, our families. Is that not enough?”

“I don’t know. When we were young, and leaving this place was a childish dream we shared, it was easy to think I had time all the time in the world. But it is different now. So much has changed around me and yet I feel like I am stuck, my feet frozen in ice, while others race past me.”

There was a rawness to the way Sigurd spoke. They’d always dreamed of going abroad, had done since Eivor was smaller than he could really remember. Sigurd’s ambitions were certainly not news to Eivor, but the usual intensity in Sigurd’s eyes now seemed dull, as if by a quiet resignation that those ambitions might never bear fruit–that was new. And it hit Eivor squarely in the gut.

For Eivor, his ambitions and fate were squarely rooted in Norway. Kjotve, the Raven Clan, Sigurd… all that he knew, that he loved and hated, what made him who he was, was all around him. Aside from those childish fantasies, crafted under starry skies in his youth, he’d never felt the fire that Sigurd felt to get away from all of this. His own idea of glory was much smaller. Perhaps he’d ignored this part of Sigurd, thought that he could be happy here with him and that it would one day be enough. They’d made such progress together. They’d fought so hard to turn the tides of the Raven Clan’s fortunes in their favor. But no amount of these small victories, it seemed, was enough to quell the fires in the man seated beside him.

Sigurd shifted beside him slightly and faced him, meeting Eivor’s quietly concerned gaze, “You’ve changed so much.”

“Me?” Eivor started, the unexpected shift in conversation catching him off guard. He half smiled, pointing a finger towards his own chest. “How so?”

“Don’t be silly, Eivor. Surely you’ve noticed how much respect you’ve earned. You are not the shy creature you once were, and I daresay some might even fear you. You’ve developed a bit of a reputation, wolf-kissed .”

Sigurd smiled at him, and nudged his shoulder.

“Perhaps they should be scared,” Eivor snarked, waggling his eyebrows playfully.

“Oh, they should be terrified!” the redhead said dramatically.

Both men laughed, and the subtle sadness that had been hiding behind Sigurd’s eyes seemed to slink away back to the shadows.

At least out here, when it was just them, they could have this. Whatever this weird, honest vulnerability was, they never found it when they were home. Something about the weight of responsibility crushed whatever space was needed for this level of comfort to flourish. 

“Sigurd, do you think you place more burden on yourself than others do?” Eivor asked quietly after their laughter had settled. The taller man shifted his eyes back to the dying fire, the flames so low that they were barely visible against the hot coals. For a moment, Eivor wondered if he should have asked the question. If he shouldn’t have let sleeping dogs lie.

“Perhaps. But if I do, I learned to do it from my father. It’s not like I’ve known much else. My life seems to revolve around a growing set of expectations, at the center of which is my him.”

Eivor did not argue. It was true, being the prince most certainly came with expectations, the least of which was his assuming his father’s rule one day. Sigurd often lamented that the burdens Styrbjorn placed on him were to keep him subservient to him, tethered to their homelands. But Eivor did not always see it that way. Truthfully, he was jealous sometimes of how hard Styrbjorn was on him. A part of Eivor would have willingly accepted that kind of guiding hand from his own father, if only his was still alive to give it. Sigurd did not like being controlled. That was what it boiled down to. And that meant his relationship with his father would forever be marred by his own ambitions. 

“Would you go to England if you had the chance?” asked Eivor, diverting the conversation away from Styrbjorn. They both knew how that line of thinking would go already and there was no point in rehashing something that would never change. 

“That’s just it, though. There is more than just England. Why should I look to follow someone else’s path when I could carve out my own? Isn’t that what all great vikings before us have done? Ragnar taught us that. To explore and discover new lands. Our people are a contradiction. We think we are farmers and settlers content to make do with what little we have, but the flames of conquest burn in all of us. It is the great dichotomy with which we all struggle to live with.”

Sigurd paused, the passion with which he’d just spoken suddenly imploding. He turned once more to Eivor, his face soft, but his eyes eerily distant, “But yes. Of course I would go if I could.”

“But...” Eivor trailed off, leading Sigurd by the conversational hand to finish a thought Eivor didn’t think he would if left unencouraged.

“But it would mean leaving you behind.”

Eivor’s armor suddenly felt heavy, like it was pressing too closely against his chest. They both knew this truth, both knew that this reality would catch up to them one day. Even if Styrbjorn would allow his only heir to leave on an expedition, there was no chance that he’d consent to losing both his best warriors. Besides, Eivor had his own fate to contend with, and the larger of a threat Kjotve became, the more urgent the need to end his existence became. Each year that passed left Eivor feeling the added weight of the burden of his past, a stone adding to it with each attack by the Wolf Clan.

“For years you’ve helped me prepare for my fate, to embrace it. Perhaps I have not afforded you the same support,” Eivor said earnestly, his brows drawing together with concern.

“You are my fate,” Sigurd said adamantly. “Glory is my dream, not my fate. I feel that in here,” he pressed a palm to his chest. “I have known for a long time now that we are bound together. In this life and the next.”

For a moment Eivor could almost feel that broad hand against his own chest. He wanted to feel its warmth and fought back the urge to reach out and take the other man’s hand his own, knit their fingers together, feel his skin against his own. Just as they could not be brothers and whatever made him desire the feeling of Sigurd’s breath against his neck, perhaps they could not both fulfill their dreams and stay together all the while.

The possibility that that was an impossibility seemed to be clearer now than it ever had been.

“Maybe we do not get both. For you to get what you want–perhaps, together can’t be forever, Sigurd.”

“But choosing between my fate and my dreams means accepting being half of something whole. And only having half of something such as that, could never be enough for me.”

Sigurd rose abruptly and threw his fish bones into the fire. He cast Eivor a baleful look and strode off toward the docks where the other men had already started loading the boats up.

Eivor stared after Sigurd. The tightness in his chest had him swallowing hard against his chest armor. Was this the truth of it then? Maybe just as Eivor did not realize his time with Vili had been running out, maybe the time he had left with Sigurd at his side was running out too and he had been too blind to see it.

Eivor swore and poured the rest of his water onto the smoldering embers. They sizzled and hissed, sending a stream of smoke up into the air. His stomach turned over angrily, and he struggled to know if it was the stale ale from the night before mixing with fish or the lingering taste of this new truth lingering in his mouth. He stood, and after a deep breath, tried to collect himself, to shake the feelings and fatigue from his bones. His stomach churned queasily for more reasons than one.

Maybe the fish hadn’t been such a good idea.

***

They were close now. Familiar terrain surrounded them and the waters calmed. It was always a blessing to be able to say that a trip at sea was uneventful, but even Eivor had to admit it had been a boring few days.

Sigurd seemed to let go of whatever strange state of mind he’d been in and had returned to his usual self, albeit somewhat quieter. They sat together on a pile of furs with their backs against the side of the ship, enjoying the clear blue sky and crisp air. The sails were up and doing most of the work, carrying them down the fjord , the end of which they called home.

They weren’t really talking. There wasn’t really a need, and not much particularly to say. Eivor didn’t mind. He liked the sitting in silence, the staring up at the sky to watch the clouds shift and change as they glided on by. He could feel Sigurd’s body heat radiating off of him where their shoulders almost touched. It was comforting but at the same time frustrating.

He’d made his peace with what they had become long ago. He learned that fighting his desires was futile, and instead recognized them for what they were. If he saw them plainly, he could tuck them away, say yes, but now is not the time to them. He figured if he could keep saying that long enough, he might have a chance of living long enough for the heat-filled memory of that night three years to fade.

“There it is, boys!”

The loud shout had his ears perking up and brought his spine to attention. Someone from another ship sounded a horn. Eivor felt Sigurd shift beside him and turned his head to look in the direction that home would be. Sure enough a familiar jut of mountains was visible just over the side of the boat. Sigurd stood and grabbed one of the ropes to steady himself.

The wind whipped against his face and pulled his long braid back in a beautiful, curling arch. Eivor watched his face closely.

He waited for the moment.

It was the same after every trip they took. There would be a moment where Sigurd would try to smile but falter, like he just couldn’t muster enough joy to complete the movement. Eivor caught it every single time–knew to look for it. It was like watching a skald recount a story, an entire theatrical production with every emotional beat present. Except the emotions passing over Sigurd’s face were so subtle and small that no one else could see them.

It broke Eivor’s heart a little more each time. It was like Sigurd longed to be home, but at the same time dreaded it. Eivor could understand. To some degree he felt the same way. He hated what he had to leave behind on distant shores when they went home.

It was more than just the thrill of the unknown. There were other things he had to be careful about; inclinations that weren’t as unnatural when away than when they were home. When they were out raiding, if anyone ever found out about his sexual preferences aside from his lovers or Sigurd, it would be seen as a man needing to relieve some pent up frustrations. Understandable and forgivable when the only other living thing around was a horse. But when they were home, and Eivor could have his pick of women, he was more concerned about hiding it. It likely wasn’t the end of the world, but he didn’t so much feel like testing the boundaries of it.

Eivor had once laughed out loud at himself when he realized that he’d become a master of recognizing subtlety. From the look on Sigurd’s face now to the small, almost indiscernible hesitation that Sigurd would have just before he touched Eivor… he could see it all. 

Eivor hoisted himself to his feet and moved to stand beside Sigurd, holding a mirror image of the rope his brother held on to on the other side of the ship.

“It’s probably still the same as we left it, right?” Eivor said lightly.

“I can’t imagine why it would be any different,” Sigurd replied almost grimly, turning his face to Eivor. 

Their eyes locked, and Eivor wondered if Sigurd saw the same look in his eyes that he saw in Sigurd’s. Sigurd looked like he wanted to say more. His finger twitched like it did when he wanted to touch something but thought better of it.

“Maybe we’re the ones that changed. Every time we come and go I feel as though I pick up or leave something behind.” Eivor smiled at Sigurd. It was small, but it met his eyes.

Sigurd’s face remained unmoved but his eyes betrayed a darkness that set Eivor’s nerves alight. Sigurd was struggling with something deep–deeper than just feeling stuck–and Eivor couldn’t tell what it was. For a man who thought himself an expert in reading Sigurd so completely and understanding him so fully, Eivor was left frustrated that he was unable to do just that. A sinking feeling curled around his gut and left him with a nagging feeling that things were about change. Forever.