Chapter Text
The fuzzy state that settles over Thorfinn’s mind is, for once, not induced by some great trauma. No; he thinks that this time it is peace.
The street lamps cast their gold-white glow upon them, bringing out the highlights in Canute’s hair. They’re so bright. So unlike the harsh winters and dreary storms that plow in so frequently. He wants to lose himself in that hair.
Of course that’s when Canute turns to smirk at him.
“Staring, much?” he teases, not knowing the truth behind that, because yes. Thorfinn can’t take his eyes off of him.
So instead, he asks, “Can I kiss you again?” He’s all sorts of breathless now.
There’s only an affectionate smile and nod in response.
Thorfinn leans in and meets his lips. Thankfully with much better aim this time, too. He can feel his bangs brush softly against Canute’s, and it’s such a perfect moment that he had to squeeze the other boy’s hand just to make sure it’s real.
There’s no more words between them.
Up until now, their relationship had mostly been defined on dialogue, snappy comments, coffee orders, and informative instructions flying between them without pause. But now? They’re silent.
They don’t kiss for very long this time, with the weight of a long and heavy day doing much to tire them out. Thorfinn is eager to finally melt into his bed no matter how beautiful the night is.
However, he pauses a bit mentally when he sees the stars above them.
How many others had kissed under them? he wonders. How many lovers had held hands and seen the light of stars? Had there been a boy like him under them, too? Did he find his Canute?
Thorfinn hopes so. He really does.
Soon they’re at his apartment building, and he holds the door open for him. Just out of common courtesy, of course.
There’s something protective about being in his apartment. Yes, living with Askeladd was all fine and well, but here? To be able to have his own home to enter, to be able to lock the door behind him and do as he pleases; it was the safest feeling in the world. Nothing could compare to it.
He allows himself to feel tired in his home. He knows Canute can feel its pull to, based on both the tired smile the boy shoots at him and the fact that he looks pale and shaky on his feet.
Canute allows Thorfinn to lead him through the motions, passing him a pair of clean sleeping clothes and directing him towards the bathroom. He even digs out a spare toothbrush from his messy cabinet under the sink, and thanks whatever god is out there that he bought a two-pack last time he went shopping.
They’re much quieter now. But the silence doesn’t reveal anything; no terrible miscommunications, and nothing lost between them. It’s just quiet.
At long last, Thorfinn lets himself tug Canute into bed with him.
Long blonde hair has been tied back into a fresh, far less frazzled bun, but it still shines in the narrow crack of moonlight that creeps past the gap in his curtains. He has the sudden urge to kiss it, but his pillow is soft and his blankets warm.
Thorfinn falls asleep.
He floats blearily in the morning, simply reveling in a warm bed and soft sheets. Wait. Bed, and sheets. Warmth. Warmth?
Thorfinn peeled his eyes open, feeling very much like a lizard for a second. His bed is empty of Canute, despite the misleading warmth. But he can hear the faint clatter of pans and the clunk of his fridge door as it opens and closes. Even in his sleep drunk state, it’s not hard to figure out where he is or what he’s doing.
With that matter decided, Thorfinn rolls back over only to feel the call of sleep float just beyond reach. Still, he closes his eyes for just a few seconds more anyway.
But the light drifting through his window forces him into a state closer to alertness. As a compromise to his brain and body, he digs his phone off the nightstand and goes through his messages, eyes still half closed.
There’s some random news articles, a message from Askeladd, and various social media alerts.
Not wanting to delay any further, he opens the text.
A: We’ve definitely got a case. It’s early, but we think it’ll trigger a pretty good overhaul in leadership. Let your boytoy know.
All Thorfinn can do is groan and slap his phone against the bed. Boytoy. Really, Askeladd?
Well, that’s enough of that, he decides.
It’s not far to stumble to the bathroom and try and run a brush through his atrocious bedhead. Much to Thorfinn’s annoyance, there’s a long crease running across the left side of his face from where he slept on a part of folded sheet.
He’d changed into a pair of ratty old basketball shorts and a thrifted gray t-shirt at some point last night, although he doesn’t exactly remember when. It puts his scars on full display.
That itself isn’t a novelty. He’s been in plenty of public spaces in short sleeves and shorts; it can get fucking hot here sometimes and he’s not about to suffer for someone else’s comfort. But it’s odd to look at himself.
In some demented way, it’s like pointing at a map. Ah yes, that scar was from when he had to take out a dealer skimming from his profits. It led to him swearing he’d never do anything hard when he saw the dealer’s swelled pupils and track marks.
There, on his side, is from a stray bullet. He shot whoever fired it and went to school the next day.
On just his hands were scores of small scars from his own fudged attempts at knife tricks and the botched attempts of those trying to kill him.
It was hard to reconcile with.
Here he was, sitting in his apartment, competing for both extra credit and a chance at a new future when years ago, he told himself he didn’t have a future. He never thought he’d live past 16.
Thorfinn took a deep breath as he traced over his reflection with his eyes. Life could change. No, life would change. Life would always be a transient, chaotic and mutable mess. That was one part promise and one part threat.
He brushed his teeth, rushing just a bit as he heard more noise from the kitchen. It’s not that he thought Canute would burn his apartment down- he was just curious! If the guy wanted to be a culinary major, Thorfinn should be able to taste some food, damn him.
The sight that greeted him as he left the bathroom would be forever ingrained in his mind:
Canute, rushing frantically through his kitchen. There were two delicious looking omelets on the counter, using two of the five plates he owned. Canute’s hair was brushed but flying wild behind him as he moved with fervor, rifling through Thorfinn’s cabinets.
“Uhm,” Thorfinn began intelligently. “You good?”
The other boy jumped and whipped around to face him. “We have school, dumbass!”
“Fuck!”
Thus began one of the most frantic morning rushes of his life.
Later on, he would look back and wonder why he didn’t just accept being late. It would hardly be the first time. But perhaps it was something in the air that told Thorfinn that if he tried that, Canute might actually bite his head off.
The next fifteen minutes were a blur of him running back to get the both of them clean clothes and messily packing their bags. Canute abandoned the search though the cupboards in favor of getting dressed and ready all while eating his omelet.
At some point, Thorfinn sat down for just a second to eat his and near about moaned from how good it tasted. It had the perfect light crunch to the outside, and tasted buttery and garlicky on the inside. Thorfinn didn’t even know he had garlic! It had to be sorcery with how good the omelet tasted.
They left the house in a scramble, resigning themselves to power walking all the way to school.
Canute had worked himself into a tizzy by the time they were striding down the street.
“Calm down,” Thorfinn told him. “We’re missing half of first period at most.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he snapped back. “My father gets alerts for my attendance!”
“Oh, wait, I know exactly what you can tell him!”
Canute turns to him, clearly interested.
“That you slept with a guy from your math class!” Thorfinn suggested cheerfully.
The look Canute gave him was worth it, even as Thorfinn yelped when the other boy began tugging him along by the ear.
They made it to school just before the bell rang for second period. Not bad, all in all. The woman in the administration office gave them an annoyed look as they walked by after she buzzed them in, looking miffed at their flagrant display of teenage truancy.
Thorfinn snorted. Whatever. Things would all be fine.
And so they went to class like normal. Prep for their winter finals was officially in full swing, with most classes having already taken their final unit test.
He collected worksheets from every class, and even felt a spark of motivation to do them. Well. Just a spark. Not much of a fire of motivation burning within him yet, but the look Canute gave him in the library when they met for lunch as he forced Thorfinn to check his grades was enough to change his resolve.
It probably couldn’t hurt to turn in some missing work, right?
His grades weren’t even that bad, either! Canute was just smart like that; that’s why he had straight A’s.
School flew by, and before he knew it, he was back at work.
Einar waved at him as he entered through the front. His coworker always seemed to be there before him, even if their shifts technically started at the same time.
“How did your extra credit project-thing go?” he asked, cheerful today.
Thorfinn grunted, a noncommittal response being his knee-jerk reaction. Then he thought about the events following their official submission and felt the faintest tinge of a blush settle into his cheeks.
Thorfinn mumbled back a “Not bad,” before scrambling to drop his stuff in the back. If Einar’s knowing look was anything to go by, Thorfinn’s blush had been plenty visible.
Arnheid was just coming in the store as Thorfinn came out of the back.
He gave her a little smile as a greeting, then started wiping down the perpetually sticky counters. The shift before them always left things a mess.
“So,” Einar began, “where’s your blond friend?”
Thorfinn fought off the urge to groan. “Uh, you know. School.”
“Aren’t you here because school has already let out at this time?”
“That’s not the point!”
Einar just laughed at him.
“He had to go home,” Thorfinn sighed, finally giving in. This was the peer pressure they had warned him about in health class, wasn’t it? “I’ll see him tomorrow though, so it’s whatever.”
The other man gave him a look that said more than words could.
“What?” Thorfinn glared back.
Einar sighed, and moved to the counter as the bell chimed, getting ready to greet the customer.
“If you have to ask, then you already know,” he replied with a smirk.
Oh, that bastard.
Thorfinn scowled at his back, and took glee in slapping the dirty, wet rag across the back of Einar’s neck as he walked by. To his credit, he didn’t flinch nearly as much as the customer did.
Arnheid giggled from behind him somewhere, and everything slid into place.
Thorfinn was happy. This was a life he wanted to live. He had never believed in that ‘perfect moment’ movie crap: the kind where it all seems to click at some dramatic moment, and then suddenly everything’s alright.
And to be fair, it didn’t all slide into place at a climactic moment for him. It built itself up, beginning with soft sheets and a golden morning. He didn’t stay inside all day. He went out and went to school, and talked to people, and went to work. He wanted to have coworkers to laugh with. He wanted something like this forever.
Thorfinn hadn’t really understood that this was something he could want. He had seen glimpses of it, sure, with Thorkell and Asgeir, but he hadn’t understood it to be the same then. He just wanted to grow old, and have a life like this. Happy days.
It feels almost unfair that this should hit him on some random day at work, doing his damndest to scrub mystery brown stains off of the counter top.
Arnheid moves closer, and grimaces over his shoulder.
“What even is that?” she asks, disgust evident in her voice.
“I don’t even know,” Thorfinn replies, and there’s a little hysteria, unserious yet wired, that breaks through in his tone. Then they’re both laughing as Thorfinn tries to scrub harder at it to no avail.
It draws Einar over, who suggests they scrape it with something, except the best that they can come up with is a stray metal fork.
It’s quiet in the Cafe for a moment, so all three of them are gathered around as Thorfinn prepares to do his best to remove the stained patch.
He uses two hands- one to hold onto the tines of the fork, and the other to grasp the handle. He pulls toward him, and for a second, the corner of it peels up.
Then he tugs too hard and his feet go out from under him as the fork lifts up.
It’s such a stupid thing, but it makes his night so much better. They laugh all shift, and the good mood stays when he tells Arnheid that they’ll definitely have a strong case.
Thorfinn goes home that night and sleeps without dreams, or stress, or really any worries.
His world doesn’t end. That’s really all Thorfinn can say about it. The following next few weeks are some of the most joyful, comfortable weeks of his life, and they stick in his memory as a time of peace. He eats dinner with Askeladd and goes to work. His homework is finished. He sees Canute as much as possible.
Even with all their hard work, Canute and Thorfinn do not win the Vinland University competition, although both still make plans to attend. Canute will major in culinary arts, and Thorfinn is, as of then, undecided. Neither of them know it yet, but they will continue to appear in each other’s lives across following decades.
Their choice to room together their freshman year in college ultimately leads to tensions between the two of them. It’s not entirely unexpected- they both had things to work through, and had rushed headlong into love. That kind of forced closeness wasn’t good for either of them.
They fade apart for their second and third years of college, and are only semi-amiable by the time graduation rolls around.
But some people in life seem to be tied to each other. Thorfinn and Canute drift in and out of each other’s lives, causing annoyance, threats, and copious amounts of property destruction.
They are messy, and imperfect, and hurt each other many, many times. They are also irrevocably, ineffably in love. It’ll work out.
Until then, life goes by, day by day.