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I. Nightmares
[Late October]
It comes creeping in slow, like a river of molten rock that takes its time to harden against a cool British summer. It roils against the ground, burning up everything in its path– even the wet grass, and the fallen rainclouds. There is the stench of burnt flesh, unlike cooked animal meat, the moment it reaches Canute’s nose, it’s enough to make his eyes shoot open from his sleep and his stomach lurch until he’s bending over on the floor, gasping for breath.
Flames slither on the ground like snakes, devouring everything in sight. He can’t think straight. All that comes over his head is panic, and a shrill scream that ricochets inside his head saying, This isn’t happening. He doesn’t want to look outside, but he does because there is nothing else he can do.
The world has fallen into Hell. The macabre is so great, his brain can’t comprehend it. There are only dark shapes and hooded figures bearing swords and hatred, spilling blood like water. It can only force bile up his throat and tears out of his eyes.
“Canute!”
He hears a familiar voice, but it feels too far away to pinpoint, as if in a dream.
“CANUTE!”
He gasps awake for the second time, heart racing out of his chest. Beads of sweat drip from his temples. A dream within a dream.
“Same dream?”
It’s Thorfinn. He’s sitting up next to him on the bed, with his hand on his shoulder as if he was just shaking him. He now stares off into the shadowy corner of the room where the soft light of the lamp cannot reach. There are dark circles under his eyes, and when Canute takes the sight of him in, he knows he’s had a dream just as bad, if not worse.
He doesn’t respond, only leans against him and tries to focus on his breath. It’s a technique Thorfinn taught him, having allegedly picked it up from fist fight training with his step-dad, Lucius Artorius Castus, or Askeladd, as Thorfinn likes to call him. It’s nothing short of ironic. They don’t exactly get along.
“I can’t go to campus tomorrow. Not like this.”
He blinks tears out of his eyes. They evaporate like flames.
“Take the day off.”
“But I can’t miss any more classes, it will set a bad example. I’m the president of the student council…”
Thorfinn scoffs.
“What are they going to do, fire you?”
“My father is depending on me to be a good student, or at least responsible enough to—” Canute stops in his tracks as soon as Thorfinn speaks over him.
“Your father doesn’t–” He pauses.
Canute looks at him anxiously, as if he knows what he’s going to say but doesn’t want him to say it. Thorfinn’s amber eyes avoid his gaze.
“Nevermind.”
A strange quiet settles over them. Canute settles back against Thorfinn’s side. Leaning against him and feeling the presence of another body, he begins to feel comforted. The heaviness subsides as quickly as evaporating water. Canute thinks he can get used to this. Perhaps verbal communication is not Thorfinn’s strength, but something about his steady physicality, and more than that– something inside of him he had lost over tens of hundreds of years– over centuries lost to history.
Thorfinn and Canute take turns having vivid nightmares of events that never happened, but feel like they have. Maybe in a past life. Perhaps it’s why they met in this life– why they formed such a quick, oddly familiar, unlikely bond, while being as different as yin and yang, all while fitting like a puzzle– the heaviness in their hearts, the shared trauma. When they met, it was like they had already known each other for a long time, since the days when humanity still waged wars as easily as the rains fell upon London.
“I want to leave this country.” Canute says, almost as quietly as a whisper, like he’s been thinking about it for a while. His breath has slowed considerably from when he first awoke. Thorfinn doesn’t move. If there is anything he can do, it’s to stay as still as a rock for Canute to lean on. Some nights, Thorfinn is the one that leans on him instead.
“I have bad memories here. From times I don’t even remember. It makes me sick. Just how long have I stayed in this place? How many lifetimes have I been stuck here?”
In the comfortable darkness of the night, Thorfinn doesn’t know if he’s being honest when he says lifetimes, yet it feels right. He’s not surprised by what Canute tells him at all. It does bother him at times too, especially when he wakes up from nightmares such as these.
“Hm, the Queen doesn’t sit well with me either, why don’t you be King instead?”
Canute’s laughter breaks through the mold as cleanly as a shiny steak knife, which makes Thorfinn smile despite himself.
“Thorfinn, how do you always make me laugh?” He sighs contentedly.
Thorfinn only wants Canute to go back to looking like a gentle heron when he sleeps, free from nightmares and unresolved scarring; one in his undisturbed nobility. He has stayed up quite a few times after Canute goes to sleep, just to watch the calm expression on his face, his long strands of blond hair flowing like rivers all around. Canute has told him he looks angry or scary when he catches him looking, but if he does, it’s definitely not because of him.
“I wouldn’t want to be king anyway. Being the heir to a huge company is already stressful enough.”
“I think you’d be a fine king, but it’s alright. You make a fine princess too.”
Canute chucks a pillow over his head and smothers him with it just enough to get his point across. “How dare you!” echoes inside his head, as clearly as if he said it upon the very stars this same night.
II. School
He ends up going to school the next day.
It’s usually like this, whenever he thinks the previous day he won’t be able to, or doesn’t want to, he always somehow forces himself to do it as if on autopilot– like a magician that has cast a spell on himself, he doesn’t have control over his own body.
When Canute wakes up, he looks at the clock on the wall that says 6AM and knows he’s going to be getting out of bed whether he likes it or not.
......
Thorfinn is a light sleeper, so when Canute turns to glance his way with a toothbrush in his mouth, he’s not surprised to notice the shorter man staring back at him from the bed. He doesn’t have to say anything for Canute to know what he’s thinking. Thorfinn, who is a year or two behind Canute due to failing grades and suspensions, probably won’t be going to school. He doesn’t have the same sense of duty that Canute has.
He’s dressed and ready to go, all that’s left to do is rinse his mouth and put on his shoes. Canute feels Thorfinn’s eyes burning against his back while he ties his shoe laces. He wants to go to him and tousle his hair a little and kiss the backs of his eyes, but he doesn’t have it in him.
Thorfinn hasn’t opened up as much as Canute knows he can. He stares at him like a hawk eyeing his prey– so Canute keeps his walls up. They’ve made a lot of progress from when they first met, but despite sharing each other’s pain and pleasure, there is still a long way to go. Thorfinn’s hurt is still fresh in his heart, an open wound, festering in the summer sun. Canute can only try to be a balm– he cannot cure it, and so he must not give him more than he can take.
“See you.”
…..
Some two hours later, and the first class of the day is ending. Canute is walking along the hallway of the library when he thinks he sees Thorfinn from the corner of his eye and furrows his eyebrows, thinking himself crazy for a second, before he faces the window to the world outside and actually sees him on one of the topmost branches of a fucking tree.
“What?”
His body moves on its own, scrambling to get the window to open, pushing and pulling at it, before realizing there’s a lock and cursing to himself before flipping it and sliding the glass wide open with all the strength of the entire school.
“Thorfinn!”
As soon as he screams his name, Thorfinn loses his footing and crashes all the way down to the ground, on his ass. Canute’s brain is going haywire now, he barely catches himself from jumping off of the window to Thorfinn’s side, and dashes to the end of the hall, almost tripping down the stairs and spilling his books out into the courtyard.
“Thorfinn, what the hell were you doing? I didn’t think I’d see you here!” He can’t stop himself from cursing, which he doesn’t usually do, but Thorfinn has an effective way of getting it out of him.
“I wasn’t inside the building if it makes you feel better.” He groans, ignoring the hand that Canute stretches out to help him stand up.
Thankfully there is barely anyone around to judge. Canute isn’t so worried about himself and his prestigious reputation as he is worried about the way others view Thorfinn and his antics. He wouldn’t want anyone causing him any more trouble than he’d already endured in his life.
“There was a cat in the tree.”
“No way. That sounds like a lie.”
“A black one. It’s true, believe it or not, princess.”
“So if I don’t believe you, you’re in trouble.”
Thorfinn raises an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curving. He knows Canute doesn’t have what it takes to punish anybody too harshly, even as the student council president. Either way, he doesn’t want another strike on his record. For one, Canute has control over his housing situation now. At this point, he might as well drop all of his delinquency before Canute pushes him away out into the streets again, or worse— back to Askeladd and his strange newfound respect for him.
Canute is looking at him like he’s had enough. The determination on his face has the sheer willpower to stop a monster in its tracks.
“I’m going to take you to the infirmary and we’re going to have a talk.”
“You used to be scared of me.” Thorfinn says, as if asking “What happened?”
Canute grabs Thorfinn’s wrist and starts hauling him inside the building.
“I got tired of being stepped on, and you doing whatever you want. Ever since Ragnar died, I realized no one was going to save me. I had to stand up for myself.”
“It’s less fun now.” Thorfinn mutters. Inside his head he thinks, “I liked picking on you.”
“That’s not how you tell someone you like them, idiot. You have no social skills at all.”
“How was I supposed to know? Askeladd shows his love by beating me up.”
It’s not exactly true– not anymore. Up until recently, Askeladd used to be a massive ass of an obstacle in Thorfinn’s life, a source of his everlasting fury and chronic headaches. He never expected the old man to suddenly change one day, almost in tandem with Canute taking the reins of his own fate. It’s like he’s someone else entirely– a whole lot less like a deadbeat uncle and more like a real dad. Thorfinn woke up the day after the miracle thinking it had all been a dream— but regardless, he wasn’t going to put up with whoever this new Askeladd was. So he left.
Canute stops in his tracks, making Thorfinn bump into him. He turns around to face him and slides the hand gripping his wrist into his open palm. Thorfinn can smell the leaves in the wind, colored yellow and orange. The anger has been leaving his body faster than it used to nowadays. It has been washed out periodically as if being rid of a poison. Thorfinn didn’t know the air could fill his lungs as full as they do now.
“I will teach you what love is.”
…...
In the infirmary, Canute presses the pads of his fingers lightly to Thorfinn’s forehead, a wet cloth between their skin.
It’s slightly uncomfortable for Thorfinn to receive this kind of care because it feels alien to him, but he remembers the old woman who helped him when he was lost as a kid, and feels the tug of a phantom brush pulling down his dirty, matted hair into golden strands. It soothes him back to reality. It reminds him of something he lost.
He hopes he won’t cry today as he did when Askeladd told him, “Move forward already. Don’t stay stuck in a place like this forever.” He had found himself at Canute’s place the next day– the house his parents left for him, looking like a kicked puppy who had been starved for years (he had been— that’s why Canute says he’s so short).
“I told you not to be reckless.”
“Listen–”
“Thorfinn…”
“Fine, but–”
“Promise me or I’ll report you and you won’t see me as often. I have blackmail.”
Thorfinn isn’t sure he knows what kind of blackmail Canute has, but he’s also not sure he cares.
“I don’t make promises. Also, we live in the same house.”
“My uncle is a police officer.”
That shuts Thorfinn up and makes the hairs on his arm stand on end. He stares at Canute in the way he did when Askeladd first told him to introduce himself in what feels like ages ago, but Canute no longer looks back with wide, hesitant eyes, sweat beading on his temple. Old antics do not scare him like they used to, even if he sometimes still gets spooked. Thorfinn gets scared of him too, of his kindness more often than his power over him, as someone who literally houses him and feeds him.
He hasn’t killed anyone at least… probably. What he did during his days in the gang was not of his own volition. It was like he was possessed— is what he would say in his defense. He doesn’t want to be arrested again.
Canute continues to press his fingers over different areas of Thorfinn’s face and head, like he’s looking for something.
“What is it?”
“I’m looking for more injuries. Does it hurt anywhere?”
“Not my head, but my knee—“
Canute’s eyes drift below him, coming face-to-face with an angry, blistering kneecap. It reminds him of the injuries he used to get as a fumbling child with almost no control over his limbs. When he fell, Ragnar was there to help him get back up. He thinks Thorfinn needs someone like that, especially since, as far as he knows, he has never had it.
“Oh Jesus, that looks bad. How did I not notice?”
“Maybe Jesus isn’t very good at helping the wounded after all.”
III. Snow
[November]
It’s bone-chilling cold outside, and while neither Thorfinn nor Canute care much for the cold that has already cemented itself in their bones, they prefer to stay inside where it’s warm– or at least, Canute does. Thorfinn, within the last 24 hours, has recently gained an obsession for cleaning the snow off Canute’s car and keeps pestering Canute about it, amongst other things that keeps his peace from being truly peaceful.
“I told you we can worry about the snow piling when there is a sure sign it will not come back.”
“How can you be so lax about your stupidly fancy car? It’s going to get scratched and stained if you don’t do something, like get it inside the garage.”
“What do you know about car-care?”
“Common sense.”
“It’s snow, not pigeons.”
“Snow and hail and whatever shit the wind smacks against your precious vehicle. Have you checked the windows?”
Canute sighs. Maybe he should care more about his car, but he doesn't like touching it when it's cold. Thorfinn is more careful about it than he is because he’s on the opposite end of the financial spectrum to where he cannot afford one. Canute can– many more.
“Okay, then do it for me.”
“Finally, something fun to do.”
Canute watches from his cushioned armchair as Thorfinn lifts himself off the sofa with an urgency only seen in flighty children and strides out the door without thinking to put on any layers of clothing. The door slams behind him as Canute shivers from a rush of cold wind. He wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot his boots.
“You’re going to catch a cold!”
Thorfinn acts like he doesn’t hear him, but after a few seconds of kicking off the snow from his ankles, he says, “I spent years of my life freezing my ass off in the streets, this is nothing.”
“Don’t challenge the weather, Thorfinn, you can’t win.”
What ends up happening is; after shoveling snow from off the roof of the car, the windows, the wheels, and the driveway, Thorfinn disappears behind the house for a while. Canute, who had almost fallen asleep watching him from the window, huddled in blankets, flinches awake as he realizes he’s gone.
“Thorfinn?”
He wonders if he came back inside without him noticing, so Canute walks around every corner of the house but he’s nowhere to be found.
“He’s always dragging me into his trouble.” He says to himself, running the pads of his fingers through his shiny locks, messing with his bangs, something he does when he’s thinking, or anxious, or embarrassed.
He doesn't want to go outside, but his worry is getting the best of him, so he tightens his hold on the blankets and opens the door just enough to stick his head out. His hair immediately flies in every which way, covering most of his line of sight.
“Thorfinn! Get inside!”
When Thorfinn doesn’t answer, Canute steps out onto the porch in his thick, furry boots and stares out into the white horizon and the howling wind. His parents prefer their homes to be secluded from the outside world, and so, this house follows that same pattern. There are no other houses in sight– only a heavy blanket of snow covering every surface of dead foliage and the eternal stretch of road.
When Canute moved out for college, it was a bit lonely, even with Ragnar around for the time he lasted, but now that Thorfinn is here and Canute has gained more strength and comfort in his own presence, he would rather stay where he is. It’s quieter than it would be in a neighborhood in the city. He appreciates solitude when it's away from people he doesn’t trust.
He slowly steps down from the porch and into the snow, deciding to make a run for it and get Thorfinn inside before the temperature can get to his skin and start biting. He comes face to face with his car, a Bentley flying spur odyssean, rid of all its snowy exterior. He swears it used to be more red in tint, but maybe it’s just the low light at the end of a short winter day.
A sudden gust of wind sends Canute smacking face-first into the blankets of snow with a yelp– his blankets filling up with cold frost, making him want to cry with flashbacks of being nearly buried alive in it as a kid. At least, he thinks, it’s not as traumatizing as some other things he had to experience until this moment.
His boots have sunk deep into the frost. Stuck in the snow, he remembers how people always told him he looked like a snow angel, or a child born from snow and frost, like some kind of winter fairy– and he never understood why they would say such things. His blond eyelashes and blue eyes didn’t justify the snow filling his lungs as a child, so why would it justify the unwanted comments of others? He wasn’t a fan of winter. It reminded him of things he wished to forget— like being called a girl by the same gang that Thorfinn was with back when they first met, which was worse.
Canute feels the weight of the snow crushing his feet, and struggles to wiggle himself out of it. He doesn’t notice when Thorfinn sneaks up behind him and throws himself into the pile next to him, rubbing himself over it and flapping his arms to push it in and out like he’s swimming, or… playing.
Canute stops his struggle to watch in awe as Thorfinn flings the graupel all around him, totally dismissive to the dangers of the cold, or the weight of the névé. If he were facing Canute, would he see Thorfinn smiling? Canute can’t remember the last time he saw him smile, it’s rare enough that when he sees it, he thinks he might be mistaken. He is never this playful, or allowing himself to be more lighthearted, but again, it’s been a year since his tumultuous Askeladd-induced breakdown, so maybe…
Neither of them say anything. Thorfinn stops grappling with the snow to turn around and face Canute. His eyes are gentle, unlike the usual scowl Canute has grown to know so well. He heaves himself into the melting road and tries to stand, but falls on his chest and slides down the driveway on his belly, like a penguin. This makes Canute laugh and momentarily forget the ache in his blue fingertips.
Thorfinn manages to stand up once he has slid all the way down the road, and he walks back towards Canute looking elsewhere, avoiding his gaze as if embarrassed. Canute keeps trying to get himself out of the heap of snow he sank his legs under, but it’s almost like it doesn’t want to let him go, and so he also refuses to look directly at Thorfinn in his helplessness.
“Need help, princess?”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Force of habit.”
Thorfinn starts to walk away.
“Hey! Are you not going to help me?”
“I was just waiting for you to ask.”
He extends a hand out to Canute, who takes it and allows himself to be pulled out like popping open a bottle of wine. Canute ends up slamming into Thorfinn, who uses the strength he has left to keep himself from falling on his elbows.
“You’re all wet now, great, and so am I, once this snow melts.”
“You’re welcome.”
They walk back inside and kick off their boots. The warmth of the house makes Canute practically melt into the floor. It’s moments like these that help them forget the wounds of their past.
…...
An hour later, it’s dark outside. The two of them sit in the warm bath of Canute’s stupidly big bathroom, opposite each other. Canute’s hair is up in a bun and Thorfinn looks like he’s about to fall asleep, his droopy eyes gazing off into another world. His face is warm, flushed. Canute’s voice rising with the evaporating water snaps him out of his near-sleep. It echoes a little bit against the high ceiling.
“Where did you go, anyway?”
“Away from your gaze.”
“You saw me watching?”
“Your eyes are like bullets that pierce through me.”
Canute tries to wrap his head around Thorfinn’s strange metaphors. Was that a compliment or an insult? It’s very hypocritical of him to say, considering how often he also stares holes into Canute. There is a long silence before Thorfinn decides to tell the truth.
“I was getting a hose to wash the car, but then I saw you stuck in the snow...”
“What?” Canute laughs. “The water is frozen!”
“Mmm…” Thorfinn mutters, unintelligible. He turns over to rest his chest on the wall of the tub and his arms crossed outside of it, resting his chin on top of them.
“I wanted to do it.” He coughs. “Before you say anything, I’m not going to get sick.”
“You’re all red.”
“It’s the heat.”
Canute moves to sit next to Thorfinn, the sound of the water splashing as he lifts his arms from the water to rub soap on his back. Thorfinn cringes at the first touch, but doesn’t move away or protest. Gradually, his tense muscles soften. He closes his eyes.
Canute had suggested they both take a hot bath to fight the chill away after what happened outside, but when Thorfinn came inside the bathroom, he didn’t expect Canute to already be there. He didn’t know he had meant together, in the same tub, but it would’ve looked silly if he had left after locking eyes with Canute considering they’d done worse before. So he fought whatever hardness was left in his heart and stayed.
“Thorfinn?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you want to drive all the way up north someday, into Scotland?”
“What’s special about Scotland?”
“There’s mountains and I heard the fish are delicious… You can be in the mountains, rather than here where you just see them from a distance and never actually get to know them.”
Getting to know mountains… Thorfinn thinks. His brain finds this interesting.
The leaking faucet drips into the water of the tub making ripples that are so small, they don’t feel it absorbing into their skin– a soothing rhythm.
How does Canute do it? How does he manage to keep himself gentle when the world is falling apart all around him– Ragnar’s death, his parent’s expectations, his college responsibilities, someone like me, who barged into his life without permission and made it all worse?
He forgets all about his own resilience when Canute is right there, bringing his soapy palm over his shoulders, their bare legs touching. Thorfinn doesn’t see it, but he can feel Canute’s love in his fingertips, down his back, in his voice, which has slowed down now into something as thick as honey.
“I’m rich, I can take you places.”
For some reason, Thorfinn wants to roll his eyes. Silly. He thinks, but he’s smiling.
This is silly.
IV. Christmas
[December 22]
Canute’s parents never cared about him, so he’s not sure why they get mad when he says he’s not going to the church service or coming home for Christmas. He holds his phone in his shaking hand, the light from the screen goes out. He always tries to avoid speaking with his father and has tried to call his mother instead, but the woman is so evasive Canute can barely even remember what she looks like. Someone’s voice saying “You look like your mother.” plays inside his head. He tries to understand why she is like that– but even while knowing of her own pain at the hands of his father, he can’t tame the unsettling grudge in his bones.
His father had answered instead, giving him nothing but a flurry of stern poison– how disappointed he is in him, as usual. Canute is convinced he would be better off dead rather than be forever behind the man, or in his presence. At times like these he feels like he has no one to turn to. When in the past it was Ragnar, now he is alone– not even his brother or sister can give him much comfort, for they are also trapped within his father’s watchful eye.
He closes his eyes to breathe, and when he opens them again, Thorfinn is standing within his field of vision, opening a pack of chips while staring at him like he’s asking what’s the matter. The loud crunch as he pops them into his mouth is stark in the heavy silence he feels, and it makes him flinch. He has learned to be strong, but sometimes shit still comes back to haunt him. He can’t hide from Thorfinn, who knows and cares a lot more than he lets on.
Thorfinn. That’s right. He has Thorfinn.
“Your hair.” He says. “It’s short.”
Canute had almost forgotten. In his panic, with nowhere to vent his frustrations to, he had led his scissors to his hair, looking to feel some of the burden lifting, as if putting his pain in the strands and then cutting them would release them from his body. In a way, it had, but at the same time it had also made him feel empty, like something was missing.
“Is it normal to miss pain?”
His face is hot and his eyes sting. He’s holding back, but seeing Thorfinn somehow made him want to crumble completely. Thorfinn stops chewing, swallows, then walks over to Canute and holds up the bag of chips as an offering. Canute thinks it’s comforting, it’s enough, even if he isn’t hungry. He takes a potato chip and eats it. His face turns wet with tears as soon as he starts crunching.
Thorfinn stands there, sturdy, as if a shield, blocking the attack of Canute's own self-loathing. He doesn’t have to do anything but be there, but Canute catches the slight raising of his hands from his sides, like he wants to reach out and touch him, but he’s also too young, too hurt, too shy. He doesn’t know what to say, but Canute doesn’t mind. He’s had enough of rowdy barbarians running their filthy mouths anyway.
“Sometimes I think there is something wrong with me.” Canute starts. “And I want to do more than just pick my nails and pull my hair. I want my fingers to bleed. I–” He can barely speak now, doesn’t even decide to hide his face on Thorfinn’s shoulder, but it happens. His body moves on its own and he starts sobbing. The last time he cried like this was when Ragnar died.
“I want to hurt myself. I want to change. I’m tired.”
Thorfinn holds him for as long as he is able. His face has a strange expression on it, one of shared sorrow he tends to hide, but now he doesn’t care if Canute sees. His hand rests at the nape of his Canute’s neck, where there are tufts of strawberry blond hair hanging on in badly cut layers. There are many things he wants to say, but doesn’t. Things like how he doesn’t want Canute to hurt himself, how he doesn’t have to change, how he can rest when he’s tired, how there is nothing wrong with him, how he is beautiful regardless of the way he looks.
Gradually, Canute’s convulsions stop and his crying turns into sniffling. Thorfinn looks outside the window to the bright lights of the city shining in the distance.
“Hey, do you want to go out?”
……
“I now wish I hadn’t cut my hair. I was being reckless. I grew it out for so long and never thought about seriously cutting it. My emotions… I thought I had tamed them. My father hated the way I looked. Me cutting my hair isn’t going to change him. He’s not going to love me because I look different, and if he does, I don’t want that shallow kind of love.”
Canute and Thorfinn are in the city of Winchester now, rather than in the outskirts surrounding it. Canute has one too many layers on, including a red scarf covering half of his face and the back of his neck, which is now colder than usual due to the lack of hair covering it. Thorfinn on the other hand, had grown cold-resistant to the point where he could probably survive the winter outside with just a blanket. He runs a bit hot, while Canute’s skin is usually cold to the touch.
He’s pleasantly surprised when Thorfinn replies after having been met with silence whenever he needed to vent. There is wisdom in his words.
“I think… you can never truly tame all of your emotions. You just have to let yourself feel them. The real struggle lies in controlling the actions that result from them.”
They walk along a cobblestone street. The buildings here are ancient– as old as time itself. Christmas decorations riddle the houses all around them, colored an infinite number of colors. If it’s already a spectacle in the daytime, Canute can’t wait to see what the city looks like at night. At nearly 4pm, the sun is starting to set. Thorfinn expected it to have set already, but this is probably because he has vivid memories of still being able to see the sun at midnight back in Iceland.
Thorfinn was the one to lead them outside, but now that they’re walking around in the city, he doesn’t really have any specific destination in mind so Canute decides he has somewhere he wants to go and hauls Thorfinn by the arm.
“Let’s go to the Christmas Market in the cathedral! Today is the last day.”
…….
It’s a bustling place, much to Thorfinn’s dismay. Crowded places remind him of troubling times– when he looks at people, he feels danger, mistrust, and anxiety. Canute isn’t totally trusting of others either, but he does better than Thorfinn in these situations. Just because they’ve learned how to transmute a lot of negative memories and the emotions that rise up from them, doesn’t mean the high spirits of the people here aren’t still a bit too much.
The sky is now dark, and the many lights of the cathedral’s market square sparks inspiration.
“It’s beautiful here.”
“Yeah.”
When they breathe out, they can see their breath. The slush on the ground makes a rasping noise as they step closer to the different stalls of things to buy and see. Canute reaches for tiny things– keychains, snow globes, figurines, and laughs as he holds up each one to Thorfinn’s face to gauge his reaction, to which Thorfinn can only pout in response, his cheeks tinted red against the comfortable cold or... something else.
…….
Canute refuses to leave until he has visited every stall in the square. Thorfinn, having exhausted himself after a handful of chatty sellers wanting to know his life story and the relationship between him and Canute (to which he remained silent as Canute struggled to form a coherent response before settling on ‘we live together’ ), rests at the steps of the cathedral, which are surprisingly free from snow or wetness.
After a while, Canute returns to him carrying a multitude of heavy, goody-filled bags which includes many different kinds of cakes and chocolates. He was never good at saving money since he never had to worry about how much he had to spend.
“Are you falling asleep?”
Thorfinn blinks up at him, fixing his posture. Canute sits next to him, looking like a different person entirely.
“There’s a certain warmth in this place. Nothing like anywhere I’ve known, except…”
He’s looking directly at Canute’s face– someone he has known for he doesn’t know how many years. It feels like an eternity, and that’s fine by him. He could know him for an eternity and he wouldn’t mind. He looks up then and the sky is dark with few stars, but it could be grey or blue and it wouldn’t matter. It would still be perfect, because Canute is with him.
“I had no idea that when Askeladd introduced me to you, we would… we would be like this.”
Canute smiles and sets his selfcare Christmas presents down. He places his gloved hand on top of Thorfinn’s on the steps of the cathedral.
“I remember. You scared the Christ out of me! Now I’m no longer a Christian.”
They laugh with each other. When their laughter settles, an unwanted thought arises in Canute’s head.
“Will we get scolded by God, and all the other Gods?”
Canute used to think that he could pass as a woman whenever he was with Thorfinn, and because of that, people wouldn’t judge them as much. But now his hair is short, and his face is changing.
“Why? Why would they get mad? What do you want them to forgive?”
They hold each other there on the steps, looking ahead into the Christmas Market, but not watching. It’s warm. There is no sin here. There never was.
“Back in the day…”
“How long ago?” Thorfinn wants to be sure, for whatever reason, as if they met in a very specific period in time.
“A thousand years, or more, in those days, there was no law or Biblical verse about two men in love, but now there is? Who decided that? It’s ridiculous. Anyway… it’s not like I care anymore.”
Canute rests his head on Thorfinn’s shoulder, who kisses the top of his head and his hair. He usually only kisses once the rare moment within the darkness of night and the comfort of their home, but this time he keeps kissing and kissing until Canute lifts up his head and kisses him back, on the lips.
There are many things in his life that feel like they have been repeated over hundreds and thousands of years, but this is not one of them. History, sometimes, did not repeat itself.
“I love you.”
I love you.