Work Text:
“Words like that are meaningless to me from someone who is as dirtied as you. You smell worse than untended cattle,” Canute replied sharply, crossing his arms. There was a slip second where he looked proud of his rebuttal, but he quickly covered it up and kept his cool demeanor. He was prepared to hear another cruel jeer from the other boy, probably also unphased by his sledges, but instead Thorfinn looked quite hurt for once. Not in the angry antagonized animal way he would display when Askeladd would ask for a little too much from him during a raid or the other men would invite him to participate in their antics, but in an actual stab to the ego way. He kept his usual scowl but his eyebrows were turnt slightly up, showing his hurt.
“Shut up, Princess. You do no work so you wouldn’t know of getting your hands dirtied.”
Canute shut his eyes and turned away Thorfinn. He had enough of this arguing, it was tiring. Or maybe his dignity was being plucked at a little too much also.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
If Canute had the ability to give Thorfinn a solid punch in the face without him dodging and overpowering him, he would’ve done so in that moment.
-
On Sunday, which was 4 days following the incident, Askeladd’s band had settled near a spring to wash and rest for the day. It was late afternoon now, and everyone was settling down and eating dinner. Canute hadn’t seen Thorfinn the entire day, and wondered where he had gone to. He had said little to nothing to Canute for the past 4 days since their little skirmish. Canute had actually offended him, and Thorfinn didn’t take those kinds of things lightly. Canute, while not having known him for long, knew he probably would be giving him the cold shoulder for probably another week. He kept an eye on the boy still, secretly hoping he would speak to him again, even if it were just through insults.
Canute was sitting outside his tent, chewing on the salted pork that was his dinner, when Askeladd passed by to check on him and Ragnar.
“Is everything alright as of now? We’ll be getting up very early tomorrow. I’m just alerting you in case you want to head to bed early. I-“
Askeladd suddenly stopped speaking, his gaze frozen on something behind Canute. Canute turned to see what had cut off the usually well-spoken leader. Behind him was the rest of the band’s tents, men spread out and chatting amongst themselves. Canute didn’t spot anything out of the usual until he finally landed his eyes on what must have gotten Askeladd’s attention.
There was Thorfinn, passing through camp with tarp under his arm, about to go set it up. This itself wasn’t out of the usual, but what was unusual was that Thorfinn was… clean.
His skin was free from the smudges of dirt that usually covered it. Even his rough hands looked brighter than usual. His hair, although still untamed, was free from bits of grass and leaves that ended up in it and was no longer dull with dirt. Even his clothes had been given a noticeable wash, no longer covered in dirt and blood stains. Thorfinn had never seemed so.. human. He looked good cleaned up.
Askeladd let out a chuckle, bringing Canute back to attention.
“Sorry, it’s just that I’ve never seen him even half clean before, and the lad’s been around for over a decade now,” his eyes flickered back to Thorfinn, “ I wonder what made him decide that now would be a good time to learn how to keep good hygiene finally. Not that I’m complaining or anything. Not even a duel from me could get him to do that I don’t think.”
Canute nearly laughed aloud. He had gotten to him. He had actually gotten to Thorfinn.