Work Text:
The scream came like lightning from a clear sky, managing to be heard despite quite a few men still mingling amongst the fire, laughing loudly, eating and drinking.
Askeladd had been sitting a bit to the side, watching them and enjoying a drink of ale. He had been confused and had asked someone nearby if they knew exactly what was happening.
"Don't know, it sounds like Thorfinn, doesn't it?"
Askeladd hummed, looking in the direction Thorfinn had walked hours earlier. Normally he'd walk into a forest and find a tree to sleep in, up high, but they'd just raided a village, and when they did that, he would normally rather go to an empty barn to sleep in the straw.
"Sounds like a struggle."
"Yeah." Askeladd muttered and stood up, throwing his drinking horn to the ground. "Should better go see if someone's murdering him."
"Certainly sounds that way."
So Askeladd walked to the barn, groaning. Was one calm evening really too much to ask for? He was a Viking leader, sure, but even he enjoyed some rest and quiet… but what did he expect when he had a nine-year-old tagging along.
He slammed the big door open, keeping a hand on the hilt of his sword.
"Alright, you scoundrels, get-" he quickly cut himself off, blinking at the sight. He'd imagined that there would be someone in there, that he would walk in to see a struggle, but it was only Thorfinn.
Thorfinn was even hard to spot for a few moments, but following the sound of his screams, Askeladd soon noticed him in the straw, tossing and turning and almost burying himself in it.
"What are you—“
"F-father! Fa... No." Thorfinn muttered before he screamed and cried again, and Askeladd walked closer, seeing that Thorfinn was also crying, sobbing in-between his screams.
A nightmare.
He took his hand off his sword and brought it up to rub at his neck, cracking it as he turned his head.
He almost pitied the kid, watching him in agony crying out for his dead father. If he had to guess, he was probably reliving the day he'd died.
Unfortunately he knew that feeling well.
How many times had he called out to his Mother, knowing she was dead and buried?
He shook his head, banishing that feeling and reaching down to where Thorfinn was tossing in the straws.
He was about to shake Thorfinn awake so the dreadful noise would finally stop, but his movements froze, a memory flashing before his eyes. It was like an out-of-body experience; he was suddenly watching himself, crying and turning like Thorfinn was, crying out, experiencing something in his dream that his adult self had no recollection of, and then that frail but gently hand…
His mother was always a frail woman. She needed her rest, but she never woke him up, at least not on purpose; she never got upset with him.
He remembered it vividly, being half asleep and noticing that hand stroking gently through his hair, quietly singing lullabies from another land, in a language so foreign, yet still his.
Askeladd groaned, closing his eyes to the memory.
Why was he suddenly thinking of this now?
When he opened his eyes, he saw Thorfinn again, still none the wiser to his looming presence above him.
He knew the answer to his own question of course. It was because he and Thorfinn were the same.
"Fath- father, no! No! F-father!" He continued to cry, and now Askeladd was suddenly at a loss for what to do. He should still do as he had planned a moment earlier; waking him up would actually be a mercy to the boy.
Askeladd sighed and let out a quiet curse as he sat down beside Thorfinn's shaking body, trying to grasp at things that weren't there, and then finally he grabbed onto something real, something to cling to.
Askeladd's eyes widened a bit at it, watching him begin to cling desperately to his arm.
Well, he definitely couldn't wake him up now. He'd be so embarrassed.
Why did Askeladd care about what Thorfinn would feel?
The turmoil was just so exhausting. Askeladd finally did what his body wanted him to do. He reached out, starting by simply laying his headplate on top of Thorfinn's head.
"You need a bath." He told him, slightly disgusted by how greasy and dirty his hair was. He didn't let it stop him through. He dug his fingers deeper, gentle brushing through it.
"Father—"
"Easy now."
For some strange reason, Thorfinn almost seemed to listen to that command.
Minute after minute Thorfinn began to calm down, his screams turning into muffled whimpers, and his tears fell less and less, and after a while he seemed to almost be leaning into Askeladd's touch, drawing comfort from it.
It was easy to forget that he was still just a kid, but in that moment it was ease to see.
Askeladd wondered what he was thinking. What was going on inside the boy's mind at that moment?
He looked down at where Thorfinn was still grasping him tightly.
He didn't really believe that he was Thor, did he now? That thought left a terrible feeling in Askeladd's chest, like he had finally crossed that line, which should never be crossed. Still, he couldn't get himself to stop until Thorfinn was completely quiet and until he heard someone call out his name.
"Did anyone see where Askeladd went?"
He looked up, hearing his men look for him for whatever reason.
"Why?"
"I need to speak with him."
"I think he went to see what was wrong with Thorfinn."
"Cause he was crying out?"
"Yeah."
"It's quiet now. Is it the barn?"
"Yeah, as always."
Askekadd groaned, pulling his hand back and looking down at Thorfinn again. He was calm, but his grip on him was still as tight. "You're going to ruin my good image with the men, kid. Let go now."
He had to pry Thorfinn's hands off of him, and when Thorfinn let out a groan, Askekadd held his breath, wondering if he had woken him up, but a moment later Thorfinn was breathing steadily again.
Hopefully he would sleep the rest of the night without that nightmare coming back to plague him.
"Whoopsie daisy." Askeladd groaned, standing up, and then brushed the straw off of his pants.
"Askeladd, you in here?"
"Yeah, I'm here; what is it?" Askeladd hurried to meet the man outside before he stepped into the barn.
He was told that a few of his men had gotten into a dispute and he needed to go break it up. It was another annoyance, but around his men he needed to put up a facade.
"Sure, lead the way.” He gestured the man to lead him to the others, but before he did he looked behind him at the barn doors.
"Well, sure. But hey, what was wrong?"
"The brat had a bad dream… that's all."
When morning came, Thorfinn stretched and yawned, running his hand through his hair to pull out the straws. He didn't feel well rested at all, and he really wanted to just lay down and keep sleeping, but still got up in fear of being left behind if Askeladd and the band would suddenly move on — after all they had tried to do that before.
Most of the other warriors were also awake, already enjoying the leftovers from yesterday, whether that was the meat or the ale.
He tried to ignore them all like he usually did, but some of them gave him strange looks, and in the end he glared and asked them why.
Instead of giving a direct answer, one of them grinned mockingly and asked Thorfinn in a childish voice, "Did you sleep well, Thorfinn?"
"What? Why do you care?"
"Cause you kept a couple of us awake with all of your screaming and crying. Askeladd had to go quiet you down." Another answered, not looking as amused as the man beside him.
Askeladd had only told those that asked, but of course that gossip had spread quickly amongst the men. They found it hilarious that Thorfinn really was a kid no matter how much he tried to act like an adult.
"You remember that though, don't you? Must've kicked you awake."
Thorfinn blinked, confused. "Screaming?" He muttered, not understanding why he would do that. And Askeladd had quieted him down? For a moment Thorfinn stood, trying to notice if anything hurt, but he felt fine, a little tired, but nothing hurt more than usual, it didn’t feel like he’d been kicked.
His eyes suddenly widened, his hand flying to the top of his head. Had someone stroked his hair? He seemed to remember that feeling vaguely.
Askeladd had?…
No, no way. He had dreamt it. He had dreamt himself back to the past, back to when he wasn't sleeping in barns and traveling amongst Vikings. Surely he dreamt that it was his father stroking his hair like he used to do to comfort him.
"I didn't kick him; just what kind of monster do you think I am, waking up a crying child with a kick?" Askeladd suddenly appeared, having listened to the conversation from the shadows, and his and Thorfinn's eyes met.
For a moment Thorfinn was more confused than he was angry.
Askeladd looked at him like he was trying to figure out what to say, thinking of the different ways Thorfinn could react.
After a long enough pause, Askeladd simply laughed and shrugged, trying to make no big deal of it. "I just shook him, of course! I don't think he even realizes though; he just turned onto his other side and fell right back to sleep again."
Hearing what Thorfinn believes to be the truth, he became angry again. In that moment, he hated himself for having even thought about such a thing. The fact that he had even entertained the idea for a second made him feel sick to his stomach.
While the men sat there laughing at him, Askeladd just continued to look at Thorfinn, all the while Thorfinn was fuming.
"Don't touch me again, you bastard!" Thorfinn shouted at him, unsheathing his father's dagger and pointing it at him just to make a point or to say that he'd cut him next time he touched him.
It didn't faze Askeladd though. There was a look in his eyes that Thorfinn had no idea how to interpret.
"Then don't have any more nightmares in the middle of the night. Deal?"
Thorfinn knew he couldn't make that deal; he couldn't know if it would happen again, and it frustrated him endlessly, so instead of saying anything, he huffed, turning around, and walking away from Askeladd and the others.
The other warriors would keep on insisting that Thorfinn kept having nightmares like that, but for a long while he had no idea.
It wasn't until he woke up one night, one last scream dying on his lips as he sat up with his arms outstretched, that he was completely convinced.
That became more and more common the older he got, and eventually, after Askeladd had been killed, it started happening every single night. He tried not to wonder about that though.