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“What the Hell are ya doing?! Where did you throw my spear?!”
The boy - Garm, the hellhound, but a boy nevertheless - is on his feet as nimbly as if he had never been unconscious. Waving his long arms in the air he laments theatrically the loss of his weapon, though the blood on his nose still hasn't yet dried.
He will survive then. Thorfinn gets up, not caring anymore.
“I’m not telling.”
“Damn yaaaaa!”
The boy's voice cursing him in all manner of gods must reverberate throughout the whole neighborhood. Thorfinn sighs, almost rolling his eyes.
“I’m going now. Don’t come after me.”
Honestly, he hopes that's the end of this whole thing for him. He's not naive enough to think that Garm might have learned his lesson, but from the moment their fates cease to intertwine, Thorfinn may not care.
He's ready to jump down the roof right there. Obviously, that's when he is stopped in his tracks by a raised index finger and a promise of retaliation.
“I’ll admit it. Ya have more experience than me, but my talent is greater! This ain't happening again! Next time yer dead, Thofinn!”
“Next time, huh…” Thorfinn repeats, suddenly feeling the onset of a migraine. Lately, he thinks he's beginning to understand Askeladd's sentiment. Damn Vikings, unable to understand the mere concept of leaving a man in peace. “I wish we could be friends instead.”
“Whatcha ya talking about? I’ve always been your friend.”
Surprised, Thorfinn turns only to find the young mercenary looking at him with genuine confusion. Who by Hel considers the man he wants to kill his friend? What's wrong with this kid?
Half frowning, half genuinely puzzled, Thorfinn examines the boy from his broom-head to bony ankles.
“You’re a weird one,” he concludes after a while and watches the kid pout.
“Chm. That’s what they all say,” Garm mumbles and digs his thumbs into his belt. He's got snot coming out of his nose as well as blood. It's positively repulsive. “But that makes me so good, no?”
What good can there be in killing people? But apparently, there's no way to explain to this boy that murdering spree is in fact not a competition. What a pain in the ass.
Thorfinn unfolds his arms and waves for the boy to come closer.
“C’mere, kid.”
Against all odds, Garm obeys. When he comes within range, Thorfinn reaches out to ruffle his hair. He tries to ignore that the taller boy has to bend over a bit for him to be able to do it.
“You did good, alright?” Thorfinn tells him, fingers going almost down to the skin under unruly hair. “But I don't want to fight you to death. Get it?”
Brown eyes, not unlike Thorfinn's, blink twice at him, clearly having trouble taking in his words and the hand in his hair at the same time.
“Haah? Why not?”
“Have better things to do.” Thorfinn simply answers and wants to pull his hand away, but his escape is denied once again. Just before his palm comes away from Garm's forehead, his wrist is caught in a strong grasp and held in place.
"Please don't stop.”
It is a simple request, naive in its core. The wide open eyes, wildly disheveled hair and blood around the nose give it an even greater touch of childishness. Thorfinn almost wishes he didn't have to beat this kid up so much.
Alas, some brats just don't stop until they're unconscious, do they? With a sigh and a shake of his head, he pushes the amused voice in his head back to the Hel where it belongs.
“Alright,” Thorfinn gives up, and ruffles the boy's hair again. In response he gets an enthusiastic sound and the blonde head presses even more into his palm. When he scratches behind the Garm's ear with his other hand, his eyelids fall over his brown eyes and his head lolls to the touch.
“See,” he murmurs, although he himself is surprised at the intensity of the boy's reaction. "There are better things than fighting."
"Mmm, no," the boy retorts despite his head falling to the side, practically nuzzling Thorfinn's hand. "There's nothing better than a dead-match.”
This is obviously going to take a while, Thorfinn sighs mentally and allows himself to sit down on the roof, pulling the boy down with him.
Without any instruction, Garm rests his head in his lap even before Thorfinn can even think about suggesting it. Truly like a dog, eager to get scratched.
Maybe a bit too much.
"What is it about fighting that attracts you in the first place?" Thorfinn asks him as he puts his hands in the blond hair again. "What do you fight for? It's not money I assume?”
“Why,” Garm pouts, lying on his side, playing with the hem of Thorfinn's tunic between his fingers. “Wanna find someone who can kill me, of course.”
He sounds both determined and unbothered. As if fighting just to find death is as normal as it is definitive. As if he believes that everyone does it. What a strange child.
“Do you want to go to Valhalla so desperately?”
“Naaah!” Garm growls, rolling on Thorfinn's lap. “Couldn't care less for Valhalla! But that's how it should be, no? Ya look for stronger and stronger opponents until ya find the one ya can't beat. And that's the point."
"And then?"
He works his fingers through the knots in the thick hair, parting the blood-stained, matted blonde mess into sections. He wishes he had a comb on himself.
Brown, boyish eyes in his lap blink. "Then what?"
"What happens when you find the one you can't beat?"
The boy snorts as if he doesn't believe Thorfinn is asking him such a trivial question and crosses his arms.
"Then ya die, of course!"
Of course. What else would happen, it's as simple as that. A young boy on the verge of adulthood is willing to throw his life away just because he wants to fight until his inevitable demise. Thorfinn promised himself very long time ago that he won't be swayed be stupidly strong emotions, but now he thinks that he truly hates war.
“That's not how it works," he tries to reason with the kid, although he doesn't really believe this message can get through. "People get both stronger and weaker with age. No one is the strongest forever.”
One by one, he untangles tufts of hair between his fingers that need much more than his scarred hands. The situation reminds him of a memory he has buried deep in his mind, perhaps to rid himself of the remorse they carried. Every time he touches the skin on the young warrior's head his eyelashes visibly flutter.
Thorfinn hopes this boy, unlike him, will be able to accept comfort without guilt. Perhaps that would mean not all is lost.
“An old woman did this for me once,” he tells Garm, although he's lost in his own thoughts more than anything else. “But you have fewer fleas than I did back then."
"Floki hates them,” Garm answers immediately like it explains everything. “The last time I caught fleas, he’d my clothes doused with lye when I was still wearing them. But I had at least two kinds of lice at once then, too."
He raises his arm demonstratively and pulls his sleeve down to his elbow. A dark pink burn scar covers his skinny boyish forearm from wrist to elbow.
The sight fills Thorfinn's heart with a strange hollowness. There are light hairs growing around it on the forearm, but none on the scar itself, revealing how deeply the lye has eaten away the skin. He runs the tips of his fingers over the kid's scalp gently, brushing now manageable hair until it lies flat against his neck and back.
At that, Garm audibly moans.
“Ooh. Oh, oh, ooooh~”
He rubs his face into Thorfinn’s lap, effectively smearing the blood and snot from his broken nose all over his clothes.
“A damn expert in unexpected ways, are ya.”
Rather you've never properly experienced tenderness, Thorfinn wants to tell him, but that would just be ironic coming from him, wouldn't it.
He sighs as the boy's hands encircle his hips and dig into his tunic, squeezing the fabric like a purring cat. He seems to be losing himself in the sensation. Perhaps if he had been raised in a world without violence, surrounded by parental tenderness instead of war and endless battles, even this boy might have grown into something different. Something better. Hopeful.
He definitely has the potential to enjoy a caress, Thorfinn notes as he watches a boy kick his legs in pleasure while being scratched in the hair. Trendemous one.
“There, there, there–!”
The kid encourages in a low growl not unlike that of a feline beast, when Thorfinn finds a specific spot among the thick hair between the last vertebra and the skull that acutely needs the attention of his nails.
“Oh!”
The kid rolls himself suddenly, belly up. Truly a hound. Thorfinn has to fight a sudden urge to giggle. His brown eyes meet the other and the young man's lips part as if he wants to say something but doesn't know what. It only lasts a second. With the agility he has shown repeatedly that day, Garm turns on all fours again.
“Alright,” he declares. “Let me reciprocate.”
“That's not necessar–” Thorfinn begins but his voice catches in his throat as the boy's hands are suddenly on the laces of his trousers, untying them without hesitation for the obvious purpose. “Kid!”
“It is.” Garm says as if it's no big deal. “Yer nice to me, lemme be nice to ya. ‘ts fair.”
Thorfinn has to physically stop him from trying to pull down his pants, not quite understanding how they got into this situation in the first place. Well, Garm was obviously prone to getting excited one way or another, but why anything gave him the feeling that Thorfinn should be in the same is beyond all logical.
“Listen, there is no reason to do that, alright? Understood?”
“‘s fine, I don't mind,” Garm shakes his head, and now that Thorfinn has combed his hair with his fingers, it has even more volume, making it look like a lion mane. “Surely, ya know it’s not a big deal, right? Men do it all the time.”
Thorfinn shakes his head. “It seems like a big deal to me.”
“Yer…” starts the boy slowly, carefully examining the older man's face. “Don't tell me– Nooo! But yer a warrior, ya had to get some, no?” He looks so taken back by whatever conclusion he comes to that he sits on his butt, arms crossed and frowns. “If not during raids then from ship slaves? Whores at least?”
This time it's Thorfinn's turn to blink. “I– I wasn't really interested in that!”
“Huuuuh. Weeeeird. Yer Christian or something?”
Surrounded by golden hair and squinting in confusion, Garm looks silly. In another situation, Thorfinn might have laughed.
“What- no, no. I'm just really not interested in this sort of thing.”
“And yer calling me a weirdo. Or is it that ya don't wanna do it in front of that woman who's watching us? Are ya with her?”
A woman? Oh, Hild. By the gods, she must have been watching them all the time and seen and probably heard all this. Thorfinn suddenly feels heat rush to his face.
“Wha– No!”
“Well, no hardship then!” Garm somehow cheerfully concludes. “Lemme return the favor. Fear not, I'm supposedly pretty good at this!”
It shouldn't be the strangest thing Thorfinn has heard that day, but it's probably just too much for him, because he looks at the young warrior in disbelief.
“Are you?”
“I must be, no? Else men wouldn't make me do it all the time!”
Thorfinn doesn't know which is worse, the load the information carries or the casualness with which Garm declares it. He stares dumbly open-mouthed as the boy pats his thigh with a wide smile.
“Dontcha worry, I won't bite. Unless ya want me to. But I've been told it's in bad taste.”
Thorfinn should stop him. He should tell him very firmly that this is neither necessary nor acceptable. Instead he watches dumbly as the boy - nose still red and swollen - bends his head to his untied trousers, and without hesitation pulls him out. Thorfinn is not hard. Not yet anyways, as Garm clearly pays no mind. Thin lips fall open, revealing a surprisingly wet and hot tongue that's eager to press against Thorfinn's length and then the tip of his cock.
He has to take a sharp breath as he watches the blonde mane lower down as the kid takes him fully into his mouth without a slightest effort. It really is a sight.
“You–” Thorfinn gasps, still not quite believing what's happening. “Garm–”
The damn brat didn't lie, he actually is good. Nevermind that Thorfinn has virtually no other experience, he can tell Garm knows exactly what he's doing. It frightens Thorfinn more than anything else. The blood is rushing in his ears and heart is pounding like it never did, and they are just starting, by Hella and all that's damned.
Garm’s mouth moves tauntingly against his cock, lapping and sucking when Thorfinn least expects it, not giving him a single moment to breathe. He feels that wicked tongue, wet with spit and slick, rubbing over the head of his cock and knows he can't last much longer.
“Garm–!”
When his fingers find their way back to the unruly hair - gentle, not pulling, not forcing - the kid lifts his head up searchingly. His cheeks are hollowed and flushed, and his nose still broken, but his eyes are all lit and eager. So, so eager. That's when Thorfinn realizes he could have asked more of this boy. He could tell him to take his clothes off. He could have asked him to serve him as a slave or a woman, and the kid probably would have. Without a second thought, up here on the roof, for all to see. He wouldn't care. He has no instinct for self-preservation, no self-respect left for himself and his body. He's a weapon more than a person. Thoroughly used and abused. It's terrible.
Thorfinn wonders if he was like that himself. He wonders if this is what the old baldy had seen when he looked at him. Of course, not this exactly as Thorfinn never had Askeladd’s dick in his mouth – thanks Odin, because he would probably bite it. At least at this this kid is docile – but this in general; A kid on his knees, beaten up and misplaced, taking this weird, unfitting role.
Every movement of the bony arms and legs remind Thorfinn so painfully that this boy shouldn't be there, not on his knees, not in the middle of the war, but yet, he doesn't stop him. Doesn't even pull away. He lets him sink his head down on his cock and lower. Like a damn failure he is.
His thoughts blend into a violent storm of regret, sadness and arousal, just to dispense at once, because somehow Garm presses his tongue against him just correctly, and Thorfinn hears himself moan and then it's over.
When he comes to his senses, The boy is still sitting across from him with wide eyes and a full mouth. Oh. Oh, shit.
"Please spit it out." Thorfinn tells him in a surprised voice, and Garm tilts his head like a confused animal. "Spit it out. I'm sorry."
"Mhhh hhhmmmmmm," Garm grumbles, which Thorfinn interprets as a protest, so he repeats:
"Please spit it out."
He's relieved when the kid actually does it.
"It wasn't that bad–" Garm protests immediately after the not-quite-graceful spit, but by then Thorfinn is wiping his mouth with his own sleeve.
"Don't spoil your appetite."
Garm watches him intently as he wipes his mouth, as if thinking about something.
"If ya don't stop being nice to me, I'm gonna have to do it again."
Thorfinn's hand slides down immediately. It seems to amuse Garm on some level.
"Listen, kid. You don't have to do this for anyone."
"I know," the hellhound smiles. "I wouldn't do it for just anyone."
Not for the first time that day, Thorfinn just stares at the young man, confused and shocked. His response is to stick out his tongue and waving his hand right in front of Thorfinn's face.
“Next time, old man!”
As he watches the young mercenary leap down the roof and run away on his long boyish legs, Thorfinn suddenly has a feeling that he might've lost this fight in a way. However, it doesn't feel exactly wrong.