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Summer of 838
Cornwall, England
I screwed up. I screwed up. I screwed up. I screwed up. The scrawny Danish child barrels down the English hillside, the weight of the chainmail armor strapped to his small figure weighing him down far more than he would like it to. Hardly helping his case is the rather short sword sheathed at his side. If anything it is the odd cross of a large dagger and a sword. The Frankish weapon had been crafted just for him, for the warriors with whom the young teen spends most of his time saw it fit that he be armed just like the finest of his notorious people.
His strange leather boots are crafted in such a way that is fairly characteristic of his people, but now at least a few decades old they fall apart at the seams, no longer holding his feet quite right, the triangle piece that forms the heel of the article coming apart from the rest of the shoe. He stumbles over the uneven ground, rolling his ankle as he quickly regains his balance. He cannot make such a foolish mistake such as hitting the ground. It is not like he can catch himself anyway. In his arms sits the form of a small child who looks no older than three or so staring up at him with glistening green eyes.
If his Viking commanders could see him putting his years of training to use just to flee a battle, he would be executed for shame—that is if he could die. The heavy metal helmet on his head flattens his hair against his forehead, holding it in place as sweat drenches his brow. The narrow eye slits in the metal work forces his gaze forward and only forward. His bright blue eyes sight the edge of dense forestry, widening with hope as his chest starts to tighten with exhaustion.
He gasps as an arrow whistles past him, flying into the darkness of the grove ahead of him. He doesn’t dare turn around but instead clings tighter to the trembling toddler in his arms, trying to run even faster even though he fears that if he tries to do so, he will end up traveling faster than his feet can feasibly move, taking himself to the warm summer earth.
He lets the folds of his dark brown cloak conceal the figure of the child in his arms. The dense pin holding it closed against his thin, sweating form beats against the metal of his armor, making his movements far louder than he would care for. He shakes his head, reaching up for his helmet, throwing it off as he dives into the rich green overgrowth that flanks the English plains. It lands in the earth and shrubbery with a dull series of thunks and thuds as he picks up a bit more pace, still refusing to glance backward.
“Are we going to die?” the boy in the Danish teen’s arms squeaks.
“No,” the Viking child gasps, pulling awkwardly at the pin holding his cloak against his chest. He fights it free, tearing at the old cloth a bit to achieve this. He finds immediate relief as the heavy article slips his shoulders, throwing the dense piece of metal in his hand aside as he darts down the forested hillside into the darkness of the thick, overgrown wood. We cannot die. We cannot die. It would be all my fault. If we die—if he dies—it is all my— He curses as another arrow follows him into the forest, this one planting itself in the narrow trunk of a young tree just a few feet ahead of the Dane.
The child in his arms squeals, curling up tighter in his arms, clutching his head with thin, shaking arms.
“I told you we are not dying!” the teen hisses, his brilliant eyes searching the undergrowth as the sound of running water reaches his ears. He sinks lower to the earth as the hill grows steeper, sinking into the bushes, holding the Welsh toddler tight to his chest as they descend into the shadows. His chest grows tight as he peers up toward the light, hardly daring to move as he sets the boy down in the dry earth, pressing himself low to the ground as well, holding a hand against the child’s chest. “Don’t move,” he instructs with a whisper.
The child at his side obeys, hardly wishing to see what happens when their pursuer catches up with them. He lies on his back, staring up at the dark green canopy overhead, unable to see much of the sky, his eyes matching the same coloring of the brilliant life blossoming around them. What he does do, however, is cling tightly to the hand and arm of the Danish boy who holds him in place. His breathing is fast and tears trickle shamelessly from his eyes, carving through the soil and grime that coats his face, revealing just how pale he is beneath it all.
The Viking glances at him, watching him carefully, ignoring his light blond hair as it tumbles forward into his periphery, narrowing his field of vision. I got you into this mess. I will get you out of it. He looks up as he spots a figure in the shadows at the top of the hill. The boy who hunts them down looks to be no older than the Dane. If anything, he would not be surprised to hear that their pursuer is younger than he is. He frankly does not care all that much for the technicality. All he knows is that only one of them is going to be standing at the end of the day, and the Viking has no intention of it being the Anglo-Saxon boy on his trail.
“Okay, kid,” the teen whispers, leaning close to the Welsh boy at his side. “You are going to keep as low to the ground as possible—stay on your belly—and you are going to follow the creek westward.” He barely makes a sound as he delivers his whispered instructions. “You are likely to end up with your own people that way. You will end up far, far from battle. Do you understand?”
“West?” the child chirps softly.
The Dane curses, hanging his head for a moment, whipping his head upward. “You have to be kidding me,” he spits. He nods toward the creak just a few feet behind them. “Follow the water that way.” He nods to the right. “Be quiet and be—” His cut off as an arrow clips his shoulder, sending specks of blood onto the greenery around him as the arrow disappears into the creek just beyond him.
The toddler gasps, his eyes wide.
“Go, go, go, go, go,” the Dane urges, clambering to his feet, drawing his sword, locking eyes with their pursuer at the top of the hill.
The young teen at the top of the hill stares back with chilling green eyes as the wind tosses his strangely bright blond hair. He reaches for another arrow out of his quiver, widening his stance as his beige cloak flutters behind him on the summer breeze.
The Dane charges forward despite the fact he has the low ground and a close-range weapon. He indifferently watches the Anglo-Saxon child draw his bow, having other priorities. Get out of here, kid! Run! You do not deserve to die because I was the one who could not be strong enough to win our battle, and— His train of thought is silenced as his eyes widen with wonder and horror. He blinks back tears as he takes in the wondrous sight of what an arrow in motion looks like straight down the tip. He finds the perfect spiral strangely beautiful as the flint tip rapidly closes distance.
“No!” the Welsh child in the undergrowth shrieks. In fact, that is the last thing the Dane hears. The profound moment of beauty he had found the split second before is suddenly and violently silenced by throbbing agony as the arrow finishes its journey.
June 3, 2024
Copenhagen, Denmark
Matthias’ eyes snap open as a pulsing headache forces him awake. He gasps sharply, taking desperate, deep breaths as his head spins. He feels as if he had not been breathing at all. He blinks slowly, trying to catch his breath as tears slip from his eyes, running backward into his sweat-soaked hairline. He clenches his jaw, tilting his head ever so slightly to rest his cheek on the top of the head of the man who sleeps silently at his side. Breathing deep for a moment, he silently finishes waking up before attempting to get up. He inches carefully out from beneath the weight of Lukas Bondevik, doing his best to jostle the Norwegian as little as possible.
Once on his feet, Matthias scans the dim bedroom of his modestly sized Copenhagen home. He steps silently through the room, finding the open bathroom door that leads off of the small master bedroom. He steps into the small room, the cool tile beneath his feet drawing him to reality just a bit more as he silently shuts the door behind himself, turning on the light. He ignores his own disheveled reflection as he steps toward the sink, turning the faucet on.
Bracing his elbows on the counter, he runs cold water over his hands, rinsing his face thoroughly. He looks up after a moment, strands of his airy blond hair heavy with water, falling against his forehead. His hair hangs over his eyes as he stares defeatedly at his own reflection. Was that something that actually happened or was that a foul nightmare constructed by my subconscious? He hangs his head, his breathing growing increasingly steady and controlled as he wipes his eyes with his wrist. If that was a real thing that happened in my youth, then I could have very well got Rhys killed. Grief grips him as he squeezes his eyes shut.
He pushes himself up, standing straight, running his hands back through his hair, drying them off this way. He stares down his own scarred body, somehow able to recollect the incident that warranted each and every scar. He locks eyes with his own distant, icy stare. I feel like there would be some long-term evidence of me getting shot in the face like that. Is it because I would have simply died? It is not really common for us to just… straight up… die. Do we not scar in the event of such an occurrence? It is no later than three in the morning and he is asking himself questions the dozens of personifications still wandering around the planet have never dared to ask or consider for too long.
Did Arthur really kill me so mercilessly or is that a figment of my most wretched nightmares? He thinks about it for a moment as he reaches across the counter, grabbing the hand towel off the ring mounted to the wall. I mean, we were pretty ruthless back then. There were no real rules. There were no rules to war or to society. He dries his hands before drying off his face, gripping the old towel tightly, staring down at it absently as he realizes how bizarre it is that he can remember society before the concept of social conventions. We have been allowed to get too old. He throws the towel down, turning the light off.
Opening the door, he steps back into the dim room, shifting a step toward the sitting chair he knows is tucked in the corner of the room. He finds a pair of pajama pants draped over the back of the furniture, blindly fighting them on his unstable figure. After a moment of less-than-honorable struggle, he wins his battle, pulling them up to his broad waist, tying the drawstrings. He reaches for the nightstand also concealed by the darkness, feeling around absently for his phone until his fingers trace the cool plastic of his phone case. He grabs it, clutching it tightly. Wandering around the foot of the bed, he casts his gaze absently toward the shape of the bed he can barely make out in the darkness.
He slips out of the bedroom into the equally dark hallway, turning on his phone to light his path of travel. He slows as he nears the top of the staircase, navigating sleepily through his phone until he finds the extensive list of contacts listed in his phone. He scrolls quickly to the section of the list where all of his contacts with the surnames beginning with ‘K’ are grouped together. He shifts a step toward the stairs, taking a careful step downward. After a moment where he realizes he has, in fact, correctly gauged how deep and wide his stairs are, he continues to take blind, faithful steps down the stairs. After scrolling through a long list of individuals with the last name “Kirkland,” he finds the one in particular he is looking for, hitting the small phone beside the man’s name.
He puts the phone on speaker as his feet find the cool hardwood floors of the ground level. He turns on the post of the banister, stepping down the entry hall of the small, warm home, flicking the light switch to his right, lighting up the hall that runs to the back of the home, flooding the living and dining rooms with some semblance of light. He slows beside the closet tucked into the wall beneath the stairs, resting a hand on the handle for a moment before pulling it open. He flicks a light switch on the inner wall, frowning with exhaustion at the boxes that fit into the small space rather tightly.
He glances down at his phone as he is sent to voicemail. He curses, calling the man again as he crouches over, grabbing a box at his feet by its handle, dragging it out of the closet, reading the side of it. China, he reads to himself. His brow furrows as he pulls the lid off, squinting as he finds what is in fact very old and expensive dishware that had been packed away at the dawn of World War II. That’s not really china… He notes to himself, having no recollection of who would have packed the box, barely recognizing the handwriting. It is in English as well, which is not a language any of his family members would have resorted to at first instinct. He drags another similarly labeled box out of the closet, now able to step into the space, staring around at the boxes of belongings he had not considered for about eighty years. He sets his phone on a short stack of boxes to his immediate right, listening impatiently to the strange tone the phone makes to signal that it is doing its best to call the phone of the sleeping Brit Matthias insists upon harassing at three in the morning.
He reaches for a box overhead, pulling it down, holding it up as he reads the side. Family albums. His brow furrows. Actually… this sounds like… Oh! It comes back to him as he carries the box out into the entry hall, setting it down on top of the box of dishware, ignoring his phone as he is sent to voicemail again. Alfred packed this up for me when… When Germany invaded. He didn’t only protect my territories and children… He packed up and hid away my material heritage. My personal, familial heritage. He smiles faintly. That’s why it’s in English and vaguely misidentified. He stares at the box below that implies it holds centuries of his family’s history, shuddering at the mere thought of what that could imply.
He ignores it, stepping back into the closet, finding yet another box marked to also imply that it holds his family’s records and history. He furrows his brow, pulling this one down, setting it on the floor. Surely, I don’t have this much crap to my name. Could some of these be Ebbe’s or perhaps Lukas’? He pulls the lid open, automatically caught off guard by the large black and white portrait lying face up at the top. Oh shit. This is everyone’s crap. He stares at the old framed picture of Tino Väinämöinen with his daughter—the tiny girl who represents Åland—standing in the ranks of the Russian Empire. He frowns, picking it up. “Tino, why do I have your stuff?” he asks dryly into the empty darkness.
He turns the image over, reading the year with a heavy sigh. He sets it down, returning the lid to the box. Nope. I don’t have it in me to go through any of that. Despite this, he does make a mental note that he has all the boxes necessary in case any of the Nordics wanted to have a bad time down memory road. He turns around again, stepping back into the closet, pulling another box down, this one at shoulder height. He smiles as he finds that Alfred had identified it to hold “Books ‘n Shit.” Matthias laughs softly at the American’s crass naming. He pulls it down, setting it on the floor of the musty closet, suddenly having a strange image of all of his belongings cluttering some closet of Alfred Jones’ Boston home for closer to six years. He smiles sadly, reaching for his phone, calling the poor Welshman for a third time
He frankly doesn’t remember packing the closet. It very well could have been Berwald or one of his sons who moved the boxes into the home. Whenever that was… Maybe the mid-eighties? He settles on the floor, opening the box of books ‘n shit, coughing as the stench of old books immediately hits him like a punch to the face—or perhaps an arrow.
He brings his phone down to the floor as he starts pulling books out of the box one after another, only briefly checking their spines, finding that they are various history books and storybooks, all of them in his native language. He smiles faintly having long forgotten about most of them, setting them on the floor, pulling more books out.
His brow furrows as he struggles to find what he is looking for. His gaze snaps downward with aggression as he is sent to voicemail again. At this point, he gives up, turning it off. He takes the now empty box, throwing it out the closet door. It hits the back of the couch with a loud, airy thud before hitting the floor with a similar clatter. He pulls another box of books off the pile, setting it on the floor. He rips the lid off this box, growing increasingly frantic. I need to find the book that can prove that this didn’t happen. This didn’t happen. I didn’t mess up that bad. He clenches his jaw, finding more and more books in Danish. The book he is looking for is not a Danish one. Please. Please. Where is it? Tears start to well in his eyes.
“Matthias?” a voice mutters from the doorway of the closet.
The Dane jumps, his gaze snapping upward as he stares up at the man who stands over him. His bright blue eyes are icy, empty, and completely wild as he stares at the man like he were an animal of prey that had been cornered.
Lukas Bondevik leans against the doorframe of the closet, arms crossed across a light gray t-shirt. His hair is beyond disheveled as he stares groggily down at the Dane, his eyes barely visible from behind his curtain of hair. Despite this, the gleam of his dark purple eyes shines through the shadows of his face, carrying his aura of concern. “What’s going on here?” he asks softly, his tone patient but stern.
Matthias shakes his head, running his hand through his hair, forgetting that it is faintly damp, catching himself off guard. He falls back against the closet wall, closing his eyes.
“Why are we having a breakdown in the closet at three—”
“I am not in the closet,” Matthias whispers, looking defeatedly up at the man. “I’ve been a queer longer than modern religions had deemed it a shame,” he mutters absently, his eyes somehow even emptier.
Lukas sighs defeatedly, rubbing his face, pushing his hair out of his face. “What are you looking for?”
“A book.”
“Why?”
“Do you remember all that much about when we were young?” Matthias asks, rummaging around absently, unwilling to meet Lukas’ gaze. “I don’t bring it up a lot because… it hurts… a lot. I got murdered… a lot. And I pulled a lot of nonsense on the people who are now our friends. ”
“Does this have to do with the book you are looking for?”
Matthias does not answer.
Lukas takes this as a silent affirmation. “I remember that…” His brow furrows as he drops his gaze. “I remember that you weren’t home more often than not. I missed you. You were the only person in my entire world who I could relate to for a good long while… and then you started bringing me home little ones. I remember wondering why the hell it was my responsibility to take care of Sigyn, Emil, and Ebbe, even though my people weren’t the ones to acquire Faroe, Iceland, and Greenland.” Lukas looks up, studying the man on the floor. “But eventually I learned to realize that you were bringing pieces of our family home… and I remember learning to love them. I learned what love was… through them… And as the centuries rolled on, I remember learning to love you… and I remember learning to love you carefully so that our family wouldn’t get torn apart by those who couldn’t understand how powerful our family was.”
Matthias looks up, his empty eyes sparkling with tears. “Do you remember anything else?”
“Nothing else was important,” Lukas whispers.
“We went through so much—”
“Nothing else was important,” the Norwegian reemphasizes.
Matthias drops his gaze.
“What are we looking for?” Lukas asks softly, nodding toward the Dane’s mess.
“A book. An old English history book.”
“Does it have a name?”
“I don’t remember,” Matthias croaks.
Lukas sighs, tilting his head. “Why… are we looking for an English book.”
“I had a bad dream,” Matthias confesses weakly with a lick of shame in his voice. He realizes very well that he sounds like a small child with the reasoning, but deep down he knows—and he knows that Lukas knows—that he is pointing toward a deeper grief.
“What happened in your dream?”
Matthias shakes his head, rubbing his face.
Lukas sighs, settling down on the floor beside the man, picking up his phone as he scoots closer. “Matt,” he whispers, straightening his legs as his dark blue pajama pants twist on his legs.
“I landed myself in deep shit quite often…”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t remember—”
“No,” Lukas cuts him off. “What happened, Matt?”
“I think Arthur took me out at some point when we were really young… And I think… I think it had to have been really soon after we got Ebbe and Emil… I was trying to protect Rhys from Arthur… and… and I lost. Miserably.”
“How?”
Matthias shakes his head.
“Okay,” Lukas sighs. “And you are not sure if this was real or not, are you?”
Matthias nods. “If it is, I messed up. If it is, I am the reason Rhys ended up with Arthur.” He drops his gaze as his phone begins to ring.
Lukas hands it over, his gaze settling on the name of the caller.
Matthias answers the call, running his hand back through his hair, sighing heavily.
“Hello?” the voice of Rhys Kirkland mutters in rough Danish from the other end of the line. “Mate, are you okay?” he asks sharply, his voice full of despair.
“Rhys,” Matthias calls, skipping all formalities. “Didn’t I almost get you killed at some point way back in the day?”
Lukas tilts his head, watching the large Viking man descend into loosely prompted grief with intrigue.
“Uh…” Rhys groans, taking a deep breath, obviously still waking up. “How far back?”
“When we were small. When you were still really little—before we were all Christian—”
“You think I can remember that far back?” Rhys cuts him off. “And mate… if we can’t remember, does it frankly matter?”
Lukas raises an eyebrow in silent agreement to this.
“I…” Matthias leans forward, planting a hand on the floor. “I keep forgetting about the terrible things I did to the people who are my friends! It seems wrong that—”
“Keep it down. Sigyn is asleep upstairs,” Lukas pleads softly.
“You have a faint memory and want to know if you are allowed to feel guilty or not?” Rhys asks with quiet disgust.
“Kirkland,” Matthias pleads.
Rhys takes a deep breath, somehow finding it in himself to have patience with the Dane despite the ungodly hour of the morning. “You want to know about your history in the Isle? Google the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. If someone was going to keep track of what you were up to, it was going to be Arthur.”
“Oh, we have a copy of that,” Lukas remarks, pushing himself to his feet. Before Matthias can get a word in, he is out of the closet and has disappeared into the living room.
“Why the hell are you calling me about this at three in the morning?”
“I had a nightmare.”
“Ah.”
Matthias does not need to contextualize the weight that a bad dream can have on a personification; especially one as old as himself and Matthias. He keeps his gaze low as he continues to empty the second box of books.
“838,” Lukas calls as he returns to the doorway, turning a book around. “The Danes and the Welsh joined forces against the Anglo-Saxons and then were put to flight in Cornwall, Wales.”
“Oh!” Rhys chimes through the phone. “No, that did happen!” he announces with a little too much glee. “Because Cornwall is now Arthur’s. I remember that. Matthias, I remember you were there, and—” The rest of the event dawns on him, forcing his silence.
Matthias reaches upward for the open book in Lukas’ hand. He takes it, staring at the thin lines that cite his memory—the memory he had been praying was not real—back to him. There is a tense moment as Matthias stares at it, his face draining of color. “I’m sorry, Rhys,” he croaks. His brow furrows as he closes the book, tucking his finger in the page Lukas had found. He stares at the leather cover and the gilded lettering that elegantly marks the book. Why do I have this? I don’t remember ever buying, let alone receiving it. He opens the inner cover. Property of Arthur Kirkland, he reads the cursive handwriting, his gaze slipping to the blockier handwritten print below it. Spitefully stolen by Emil Steilsson in 1946.
Matthias huffs in laughter, hardly surprised by the boy. He opens the page up again, reading the year—both the original and corrected date—his despair and anguish gripping him.
“Køhler?” Rhys mumbles after giving the man a gracious period of silence.
The Dane does not repeat his apology, fearing that if he tries to open his mouth to say anything, he may just lose complete composure.
“Kirkland,” Lukas calls. “What happened?”
“Køhler lost,” Rhys explains softly. “I was fine. I just got shuffled around until I ended up in North Wales. I lost land to Arthur, but I didn’t get defeated. Not like what it sounds like Køhler is imagining.”
Matthias looks up.
“I remember that you went down, Matthias,” Rhys reports softly. “I remember that. You went down for me. You did no wrong to me that—”
“I am too old,” Matthias croaks, cutting him off as he shuts the book in his hand. He runs his thumb along the gilded lettering across the leather spine. “I can’t even properly remember all the times I’ve hurt someone or let them down.”
“It’s been 1200 years,” Rhys pleads with defeat. “I am sorry you were hit with the recollection in such an unforgiving manner, but… why are you upset that I lost land? You got killed.”
“He’s never been one to have his priorities straight,” Lukas mutters.
“Matthias, no one is holding you to the slip-ups you made twelve hundred years ago.”
The Dane shakes his head. “I should remember—”
“The human memory was not designed to hold the centuries upon centuries of lived experience we are burdened with,” Rhy points out firmly. “You owe us nothing. None of us who are old enough to remember your people’s bullshit are still in pain because of it. We are all fine.” There is a moment of silence. “Køhler, come visit me if you want to talk it through more thoroughly. We can even take back that day if you’d like. We can go mess with Arthur; I have a key to his flat.”
Matthias earnestly laughs, hanging his head with defeat. “I might like that, actually.”
“Don’t you dare start apologizing for any of that. I was fine, and nothing that you were doing to my brothers at that time was beyond what they deserved; they were doing the same to you.”
“You were so small.”
“About the size of Emil and Ebbe at the time, right? As you said?” Lukas mutters, keeping his gaze low.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine that helped,” Rhys sighs. “I’ll tell you what. This Wednesday. Book a flight. We can stage a new attack on England. You can fly into Cardiff and we’ll go show Arthur what defeat at the hands of the Danes and Welsh feels like. London’s not safe,” he laughs.
Matthias smiles, a light returning to his bright blue eyes. “Yeah, I think I’d be down for that.”
Lukas’ expression twists. “Really? In the midst of the shifting around of the European Union and the political—”
“Oh yeah,” Matthias laughs.
“I’ll plan for it then,” Rhys laughs, his voice breaking with exhaustion. “Goodnight, Køhler.”
“Goodnight,” Matthias laughs, watching the call end.
Lukas watches him for a silent moment. “Feel better?”
“Better than how I woke up.”
Lukas nods. “I woke up before you did,” he whispers. “You are a restless sleeper, you know. I thought you had altogether stopped breathing.”
“I think I did.”
Lukas tilts his head, staring at him for a moment before stepping back into the living room. “It’s a miracle that Sigyn didn’t wake up once you started throwing boxes,” he calls back to the Dane.
Matthias drops his gaze. For some reason, he forgets that just because Ebbe and Emil live in their respective states more often than not doesn’t mean that the Faroese girl does. Though the oldest, she is visibly the youngest and therefore is not far from Lukas or Matthias at any given time. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes.
“Matthias,” Lukas calls as he steps back into the closet, handing him a framed photo. Matthias recognizes it immediately; the Norwegian had pulled it off of a bookcase in the living room. “Who is this?”
Matthias takes it, staring at it in silence for a moment. “Our family,” he mutters, smiling faintly at the photo that had been taken of him, Lukas, Ebbe, Emil, and Sigyn in early December of the previous year at a festival in Oslo.
“Is there anybody who isn’t in that photo that should be?” Lukas asks.
Matthias shakes his head.
“Then you protected all you needed to. For 1200 years you protected everything that mattered in our world. Granted, you fucked me over once or twice, but I survived. I’m here. I came back.”
Matthias looks up at him with doughy eyes. His shoulders fall as he holds the framed photo tight, still trying to keep his composure.
“Are you going to come back to bed now?” Lukas asks softly.
“Yeah. After I clean up.”
“Leave it for the morning.”
“Sigyn will worry if she sees—”
“Sigyn will not get up until we wake her up.”
Matthias nods, setting the old English history book on the floor, running his hand back through his hair.
Lukas steps forward, extending a hand. “Come on,” he whispers.
Matthias takes it, letting the Norwegian help him to his feet.
Lukas shifts a step forward, draping an arm over Matthias’ shoulder, holding him in place with a vaguely disguised hug. “I know I am not the person you need at this moment, but…”
“I just needed to find out if… if my sins—”
“They aren’t sins—”
“—were real or not. You weren’t going to be able to tell me that… and I’d rather die than force you to go reaching into the past for the painful memories that construct our history.”
“Matthias,” Lukas pleads. “We take all life has in store together. That includes our shaky future and our shaky past. Just as we look forward together we look backward together. That’s not just your responsibility to bear.” Lukas rests his head against the Dane’s chest. “Forward together, and likewise, backward.” He repeats. “You are so eager to rummage around in the bloodstained pages of your own history… and you are so eager to carry guilts and burdens that you were never responsible for.”
Matthias frowns.
“You did right by our family… most of the time.” Lukas huffs in defeated laughter. “And I think you need to give yourself more credit for that. You protected all you needed to. Everything else that you have forgotten, has been forgotten for a reason; it no longer matters… and… I know that’s hard for you to conceptualize that. If there is anything you have, it’s a heart… and often it comes at the expense of your head.”
Matthias cocks his head, glancing down at him. “Are you calling me stupid?”
“Sometimes you act like it,” Lukas steps backward, taking his hand. “Because you are always so determined to do right by everyone in your life… when… when in reality, no one can really do that.”
Matthias glances down at the framed image in his hand, gradually grasping the Norwegian’s point.
Lukas also stares at it with tired eyes. “I know you understand that.”
The Dane nods ever so slightly, stepping out of the closet, turning the light off, closing the door. He sets the frame down on the top of the pile of boxes just outside the door, pulling Lukas close, wrapping an arm around him, tucking his face into the Norwegian’s neck.
Lukas, after getting over the initial shock smiles faintly. “Yeah. I was right.” He holds the man tight. “You have too much heart for your own good.”