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Eivor and his party of raiders arrive late to the winter solstice festivities in Hemthorpe, frost lacing their furs and their breath coming in great clouds in the frigid air. The sunset of the longest night fell hours earlier, while they were fighting river-ice halting their ship’s progress north, and therefore despite their haste they have missed many of the ceremonies. The Yule log is lit in the great hearth of the longhouse, the runes carved upon its bark already burned away; offerings have been made to Odin, Freyja and Thor; and the year’s dead remembered and honored. Still, Eivor reasons, it is better to arrive late than not at all, and there are many days of feasting and singing left in Snottinghamshire to celebrate the lengthening of the light that will begin with tomorrow’s dawn.
Vili greets them in the same mood, clasping hands with Ravensthorpe’s warriors before wrapping Eivor in a hearty embrace. The sounds and scents of the longhouse surround them, raucous cheering and heady woodsmoke, roasting meats over watched fires and epic sagas half-told. Carven figures look down on them from the rafters in welcome, and Eivor finally does not have snow sliding down his neck. The warm arms of his oldest and dearest friend only lift his spirits further.
Vili steps back to take them in. “It is most good to see you,” he announces. “I offer you all the hospitality that we have - eat and drink, and let none deny you!”
Eivor’s raiders roar their approval and accept Vili’s generosity without hesitation, turning to join with the locals at every table in the hall. Friends meet friends with gleeful shouts and strangers make room for newcomers at their tables with good cheer. The two jarls are left to stand alone together, an island of calm amid the chaotic sea.
Vili’s joy does not dim as he meets Eivor’s eyes again. “I offer you all that I have,” he repeats, just loud enough for only the two of them to hear. “It has been a fruitful growing season, and our larders are bursting. Do not stint yourself. I am counting on you to relieve my feast tables of their burdens.”
Eivor shakes his head, mock-ruefully. “We did not come empty-handed. Freyja was kind to Ravensthorpe as well this year. We have mead - salted meats - bread - honey… more mead… The longship nearly sank halfway down the swan-road. Soon your tables will be groaning, Arse-Stick.”
Vili’s lips twist, good humor abating. “Was such largesse necessary? Do you think I cannot feed my guests?”
“Nothing of the sort. I am merely making up for your terrible taste in wine.”
Vili grins at Eivor’s assurances, his brief hesitancy dispelled like fog come sunrise. “You have never seen a situation you didn’t want to meddle in, have you? Very well. I will have to return the favor at Midsummer, and haul in a stag fatter than any you have seen in your life. With antlers so wide it cannot fit through your doors! Then we will see how you like being made a guest in your own hall.”
“Having you in Ravensthorpe for Midsummer? I will like that very much.”
Vili is speaking in jest; Eivor is not. He cannot think of a better way to spend the year’s longest day than with Vili, just as he could not think of a better way to spend the longest night. If Eivor had his way, they would never be parted. It is duty to the people they lead, and not a lack of love, that keeps them from the other’s side for months at a time.
But duty can be far from Eivor’s mind now - this is a time to celebrate, to indulge in the gifts of the year gone, to drive back the dark with their merriment. “Let us not speak of Midsummer when Midwinter is still with us,” he says, clapping Vili on the shoulder. “Be a good host and pour me a horn of your awful wine.”
Vili does so, and the night blurs into a great riot of pleasure and happiness, Eivor’s memories swirling like clouds stirred by swings of Thor’s hammer. He takes part in drinking contests, sometimes with Vili cheering at his back, sometimes with Vili opposite, his own horn in hand. They fight as fiercely as they drink, wrestling each other to submission, then taking on new opponents side by side, conquerors unmatched; muscles burn and blood flows with satisfying exertion. The feast seems endless, fish, lamb and boar followed by warm bread, stew and soup, Eivor’s other hand never empty of a tankard for long. There are stories to be told and news to be shared of the happenings since the last time they met, and neither jarl leads a quiet life. Eivor joins his warriors in song, their voices filling the hall; Vili and his people answer with song of their own, loud and passionate. They drink again, pouring heat into their already full bellies - it might be mead, or ale, or wine, Eivor knows not - laughing and staggering about the tables.
In due time, Eivor resolves to clear his head, and takes a dip in a pool at the base of the mountain just outside Hemthorpe’s walls; in a heartbeat the snow-melt crushes his breath from his lungs and splinters his bones. Vili, bent over for balance, laughs himself sick at Eivor’s curses before Eivor will suffer the insult no longer, and pulls him in. Vili splutters, then shrieks as the water’s icy grip spears through his clothes. Eivor’s cheeks are flushed red with the cold, while Vili’s drain to white, and their teeth chatter like pebbles running ahead of an avalanche. They clutch at each other for support to stay upright, though it helps them little, the air now equally biting as the water; Eivor’s drenched braids frost over with rime where they hang.
Eventually one of them scrapes together the good sense to get out and lead them back inside the longhouse. For the mending of their stiff fingers and numb toes, and other affected body parts, they stoke a roaring fire in the jarl’s chamber; their sodden clothes are removed down to the skin, and hung up to drip in a corner. Vili has acquired a brimful horn of hot apple-cider along the way, which he generously passes back and forth with Eivor as they sit by the hearth, leaning against each other from bare shoulders to thighs. Stomach full and blood warming, Eivor is content merely to be in Vili’s company, and from his calm demeanor and serene gaze, Vili feels the same way. There is a comfortable silence between them - though the feast in the main hall is easily overheard - while they thaw from their ill-conceived adventure.
“The year has been generous,” Vili says after some time, as though concluding a thought he has been mulling over. “A good harvest and good hunting. Sickness took few and our neighbors were peaceful.” He turns to Eivor, and there is a new look in his eyes - no longer serene or calm, but heated. Smoldering. Hungry not for the food on the longhouse tables nor the drink in his hand. “Would it be too much, do you think, for me to ask Freyja for one more blessing?”
There is but one thing Vili can be asking for, with a look like that. “A blessing for yourself, I suspect, not for your people?”
“Oh, I think I could share it with one other. If he would accept my offering.”
Memories of a blissful night spent on the mountain three winters ago, and cruel dismissals of flickering flames, rise through the haze in Eivor’s mind. He told Vili then that this would not happen again, that he could not make a union that would not last. After all that has happened since, Eivor finds that he can no longer justify refusing to take joy, however fleeting, where he finds it.
Their mouths come together, the kiss as easy as falling asleep. Ice-plunge or no, they are both still drunk, and it turns the firelight liquid and Vili’s touch to shimmering currents swirling across Eivor’s skin. His heart is aglow with something sweeter than arousal, for the moment, savoring Vili’s hand wrapping around his arm and the taste of cider between their lips. Vili breaches Eivor’s mouth to stroke his tongue with his own, as confident and commanding as a sailor dipping his oar into the sea, and Eivor has a choice: surrender gladly to Vili’s lead, or meet power with power.
Eivor wants, but does not know what; without thought, he finds himself leant into Vili’s kiss and a hand cupping the back of Vili’s head.
Heat. Heat everywhere their skin touches, heat pouring off the fire, heat in Eivor’s chest and belly, all swirling together in a great conflagration. As they push into each other they topple to the side, landing outstretched across a thick fur and a heavy woolen rug. Now Eivor can wrap both arms around Vili’s shoulders, and throw a leg over his thigh, to hold him closer in the kiss. Vili, steady but intent, rolls them until Eivor is on top, and Vili can cup Eivor’s arse in his strong hands. Slow like the tide, Eivor rocks his hips down into Vili’s, gentle waves of pleasure spreading through him.
Their mouths part for air. “Sit up,” Vili breathes, eyes alight, hands squeezing to urge Eivor into moving. “Let me see you.”
Eivor obeys, straightening until he straddles Vili’s hips, bent knees alongside his ribs. Vili traces Eivor’s chest, his arms, then his thighs, finding the tattoos and scars added to Eivor’s skin in the years since they last saw each other so closely. Eivor arches into Vili’s touch, fingertips feather-light in their exploration. He is proud of his body, the strength it offers him and the gifts the gods have seen fit to bestow; tonight he is proud of the way it makes Vili’s gaze darken and his cock twitch under Eivor’s seat. Vili’s hands grow more bold, more greedy, now palming the arches of Eivor’s muscles as if marking out territory.
“Are you pleased with Freyja’s blessing, drengr?” Eivor murmurs. “Has she rewarded you for the honorable sacrifices and glorious battles you dedicated to her?” With purpose, Eivor drags his hips along Vili’s hardening cock, and grins when Vili gasps and writhes beneath him. “Will you feast upon her bounty?”
Vili blinks, limbs loose, mustering lust-slowed thoughts with an effort. “Shut your smug mouth, Wolf-kissed,” he growls eventually, and pulls Eivor down with a hand behind his neck.
He kisses not Eivor’s mouth, but everywhere else, cheeks and jaw and eyes before moving to Eivor’s throat. Vili’s teeth drag over Eivor’s scars, then glide down the inked raven on the other side of his neck. Hot breath meets Eivor’s racing pulse, and his head spins from more than the drink. Vili’s lips strike sparks against his skin, igniting Eivor’s blood - as if he were not already burning like a bonfire from the inside out. Vili’s chest is firm and warm beneath Eivor’s own, and Eivor squirms into a better position to feel more of it.
Vili wraps Eivor in his arms, tight as if he means to never allow them to separate again. Eivor touches Vili in return, face cradled between his hands, then moving to feel out the swells of Vili’s shoulders. If Eivor is clumsy and uncoordinated in his drunkenness, Vili does not complain - nor can he, for he is at least as addled.
With effort, Vili rolls them over again so Eivor lays upon his back, and Vili can shift down his body. Eivor does not resist, and is not sure he has the strength to regardless, but he does lift himself to watch Vili’s progress with a curious eye.
“I have wanted this all night,” Vili confesses in a low tone, and bows his head to lick Eivor’s cock.
If Eivor was a bonfire, now Vili’s tongue turns him to molten metal, formless and subsumed to Vili’s will. Eivor’s spirit swirls unmoored through his body, drawn this way and that in the wake of Vili’s strokes. It feels like taking one of Hytham’s long leaps from a high place, hanging suspended as the world rushes past him. Vili’s mouth is hot and wet, all-consuming, and Eivor’s blood rushes down to serve his need. Pressure builds, Eivor’s cock throbbing as it stiffens, stoked by every long drag of Vili’s tongue.
Eivor’s hips lift, drawn as if by magic towards Vili’s mouth. He has entirely lost command of his body, between the drink and Vili’s touch, able only to follow the source of his own pleasure. Vili gives generously, dark head bowed diligently to his task, lips now circling Eivor’s shaft and taking him deep. Eivor’s hands, with a strange skin-hunger, stroke Vili’s broad shoulders and the nape of his neck, then run through Vili’s hair. His fingers tighten, then tug on the strands.
Vili raises his head, Eivor’s cock falling from his lips. Eivor groans disappointment at the sudden loss, but then Vili is leaning over him and bringing their mouths together, and that is good also. Vili’s body lowers to lay atop Eivor’s, heavy and grounding, the heat of the fire replaced with the warmth of bare and blood-flushed flesh. The kiss is deep, opened to each other, Eivor’s tongue wending around Vili’s between questing lips to taste mead and musk. Every stroke of skin, every bead of sweat exchanged, every breath gasped makes Eivor crave more. He shoves Vili’s hips into a better position, cocks aligned, so their writhing bodies feed their lust at every movement.
“Eivor, gods-” Vili chokes, and Eivor’s proud hugr preens like a petted cat. His feet dig into the floor, slipping on the fur they lie atop, fighting for leverage to roll their hips together hard enough to make them peak. Vili helps, or tries to, his own shifting sometimes hindering Eivor’s attempts. Through the ale-soaked mist still lingering they find a rhythm of sorts, and if it is not glorious, high lovemaking worthy of a song to Freyja, neither does it shame the goddess into turning her back.
Indeed, it is not long before Eivor’s cock spills, hot and languid, tension unwinding through him like the release of a bowstring. Vili moans, a sound of pure fervor, and with a few more rocking thrusts of his hips he follows Eivor over the edge. Wet and warm, heart at ease and pleasure threaded through every vein, Eivor sprawls loosely enough to rival Ivarr the Boneless. A few moments more and Vili shifts himself, falling to the rug at Eivor’s side in matching pose.
The fire is beginning to burn low, and Eivor’s wits are beginning to return from where the many Midwinter festivities scattered them. He rolls to face Vili, admiring his ruffled hair and the gleam of his damp skin, and the fucked-out expression on his handsome face. It has been a very good night, and Eivor knows just what to do with the rest of it.
“I could use another round of drink,” he says. “And then another round of worshipping Freyja, if it suits you. Dawn is yet some hours off, and I can think of several offerings we have not yet presented her.”
Vili laughs, a delight to Eivor’s ears, his chest heaving. “More mead, more cock - how can I refuse?”
Eivor smirks. “Happy Yule, Vili.”