Chapter 3
Haakon watched the boy, standing with his back to him, dry himself off and then wrap the sodden blanket around his thin body. He was shivering and he eyed the crackling fire longingly. Haakon met his eyes.
“Come over here,” he told him. Eren looked at him. “Bring your clothes, too,” he said, indicating the wad of soaking clothes lying in a pile next to him. He had made the boy wash his clothes too because of their smell.
Eren retrieved his clothes and laid them near the fire. He sat down at Haakon’s feet, laboriously lowering himself to the ground. Haakon jumped, startled, when he felt the boy’s hands on his bare thigh. He had rolled up his pant leg to treat the wound he had suffered in battle. He slapped Eren’s hands away.
“What are you doing?”
Eren held his cupped hands for Haakon to examine. There was some sort of brown root in his hands. “It’s for your wound,” the boy said, nodding toward the gash in his thigh. “It will clean it and help it heal.”
He put his hands back on Haakon’s thigh, boldly, and Haakon allowed him to rub the plant against his skin. When he saw a small, warm smile on the boy’s face at his acceptance of the natural treatment, he caught his wrist in his hand. “Do not think that by doing this you are winning my favor.” He snatched the remainder of the root from the boy. “I can do that myself.”
At the rejection, Eren shied away from him and hunched over, arms wrapped around his body, trying to warm himself. Then he lay down by the fire. He held the blanket tightly around his body as he huddled close to the flame, still trembling.
Haakon glanced at him and then went to sit next to one of the other men.
“He can sleep with me tonight,” the man said.
Haakon looked over at his compatriot for a moment and gathered the intent in his statement.
“No,” he said, rather forcefully.
“Why not?”
“He needs to be able to walk tomorrow. He needs to be able to carry my bag.”
“I’ll be gentle.”
“No. I’ve seen what ‘gentle’ means to you. You’ll hurt him.”
“But—”
“I said no. He’s mine. I need him to be able to work. I can’t afford to have him lie on the ground tomorrow, comatose. I don’t want to have to carry him with this leg.”
“Why are you protecting him?”
Haakon didn’t answer.
The other man shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m sure he’s used to it, with those looks.”
“I don’t think so,” Haakon replied. “He had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned that possibility earlier. He seemed to think that I would just take him in, because it was the right thing to do. He’s naïve.”
“Come on. He knew what he was getting himself into, or he wouldn’t have approached us. He can handle it. He should be used to it. He looks like he’s worked his whole life.”
“You’re right, he does. But look at him.” He nodded toward the boy lying near the fire. “He’s already exhausted as it is. He needs to rest.”
“Do you think he deserted?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Either way, he had to know what we would do with him.”
Haakon sighed. “He came to me because he’s desperate. That’s the only reason.”
“You’re saving him. You just want him for yourself.”
Haakon turned to his companion, surprised. “I can assure you I don’t. I’m not that desperate.”
“Yet,” the other man muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Look, after we complete our orders, once we get back, you can have him all you want. I don’t care what you do with him. But until then, he’s mine to do with as I please.”
He looked over at Eren and the boy looked back at him. He likely knew that they were talking about him.
“I’m taking rest now,” he told the other man. “I’ll put out the fire.” He wrapped a fur blanket around himself and then kicked some dirt on the flame. They didn’t want to attract any attention from the enemy or betray their location. He noticed Eren watching him closely. He looked at the boy, his slim body shivering inside the blanket, his expression exhausted and forlorn. “Come join me,” he told him. Eren stared at him, wary, eyeing the blanket around him, and then got up. Haakon saw both hope and fear in the boy’s eyes as he sat beside him.
“Lay down,” he instructed him, and Eren settled next to him. He lay down gingerly, careful not to touch him. He still held the damp blanket around himself.
Despite the boy’s obvious weakness, Haakon took his feet and bound them together with a length of rope. He fastened the rope so that it would not easily come off. Eren picked up his head and watched him. He laid his head back down when he was finished securing him.
“I won’t have you trying to steal my food in the middle of the night or trying to slit my throat.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Stop talking.”
Haakon lay down next to him, just brushing his body, and Eren shifted a little, moving away. “If you want any of this blanket, you’ll have to come closer,” he told him. Eren looked back at him and then moved closer, finally settling against his body so that they were just barely touching. Haakon didn’t know if his trembling was from the cold or from anxiety.
Haakon touched the damp blanket wrapped around Eren. Eren grabbed at it, resistant to its removal, and Haakon yanked it out of his hands. Haakon’s fingers brushed against his stomach and he flinched. “Relax,” he ordered him. He took his dry overshirt and covered the boy with it. Eren clutched at it protectively, wrapping it around himself. Then he lay still and Haakon listened to his slow breathing. He covered them both with the fur blanket.
Haakon touched Eren’s head. Eren flinched but then Haakon felt his muscles loosen at the gentle touch. He brushed the damp hair back from the boy’s forehead. He put his mouth next to his ear and spoke quietly to him. “If you abuse my hospitality, if you try to escape after I saved you, I’ll run you through with my sword.” He felt the muscles in his body tighten at his ultimatum. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Good boy. Go to sleep.”
Җ
Eren lay pressed against Haakon, his back to the man’s chest. He was lying on the ground before the open night, lying next to a man he had only just met, shackled to him. The last words Haakon had said to him still rung in his ears. He hadn’t wanted the man to see him naked—not because he cared at this point whether he saw his nude body—but because he didn’t want him to notice his wound. He had discreetly gathered some moss on the stream bank and had pressed it against his wound, inserting some of it into the wound cavity. It had hurt terribly, further aggravating his swollen flesh. The moss had absorbed some of the blood, but even now he felt the wetness slowly trickling down his side.
If the man realized he was hurt, he would either kill him or abandon him. He couldn’t be abandoned again, left like some unwanted possession. And though his nature was not manipulative or calculating, he realized that the longer they spent together, the harder it would be for Haakon to kill him. He had found a wounded bird once when he was younger. His mother had wanted to kill it right away, but after he had begged her to let him keep it for a few days, she, too, had grown fond of it. Her attachment to it had saved it, until its wing had healed and it could be released, finally free again. Somehow the bird had meant something to her. He only hoped now that he could mean something to this man.
He would call Haakon ‘Master’ to please him, but he would never think of himself as a slave, bound to this man, owned by him. He would never be his master. No one would. He belonged to no one, least of all to this man. But he had to appear submissive to him.
Though he was uneasy, his shivering form had been welcomed by the warmth of Haakon’s body. He was still chilled from submerging his head in the ice-cold stream water. He had almost sighed in contentment when the man scooted closer to him, radiating heat, and threw the blanket over both of them.
He shifted uncomfortably, trying to settle into a less painful position, and Haakon threw an arm over his side, tightening it around his waist. A throbbing ache from underneath his rib made his body give an involuntarily twitch.
“For God’s sake, what’s wrong with you?! Stop moving and lay still!” Haakon hissed through his teeth. “That’s the last time I’ll tell you.”
Eren fell into a fitful sleep, plagued with ghastly, violent dreams. He was jolted awake by throbbing pain, as if it wanted to permanently sear the memory of the wound into his mind. His empty stomach ached. If only he could make this horrible pain lessen. He wrapped his arms around his body, trying to comfort himself and ease his despair.
He forced himself to listen to Haakon’s steady breathing; he determined he was asleep. After a few moments of silent agony he slowly slipped out from underneath Haakon’s constricting arm and moved away from him, wriggling on the ground. He had been cold—shivering—at the beginning of the night, and the warmth of the man next to him had felt good. But now he was feverish and sweating, his skin burning up, dripping with moisture under the overshirt. He felt like he was going to throw up, or faint. He pushed the shirt off of his body and felt the cool night air against his skin. He couldn’t control his breathing any longer, and he didn’t want the man to hear how labored it had become.
For a few minutes he breathed freely, panting quietly. Seemingly noticing the missing warmth and pressure, Haakon woke up. Eren immediately relaxed his body and laid his head down, pretending to be asleep. He felt the man gently touch him, re-cover him with the shirt, and pull him closer to him, tucking the fur blanket around him again. Eren tried to hold his breath and not breathe too loudly. He was confused. Haakon had put his hands on him, but they hadn’t lingered unnecessarily. To his surprise, there had been nothing unkind or rough about the way he had touched him. It had almost been…tender. He didn’t know what to think. The man would probably be cruel to him the next day without warning.
He gently touched his wet abdomen, fingers dabbling in the blood seeping through the moss. He knew he was dying. He had known it for days. He had come to these men for help, praying that they would give it to him, but it seemed Haakon planned to work him until he dropped dead. He knew there was no respite. He was alive at the moment, but for how much longer he did not know. He didn’t know which would kill him first—the wound or the man.
The white-hot, searing pain in his side resurged with a fury of its own, throbbing along with his heartbeat. He curled up, fists clenched, his fingernails digging into the soft, vulnerable flesh of his palms. They became wet with blood. He bit his tongue to prevent a cry of agony from escaping and tasted blood. There would be no rest for him tonight.
He looked up at the sky. The night was cold and clear and he could see the stars.
The next time he gazed up at the heavens, still awake, he watched the stars fade as the light of dawn chased them away. He only wanted to see the stars one last time before they went out forever for him.
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