for glory

1952

Emotion gnaws at Fannar's insides. So many feelings that it's hard to actually pin them down, and they all war for dominance inside of him. He feels guilty, so guilty, and yet he knows he can't apologise for any of this. He won't. He feels endlessly proud of everything his nation has become, born of centuries of suffering and hardship, and yet feels the overwhelming urge to make himself small — as if sharing these accomplishments would be like salt in the wound to the man he broke away from.

He's known this day would come, eventually. They couldn't be strangers forever (although with their history, could they ever really be strangers in the first place?) and they would have to make contact again. It isn't even that Fannar doesn't want that; he does, he so terribly does. Being apart like this has felt so abnormal, like a piece of him is missing, even knowing this was an important separation to be had.

But now the time has come, his chest is so damn tight, and he can barely breathe. He's been shaking all day, and he can't seem to stop it. It's so frustrating, because he wants this to go well, and he wants a clean slate. He wants them to be okay, and yet he can't seem to control himself enough. He doesn't want to ruin this before they can even speak, but guilt makes every word in his brain suddenly leave him, and the silence is suddenly too much —

He starts coughing, ducking into his sleeve to muffle the grating sound of it. Before the fit has come to an end, there is a hand on his shoulder, and it draws him into an embrace.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, ducking his head in embarrassment; he can feel himself blushing. He doesn't have the air he needs to say much more, but thin arms - terribly hesitant - wrap back around Mads' waist. "Nervous."

There’s a slight tremor to his hands, lips bitten raw.  A heavy weight in his stomach, which he can easily identify as the last remnants of terrible guilt. All of it reflects in the way his smile doesn’t stretch, eyes don’t shine. 7 years are not enough to get over a war that ravaged the world. But those are excuses, aren’t they? All excuses as to why he wouldn’t come earlier than this.

Fannar looks taller, straightened up and it fills him with pride, pride that transforms into that easy admiration he has for him. This is, perhaps, what he was trying to avoid. Because all of this happened without him there by his side, so maybe, he would gain even more when he’s completely gone out of his life?

Ridiculous to think he could ever be so selfless.

The cough rips him out of his own thoughts and for the first time he really looks at the young man in front of him. Still so familiar, still loved. It fills a hole inside of him he didn’t know he had. Breathing gets easier with each second he drinks the Icelander in.

His hand moves without command to a still too thin shoulder and as even frailer arms wrap around his middle, it wanders to fine locks. 

“It’s good.” A second too late he realises that he’s crying, quiet sobs shaking his whole body.

“I missed you. I’m sorry.”

What he means to say, he missed Fannar’s last seven years just as he missed him completely.

The air gets caught in his throat, the same old sense of shame washing over him instantly. Deep inside he's still the same war-hungry monster, the same beast trying to justify all the blood it spilled. What indeed.

"A lonely death."

Some years ago, he’d have done so without hesitation, with pleasure even. And more.

It’s this old connection which hurts him, he’d always want to please Norway, with anything he can give.

Yet that’s the problem, he can’t anymore.

He would not please him to betray another.

@kongerigetdanmark​ || cont.

The meaning escapes him.

The converging emotions involved overflow, crushing him like a glacier. It cuts through his heart, unforgiving and beyond skin deep. His lungs cease and so does his breath, but such things - his breath, his lungs, his body, his heart… have they not all belonged to the other long before anything has even begun? 

( will ever begin? )

He cannot look up for he will not even see. Or worse. He will see what he wishes not to. His silence is his own, unlike all of him that has already been claimed ( given willingly until there was nothing left. )

“Why?“ 

Closing his eyes as tears fall, he clutches at clothes not his own.

“If we went back, at least I could be something to you and not just a ghost of the man you love.”

Once more, the guilt makes it harder for him to breathe. There’s truth in it, too, he’s aware of how it was. How everything that was Iceland was being traded for Norway. Lost love making him blind to the sacrifices Egill made for him, all the losses not appreciated. It’s funny, in a twisted, cruel sense. Him still believing all those lies Mads told so long ago.

All those things he did to protect himself from his own mind.

He should have lost him. Egill shouldn’t clutch to him, should slap away Mads hand as he reached towards him. Intertwining fingers. Egill shouldn’t stand here offering himself again. 

But he does, and this time Mads will give it all back.

A moment of silence, shocked and disbelieving. He could say no, should say no, and perhaps he even would, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want Egill to believe he’s not wanted.

That would be a lie and he swore he’s never lying to him again. Now he loves him, truly.

“I’d have sacrificed you without remorse, without guilt. Maybe it would have come later on, once when my mind was cleared and I’d have realised what I lost. Ask Iceland what that feels like.”

Perhaps Kristian never meant to lie, or perhaps he has forgotten.

That’s all he ever be. A distant memory, someone familiar enough to fall back to. Someone once loved and never truly forgotten, but cast aside. 

It’s maddening, not enough.

But all he gets. And it’s more than he might ever deserve.

He’s here; too.

His throat constricted, mouth distorted, everything wrong tingling just beneath his skin. Words die on the tip of his tongue, of reassurance, of comfort, of understanding. 

The pressure is suffocating him. Kristians paints a picture of him he cannot fill, he can’t be that someone he needs. Never was.

Mads destroyed everything he held dear, repeatedly, stupidly, selfishly. 

He should feel loved, he should, he knows this. He loves Egill, that’s something he knows as well. And he does. With all of him. There’s nothing he would change, couldn’t anyway.

But he doesn’t feel loved.

“I can’t love you.” Anymore.

He’s right.

He’s right, he’s right, he’s right.

And there’s nothing he could say;

except: I’m sorry, I love you.