Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vikings (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Athelstan/Bjorn (Vikings)
Characters: Bjorn (Vikings), Athelstan (Vikings), Aslaug (Vikings)
Additional Tags: Adult!Bjorn, Sexual Content, Parents & Children, Resentment towards Parents, Divorce, Future Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clothed Sex, Rough Sex, Angry Sex, Submission

May 25, 2013: I've had this sitting unfinished on my computer for weeks - ever since the finale. It took me that long to sort out how I truly felt about the finale. I was angry at first, because I love Lagertha second only to Athelstan (and sometimes not even second), and seeing her so cruelly used upset me greatly, especially because (with the time jump) it seemed that the shifts in characterization happened overnight with no explanation. So I went away. And I fumed. And I plotted angry!Bjorn-wanting-sex-to-take-his-mind-off-the-m ess-with-Aslaug.

...then I read up on some history.

Turns out Aslaug is pretty badass. And it also turns out that Lagertha's story is so much better than what she would have had if she'd stayed with Ragnar. I mean... she saves his ass, then returns home, decides she's much better off ruling without her new husband, kills him and takes his throne for herself, ruling in her own name. Ragnar dies in a snake pit, never having accomplished much when it comes to his own kingdom-building and his sons become greater rulers than he could have ever hoped to be.

Well... that changes things a bit, doesn't it? Still... who could turn down angry!Bjorn sex? ^_~

Enjoy!

Continuity Note: For obvious reasons, this fic is set in the future of the Vikings universe. Aslaug and Ragnar have been married several years and borne children. Bjorn is an adult. This could be considered sequel-ish to Reasons Enough to Surrender, but thanks to the finale, there are now some minor inconsistencies (i.e. - I believe I had Ragnar and Lagertha still married in REtS). However, it can certainly function as a stand-alone. Reading REtS isn't necessary to understand this one. So... yeah. Do with that information what you will? ^_^

To Dance To His Tune
by Renee-chan

Athelstan's back hit the wall hard, knocking the breath from his lungs. There was a body pushed hard against him, hands in his hair and a mouth on his before he even had a chance identify to whom they belonged. Of course, he knew. He always knew. There had only ever been one man who had dared take these liberties with his person, though he had not the only one who'd wished to. Raising his own hands to rest against the other's hips, he moaned softly into the kiss.

At that soft moan, Athelstan was pressed harder against the wall, a leg forced itself between his, pushed insistently at the slowly hardening flesh it found there. Athelstan gasped, broke away from the kiss to throw his head back. When those lips closed over his throat, worried at the thundering pulse point in his neck, and the hands dropped from his hair down to his wrists, clamped down on them to force them over his head, he finally managed to get out, "Bjorn - not here!"

Bjorn growled, rocked hard against him, leaving Athelstan no doubt of his own desire, but Athelstan pushed back, forced Bjorn to meet his eyes. He said, again, "Not here."

Though he growled again, still unable - or unwilling - to communicate in words, Bjorn complied with that request. He grabbed Athelstan's wrist and pulled him from the wall into his arms and further onto his leg for one brief moment before taking his hand and pulling him down the hall.

They didn't make it to Athelstan's room, nor to Bjorn's. Athelstan didn't take immediate note of where they did end up, only that it was a room with a bed and a door that closed. And with the way that Bjorn was determinedly pulling at the lacings of his tunic, that was all that mattered to him at that moment.

Bjorn growled, tugged at Athelstan's tunic as the lacings stymied him in his efforts to get Athelstan undressed. Athelstan finally rolled his eyes and pushed Bjorn's hands away. The man was more enthusiasm than skill when this kind of mood was riding him. Time was, Athelstan would have asked what it was that troubled the boy, would have tried to pry the truth out of him, would have tried to lance what was clearly a festering wound of the soul. Time was... he wouldn't have already known.

Now, all Athelstan could do was reach down and pull his tunic off over his head - stubborn lacings be damned - and strip out of his boots and trousers as quickly as possible in an attempt to avoid their ruination. The second his skin was bare, Bjorn crushed him back to his chest in a hard kiss, hands wandering over every exposed inch as lips and teeth followed and laid claim.

Moments later, Bjorn had them pressed back against the wall, leg pushed, once again, between Athelstan's thighs. Awash in a maelstrom of sensation - the teasing brush of fur against his rapidly hardening nipples, the cold bite of a metal buckle against his stomach, and the feel of smooth, sun-warmed leather against his manhood - all Athelstan could do was hold on. He whimpered as he rocked against Bjorn's leg. Abruptly, Bjorn stilled, pinning Athelstan against the wall but pulling back to look at him. Athelstan tried to still his thoughts, as well, but that proved far more difficult, almost eluded him entirely. Eventually, his voice hoarse with arousal, he managed, "Bjorn?"

Bjorn didn't answer, though in that moment, he seemed to come to a decision. He wrapped his arms around Athelstan, lifted him from the floor. Athelstan wrapped his legs around Bjorn's waist in return, whimpered again at the shifting sensations - cold metal, warm leather, soft, soft furs - as they moved, then almost cried out in full at their loss when he was deposited on the bed. Fortunately for them both, Bjorn didn't waste any time in unlacing his trousers and joining him on the bed, covering him once more.

There was no more foreplay, after that, no more preamble. Still fully dressed and already slick with precum, Bjorn lined himself up against Athelstan's entrance and pressed inside. It took embarrassingly little time for both of them from there. Two hard thrusts and Athelstan gave a strangled shout, buried his face in the fur around Bjorn's neck and shook with the force of his climax. Two more hard thrusts and Bjorn followed, collapsing bonelessely on top of him.

Athelstan let him lay there for some time, cradling him close, until he realized exactly to where Bjorn had relocated them in his haste. Leaning in close to Bjorn's ear as though the intrusion of his voice in this room were somehow a worse violation than what they'd already done, he said, "Your father's bedchamber? Are you mad? He'll kill us both if he catches us!"

Though he immediately started trying to squirm out from underneath Bjorn's pleasure-heavied limbs, Bjorn was having none of it, pulled Athelstan back beneath him and rubbed their softened cocks together. Athelstan shuddered, bit his lip over a moan at that almost too rough touch against oversensitized flesh. Bjorn shook his head and pulled him closer still, "He is leagues and leagues away, priest. He'll never know."

Athelstan pushed at the dead weight atop him, a long buried sense of shame prodding him into action when nothing else would have. When Bjorn refused to budge, Athelstan balled his hand into a fist and punched him hard in the shoulder. He might as well have punched a wall for all the good it did him. Finally he grabbed Bjorn's beard and gave it a harsh tug. Bjorn winced, but gave him his attention at least. Athelstan frowned at him and said distinctly, "It's disrespectful."

Bjorn frowned in return, "As disrespectful as it was to cast Lagertha aside and take another to his bed when they were still wed?"

And there it was, just as Athelstan had suspected. Ragnar's betrayal of Bjorn's mother was something that he was incapable of forgiving, though Lagertha had long since moved on - and done quite well for herself if the truth were known, better than she ever could have done tied to Ragnar's side. And Aslaug was good for Ragnar, suited him in his new position in ways that Lagertha perhaps would not have. Lagertha was too strong on her own, was never happy playing the game of submission, was far better off being master of her own domain. But Bjorn would not hear of it. Like any child, he had believed in the fairy tale of his own parents' love and had thought nothing could destroy it. But love in the real world doesn't work that way. It was a betrayal of trust, of a childhood absolute belief, from which he still had not recovered. It made him angry. It made him fearful. It made him determined that such would not happen to him and the one he loved.

Only it would.

Someday Bjorn would have to take a wife. That was a foregone conclusion, but it was not one he wished to hear. Athelstan understood that, even if Bjorn didn't. They'd been living on borrowed time since the first moment Bjorn turned a lust-filled eye on him. Only Ragnar's protection had granted them this oasis of calm to pursue what they had. Athelstan still didn't know why Ragnar had done it - why he had chosen to turn a blind eye to his son's dalliance with a foreign male slave. Whether it was out of residual guilt for how he'd handled his marriage to Aslaug or out of sorrow that he had never been able to coax from Athelstan what Bjorn had taken so easily, Athelstan couldn't say. Whatever the reason, it was all that had kept them safe these past years. Athelstan had hoped - in vain, he suspected, but still he'd hoped - that Bjorn would grow out of his childhood obsession with a gangly British monk... but he hadn't yet and it looked more and more these days as though he was holding on tighter instead of letting go. And that would not do. Athelstan sighed, turned his tugging on Bjorn's beard into a caress that threaded up into his hair and stopped with his hand wrapped around the back of Bjorn's neck. He pulled Bjorn's head down to touch their foreheads together, whispered, "What would you have me say, Bjorn?"

Bjorn simply shook his head, then tilted it down to press more kisses onto Athelstan's already kiss-swollen lips. He didn't wish to think of the future, didn't wish to think of the days to come when he would have to take a wife, didn't wish to think on the fact that he was a man just barely come into his prime... while Athelstan was soon to be leaving his. Time, the future... they were not his friends and he would cast them away from himself if he could.

Time, however, was a mistress that no one could cast aside for long. Still, Bjorn tried. He kept Athelstan beneath him, trapped in the pleasant haze of their joining, until the priest started to shiver from the cold air. Only then did he reluctantly allow Athelstan to rise and begin dressing.

It was as Athelstan was pulling on his tunic that time caught back up with them, announcing itself with the creak of a door opening. Athelstan froze in the act of reordering his lacings, gaze caught by Aslaug's as she was revealed by the opening door. They froze there, they two, pushed Time aside once more, as both attempted to ask about and explain away something which could not be explained. Finally, Bjorn rose from the bed, casually but oh so obviously relacing his trousers, and gave Aslaug as virile, as arrogant, as prideful a grin as Ragnar had ever given anyone, then sauntered past her and down the hallway, leaving Athelstan behind to do damage control.

Aslaug raised a hand to her mouth, to cover a grimace or a grin, Athelstan would never know. Eventually, she shook her head, raised her gaze to meet Athelstan's and said, "There is much of his father in him. He's a fine man."

Unspoken were the words, 'You are lucky.' They were unspoken because they weren't true. Were Athelstan a woman, were he a Viking, were he younger... they might be, but such was not his lot. As Aslaug's gaze slipped pointedly past him to rest on the mussed bedclothes, Athelstan's fair skin betrayed him in a fierce blush. As she took a step closer to the bed, he stammered out, "I can explain-"

Aslaug simply laughed. "I have borne children, priest. I know full well what goes on in a bed that produces disorder of that nature." Her gaze softened and she stepped closer, rested a gentle hand on Athelstan's shoulder and the understanding in her eyes caused Athelstan more shame than everything that had gone before. She did not deserve to be so ill-used as this.

Aslaug said, "I do have children of my own, priest. I understand well a mother's love for her child and a child's love for his mother. How can I deny Ragnar's son the fury he feels on Lagertha's behalf when, in my heart, I can only hope that my children would feel the same fury on mine in similar circumstances?" She stepped away, began to straighten the bedclothes. "I could wish things were easier between us, but the gods have not willed it so. All I can do is what my husband wishes done." Sher turned back towards Athelstan and offered him a sad smile. "I can look the other way. I can be understanding. I can look to my own children. I can bear him no ill will for the kingdom he will inherit that my children will not. I can trust that when the time comes he will return such kindnesses to me and mine."

Her smile took on a mischievous glint, a hint of the clever wood sprite who had so enchanted Ragnar upon their meeting peaking out to play in Aslaug's eyes. "But if it's all the same, try to guide him to a more appropriate location in the future. The lingering smell is a cruel taunt when my husband is so far afield."

Though his blush intensified, Athelstan bowed to acknowledge the gift in Aslaug's words. She was to be another ally, then. He was grateful... but in the end it would matter not. She couldn't be an ally against time, itself. Still, Athelstan took his escape as it presented itself, leaving the room to return to the chores that had been interrupted with Bjorn's unexpected return.

...and in an echo of that earlier interruption, Athelstan again found himself pinned to a wall by Bjorn's bulk, an insistent mouth on his and hands tightly gripping his wrists. When Bjorn finally pulled away, leaving them both panting for air, Bjorn said, "I hate you as much as I adore you, sometimes, priest. Did you know that?"

Not trusting his voice or even understanding Bjorn's purpose in this display, Athelstan simply nodded in response. Bjorn bent to claim his lips once more. When that second, bruising kiss was over, he said, "You were the missing piece, Athelstan. You could have kept Ragnar and Lagertha together. You three were so perfect, so strong, so balanced. My father built a kingdom on the back of that strength. Why you would not submit to him when it would have made a difference, I'll never understand... and I'll always hate you for it, just a little."

Bjorn released Athelstan, then, backed off a pace to give him some breathing room. "But, whether I like it or not, priest, that is what happened. You would not submit to him. For better or for worse, you did submit to me. And you and I, and the woman I choose for us, will build a stronger kingdom than my father could even conceive of. Mark my words, priest. We will." And with those parting words, he stalked off down the hall, a lift in his step and a glint in his eyes that had been absent since his return.

Time and Fate might not be on their side, Athelstan thought, but G-d help either of them if they tried to cross Bjorn. He was just stubborn enough to take them both on and make them dance to his tune. And despite his every misgiving, Athelstan almost found himself looking forward to dancing along with them.