Harv understood, deep down, Finn had just grabbed the most colorful thing his parents were willing to trust him with. There was no way Finn would know that Harv's grandmother had sewn every fertility symbol she could think of into that blanket, desperate to have at least one child. His parents were so convinced it worked they put it in storage after Kenric was born. The fact his mother would let Finn take it at all was mortifying.
"I'm not sleeping on that thing." Harv said.
"Fine," Finn shrugged, "sleep on the floor then." The cold, hard, hay covered floor.
"Okay." Harv threw up his hands.
"It's just a blanket Harv." Finn said. "Now turn around, I got to take the last of this junk off." Harv rolled his eyes. The second his back was turned, he heard something rip. Finn muffled a yelp of pain and something like the crinkle of paper. Finn ripped the seams of his outer clothes and threw them in a pile on the floor. "Alright, I'm decent." Or at least Finn's idea of decent. He was in shiney, sleeveless tunic that barely made it to his knees.
"You're going to be cold." Harv said. Finn wrapped himself up in the blanket out of spite.
"I don't know what you were expecting." Finn said. "I've never been to your house overnight." Though he was starting to see why. This was miserable, and Harv was being weird about sleeping arrangements again. "We've never even had a proper sleepover."
There was a very good reason for that; it had everything to do with Finn's shamelessness and Harv's feeble attempt to set boundaries. It was really bad when they were younger, Finn's habit of touching Harv like he was some fidget toy. Harv had gotten used to it, too used to it, and didn't want to know what would happen at night when his will was weaker. Especially with Finn's clothes leaving just enough for the imagination to run wild.
"Goodnight Finn." Harv said.
In the wee hours, just before sunrise, Harv got hit in the face with a house slipper. He was curled up on a pile of hay with the one blanket Finn had been willing to spare. From the nest of blankets across the room, he saw two lavender eyes glare at him.
"Tea." Finn hissed. Harv rolled over just to get hit with another slipper. "Just because you dragged me out here, doesn't mean my entire morning should be ruined." Harv sat up, and pelted Finn's cocoon with his own slippers.
"Alright your highness, I'll get the dang tea."
"Thank you." Finn burrowed into the blankets deeper.
Harv entered the dark kitchen, muttering his good mornings to the other early risers. He poured extra water in the kettle. Finn would probably need hot water for whatever potions messed with the color around his eyes. If that man fell asleep while he was doing all this, so help him. He grabbed a piece of bread to nibble on while he waited.
"Where's Fynn?" Clover asked. "Is she alright?"
"Yeah, just wanted tea first." Harv pointed at the kettle. Roland rolled his eyes. "She doesn't know where anything is, dad." Of course, there was no way Finn would wander around a strangers' home like a freezing robber. "I'll be back to help with breakfast after."
"There's other stuff to do on the farm." His father said. "If you're in the kitchen, what's she doing?" Harv really couldn't picture Finn mucking the goat's pen, but there were nicer ways to ask his supposed fiance to help. The kettle screamed out. Harv dumped the water in a canteen and grabbed one of the cups from the cabinet.
"I'll be back." Harv said curtly. He left the house and practically kicked the barn door open.
"What the-" Finn peered over the edge of the loft. "Oh please, if it was really that much trouble to get, I could have asked someone else."
"No, that would have been worse." Harv said. As he got up to the loft, he could see angry red marks peeking from under Finn's nightshirt. "We don't have to keep doing this." He set down the canteen and cup. Finn wrapped the blanket back around him as he put tea leaves in the tin cup. "We could say you got sick and we had to leave early."
"...and you'd be okay with that?" Finn asked. He let Harv pour the liquid into his cup. "Before you were waiting for yuletide to come visit, you really want to let this fester for months?" He took the cup, blowing on it gently before taking a tentative sip. "I can still turn this around. I'll make them like me. That way, anytime they bring up your little 'wife' you can just say she's well and be done with it. If we leave now, you're going to be nagged about finding another woman, I guarantee it."
"They expect you to cook with the other wives." Harv said.
"I've followed recipes before." Granted it was potion recipes. "How different could it be?"
Very different apparently. The clothes he had brought were not suited for squatting around a fire pit. Clover measured everything by eye, which made it difficult to know how big a 'pinch' or a 'dash' was. If you were a milligram off in potion making, you could lose your eyebrows.
"There's no such thing as a perfect dish." Clover said warmly. "As long as those carrots are roughly the same size they'll cook evenly." Finn nodded, but still tried his best at cutting each carrot the exact same size as one of the others. It was deemed the safest task to do.
"Here, I'll do it." Anina took the knife from Finn, drumming out the rest of the knife cuts while barely looking. "I won't let you be the reason breakfast's late."
"...do nobles not cut their own carrots?" Amelia asked
"No," Fynn cleaned off his hands, "they don't. We have chefs for that."
"Then... what did you do?" Amelia finished cleaning off the giblets they insisted on putting into a gravy. "For bridal training... that is. Sorry."
"Nothing." Fynn decided the truth would be easier than faking it. "I didn't have bridal training. I have my work instead." They looked at him with pity, which was all the more frustrating having made a total boob of himself in the kitchen. "Look, it's really not all that necessary. I'm smart with the finances, so I can afford help with the important things."
"Where's the joy in that?" Anina shook her head and scraped the last of the ingredients into the morning stew.
"Girls please," Clover said, "everyone does things differently."
"It's just sad is all." Anina said. "Has he ever eaten something you've made him?" Fynn pointed at the sew, with some of the carrots bubbling to the surface.
"Clover... do you think a cake would go well for dinner?" Amelia nodded towards Fynn.
"I think that would be a lovely idea." Clover grinned. "I always found baking easier than cooking myself." She eased back onto her feet. Her breath wet and crackled for a moment before she cleared her throat. "A pound cake would be a good one to start with."
"Sit down Clover, I can get it." Anina was stirring a pot on the stove and mincing the giblets all at the same time.
"She should be moving as much as she can." Fynn said. "You can't take deep breaths sitting in a chair all day." Even if she was dying, they should let her do what she wanted.
"That's what I've been saying." Clover grinned.
"Have you ever had hibiscus tea mam?" Fynn asked, he could tell no one in the room recognized the flower by name. "After breakfast, I could make some with the leftover mint and lemon, it's quite good." It would be easy to assume, while no one in the house was sick, that Clover's body was the one slowing down. It wouldn't hurt to try.
"I could... uh... show you some embroidery..." Amelia added. "After tea..."
"I also have to make a batch of soap." Anina clearly would have preferred to do it herself. "I can show you how to put scents in them."
"Uhh... thank you." Fynn said. He'd expected to be mocked the rest of the day for being incompetent, not mentored. Honestly, he didn't need to do these things, but for whatever reason, they thought that's what being a good wife was. He had to make them think he was a good fit for Harv.
Puck had blessedly taken anything close to slaughtering the goats off of Harv's shoulders. Feeding the chickens and goats was like putting on an old pair of shoes, familiar but not quite right. It was a lot of manual labor, a lot closer to the ground than he was used to, and it added to the toll the carriage ride over had on his back.
"She got a lot of money?" Puck asked as they hauled buckets of slop out to the pig pen.
"Who, Fynn?" Harv laughed. "Yeah, more than she knows what to do with, why?"
"Just trying to figure out what made you change your mind." Puck said. Big opened the pen, dozens of hungry hogs rushed out to be the first to the feast. "You seemed scarily dedicated to, ah what's the fancy word for it..."
"Perpetual bachelorhood." Big said.
"Yeah, that's the one." Puck leaned against the fence. "Rhodri's going to shit a brick sideways when he finds out, you know that right?" Shit, Puck was right. Emet's status was nothing to sneeze at, but lounging around someone's home as a pet was Rhodri's dream not Harv's. If he found out Fynn was Finn, it would just make everything worse.
"Yeah, I know, so don't tell him." Harv said. He picked up both buckets and stormed toward the storage shed. The sooner he was done, the easier it would be for Finn to answer all their questions.
"Don't tell 'im she's loaded?" Puck swung back onto the muddy earth. "That'll be hard, she's got gold in her stockings."
"Lame, not gold." Big said. "It's an old dress too, at least forty years old. It may be a lot of money for us, but she's not 'loaded'." He'd held his tongue when he saw Harv's bride to be in costuming fabrics. It was all artfully stitched to look expensive, but it was pretty much worthless the moment it left the shop. "Are you really marrying her for the money?"
"...I don't know what to tell you guys." Harv sighed. "Making Fynn happy is what I want to do, I can't just not do it." The eight years apart had been utterly miserable. Instead of being free from Finn's clingy demands, he was missing the company of a self-proclaimed pacifist on the battlefield. He'd missed Finn's entire music career, his mom passing. When he came back, his optimistic friend had become so bitter and defeated. Finn never said it was his fault, but Harv couldn't help but feel things would have been different if he stayed home.
Anina had taken him through the whole process of laundering while the soaps cooled. Fynn had only had a few brief chances to see Harv today, and he missed him dearly.
"Now if the blood dries before you can wash it, make sure to put it in cold water." Anina mixed salt with lemon juice and scrubbed it into the stain. "I know you have maids to help you, but accidents don't happen when it's convenient."
"Unless someone attacks, I don't see myself accidently bleeding anywhere." Fynn said.
"Never?" Anina raised a brow.
"...no?" Fynn helped her hang everything up to dry.
"Well it's still good to know." She folded the clean clothes with a somber look on her face. Fynn abandoned the chores as soon as he saw Harv come back to the house. He almost hugged him, but then saw the mud on his pants. Instead he kind of stepped back with his arms waving excitedly in the air.
"Did you cook?" Harv asked.
"I cut up half a carrot." Fynn said. "The uh, the soap making was easier." He found a clean angle to take and leaned in to whisper to Harv. "I think it's going really well! And I never want to see the inside of a chicken again."
"You had to whisper the bit about the chicken?" Harv laughed. Fynn shrugged back at him and returned to glaring at the mud on his pants.
"Are you allowed to bathe before breakfast?" Fynn asked.
"These are my work clothes." Harv said. "They go over my indoor clothes."
"Now there's an idea." Fynn hummed. "I've always thought there weren't enough days to wear everything I'd like."
"I'm glad it's going well." Harv said. "I'll go wash up so I can enjoy your half a carrot." Fynn playfully punched him in the shoulder.
"You better." Fynn said. "I tried really hard to make them thin enough so they'd soften in the broth." Harv laughed at him. "Blood, sweat and tears went into that soup. The good kind!" Fynn shouted as Harv went into the house. For all his musings on gratitude he had a nasty habit of laughing off Fynn's attempts to impress him.