As if it wasn't bad enough that he'd been taken from his home and everyone he knew and shipped across the ocean, he'd been sold off as a slave to none other than his soul mate. He'd assumed the King of Kattegat would set him free, but instead, he'd kept him enslaved.
If Ivar, The Boneless wanted to play it that way, Billy could play difficult too. He never did anything too damaging, never enough to get him punished or to deem him a bad slave but enough that it would annoy the King. Small things like placing green wood on the fire. And he'd be lying if he said he hadn't deliberately spilled Ivar's drinks every now and again.
His brother, Hvitserk, had tried to talk to him about it on more than one occasion but Billy brushed him off every time with the simple statement that he couldn't be both Ivar's soul mate and his slave and if the king wanted the former, he'd have to free him from the latter.
Really, it served as no surprise that he'd been summoned that evening after yet another small, spiteful "accident" and he stares at Ivar from the doorway.
Ivar had always known he'd find his soulmate someday. His mother had always assured him of that, and with her second sight, he knew she'd be proven right one day. He just never expected to find them among them among the slave population of Kattegat. But that's how it had gone.
One day he'd been seeing in black-and-white as always, and the next, when he met the eyes of one of the new slaves, Bam! Color. He'd been tempted, so very tempted, to free Billy right then and there. But he was also afraid. From what he could see, Billy didn't love him. Heck, he didn't even seem to like him very much. So if he took the chance and freed him, there would be every possibility that he'd be gone within the hour, going as far from Kattegat as he could get.
No, it was better to keep him close by his side, even if that was killing him day after day. Still, if Billy wanted to be with him, he had yet to show it. It had been weeks now and all Ivar could see was someone who was just a sullen slave. He summoned him after the latest insubordination, a incident where he'd wasted the precious commodity of salt by using it to over-season the stew being served that night.
Ivar sat there in his personal chambers, looking less then pleased. "Tell me, are you doing your best to vex me day by day?"
The honest answer would be yes, but with Ivar’s temper and Billy’s stubbornness the honest answer wasn’t what Billy was going with. Instead, he stared at Ivar with an expression of boredom, hands clasped behind his back in an attempt to look like he wasn’t deliberately being an asshole.
“I have no idea you’re talking about.”
It stung. Even standing here in front of him, meeting those too-blue eyes with his own, Billy’s heart hurts. Once again, his soulmate was sitting before him acting like they weren’t supposed to be together and a piece of Billy felt like it was dying, being so close and unable to do anything about it.
“Please, enlighten me as to what I’ve done to upset you, King Ivar.”
Ivar could read most everyone around him very well, but Billy was a different story. It was difficult to read what moods his soulmate tended to have. This frustrated Ivar greatly. He supposed it might have been precisely because they were so close emotionally that he couldn't do it.
"Don't play stupid with me!" He snaps out, his temper suddenly full on display. "You do everything you can day by day to slowly drive me closer to the edge." Then he sighs, fuming, but some of the fight going out of him. "One of these days I suspect you'll just shove me right over a cliff."
It already felt that way sometimes. He thought falling off a cliff actually might hurt less then knowing his soulmate didn't care about him. He'd waited for so long, and now that Billy was actually here, it was more agony then it had ever been when they were apart.
Billy frowns, some of the tension relaxing out of his shoulders despite the flare of Ivar's temper. The idea of pushing Ivar over a cliff makes his stomach twist violently at the very thought of it. He might want to annoy the king but he didn't want to kill him.
"I don't want to kill you, my lord." Regardless of how demeaning it was that his soul mate was keeping him as a slave. "I just like to remind you I'm here."
"As if I'm ever likely to forget with how damnably difficult you are." He rubs at one of his arm rings, the tarnished one that had belonged to Ragnar. He'd tried to comfort his son with the thought that things would all just fall into place once he found his soulmate. What a crock of shit. If anything, it'd just caused more problems once he found Billy.
"Why can't you just do as you're told?" He asks, his voice and the expression in his eyes both softer now.
Billy sneers at the comment. There’s no denying he’s been difficult, but he’s also only been so for Ivar, a fact he knows won’t have gone unnoticed to everyone else in Kattegat who has had a chance to bear witness to an exchange between them.
“I’ve never once defied you. It’s hardly my fault your soul mate is a clumsy slave.” There’s venom behind the word and his face scrunches with disdain as he says it, blue eyes hardening in defiance.
"You've done everything but listen to what I have to say." He pointedly refuses to acknowledge the word Billy emphasizes, reminding them both that he's still a slave under Ivar. The old fear is still present within him. If he frees Billy, then he risks the chance of losing him forever. Better to keep him here as a slave, even if it made them both miserable.
He flops down on his bed, turned on his side. There's a note of misery when he speaks to Billy again. "Get out. You clearly don't care a whit about me just like everyone else in my life." Ivar's afraid of love. Love hurts because everyone he's ever cared about abandons him one way or another.
“You’re an idiot, are you aware of that?” The words leave Billy’s mouth without his express permission and he at least has the common sense to flinch at the stupidity of it. But he’s started so;
“You sit here in your pity party, your ‘poor me, no one loves me’ shit when I’ve made it so clear where I stand even your gods are shaking their head at you.” He knew Hvitserk told Ivar what he said, knew the King’s brother was trying to make peace between them, even if it was just to try and settle Ivar’s rage. “I am here. But I will not be more to you until I am more than just your slave.”
A knife goes flying past Billy just close enough to nick him on the top of the ear. Ivar's pissed off good and proper now, blue eyes blazing heat as they glare at Billy. The next words are growled out with both anger and deep pain in his voice.
"If I were to give you your freedom, you'd leave me. Just like my mother, my father, and anyone else I've dared to love during my life. So no, I will keep you here just as you are." Better to be hurting and miserable with his soulmate here then to have a hole in his heart when he left.
Billy flinches when the knife hits his ear, raising his hand and bringing it away to find blood on his fingertips. It could have been worse; if Ivar had meant to kill him, he'd be dead.
He hears that pain and his own comes forward at the words, with the realisation that he's going to be stuck a slave for the rest of his life.
"You assume! You assume!" His eyes gloss with tears and his jaw clicks, hand dropping back to his side as the blood drips from his ear onto his shoulder slowly. "Then you will never have me. Not even if you order me. I would rather die."
Ivar continues to watch his soulmate from his position where he's lying down. His voice has gone hoarse with pain now. "I assume because you've done nothing to show you love me at all!" Billy's defiance was continuously being misinterpreted by Ivar as signs that Billy didn't care for him. He thought nearly the opposite, that Billy must hate him by now.
"Then you shall remain here as you are and we shall both remain miserable," Ivar says with an air of finality. He's the king and can do almost anything that he wants. Anything except make the man in front of him love him.
"I've done nothing to show you? " The words that leave Ivar's mouth are only the second worst insult he's ever delivered to Billy; the first being that he bought him at all. He turns to leave, unable to even look at his soul mate any more.
But before he can, he changes his mind and turns around with a feral growl and stares the king down.
"You bought me! Like I was wares to be traded at the market! I've done nothing to show you I love you? And what do you think you've done to show me the same? You own me the same way you own your horse! I may as well be nothing more than a fucking pet!"
Ivar wants to come up with a good cutting remark, but he can't think of anything, for Billy is right. He owned him like he would've a cow or dog. While it may not have bothered Ivar all that much, it clearly mattered to his soulmate. Well, he wanted to be free, then Ivar would do it, for all that it killed him on the inside.
He blinks a few times, hard, like he might be trying to hold back tears. His voice is hoarse and gruff when he speaks next. "Then I free you. You can leave and go wherever you want now. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out." That's truly what he thought of Billy, that he would be gone the moment he was freed. He turned away, lying down on the bed and feeling miserable.
Billy expects some scathing remark, maybe even a promise of death if he dares to speak to the king of Kattegat like that again but instead...
Well, Ivar always had been full of surprises.
Billy stares, mouth actually falling open with the level of shock he feels.
“Wait. What?” The king has turned away from him and Billy? Billy feels completely dumbfounded. He hadn’t expected Ivar to relent so easily and now that he has his freedom, he almost doesn’t know what to do with it.
Except that he does.
The door closes again and Billy moves slowly towards the bed, coming up so that Ivar will be able see him. “Ivar... I... I don’t understand.”
He expects Billy to be gone within a few seconds after he's been freed. After all, he's got no reason to stay if he doesn't care about or love Ivar. He lies there, expecting to hear the sound of his footsteps retreating. But they don't. Instead...they come near?
His eyes are shut and he opens them back up to see Billy coming up towards him. "Are you thick in the head? It's a good thing you're pretty, for you'll never be good for much else" He growls, ready to strike out like a viper with words to keep his heart from breaking. "I said I freed you. It's what you wanted, so I have given you the freedom you desired. Now you can leave and go where you wish."
Billy stares at Ivar for a long moment, as if the king has grown three more heads or turned green or something else just as wild. He’s even able to ignore the dig at his intelligence because he’s so at a loss by what’s just happened.
“Ivar... I never wanted to leave. I just...” Frowning, Billy squats down beside the bed so he can actually meet the king’s eye. “I wanted to be... more on equal footing than I was as your slave.” He couldn’t be his equal, while he was a king and Billy wasn’t, but at least as a free man he was a little bit closer. “You’re an idiot for thinking I ever wanted to leave.”
Ivar props himself back up on his elbows, looking at Billy in amazement. He seems to be uncomprehending for a moment as if Billy is speaking in the tongue of the Rus or Egyptians. He was completely unprepared for this outcome. Never once had he thought his soulmate would be willing to stay.
"You...you wish to stay with me? Truly?" His voice sounds small and vulnerable, his heart still ready to break into a thousand pieces at the slightest provocation.
“For a smart man, you’re an idiot, Ivar Ragnarsson.” Braving a reaction, Billy reaches out and slides his hand onto Ivar’s cheek, cupping his jaw gently. “You’re my soul mate. I’ve waited for you my whole life. Why would I ever want to leave?”
"I-- I thought that you didn't care about me at all. That you didn't like me and wished to leave me because of that." Ivar was usually very good at reading people, but occasionally he had blind spots, especially when it came to people that he loved. He just hadn't been able to see past Billy's actions to realize what the man truly wanted from him.
He leans forward and kisses him gently on the lips. "I'm sorry that I was so blind."
“I didn’t like being your slave. I was raised to think your soul mate was supposed to be the one person who would love and care for you unconditionally and then I met you and you were keeping me as a pet. I didn’t like that.
“I loved you from the moment I met you.” He smiles at Ivar’s apology and pushes his hand over the short, shaved sides of his head. “I guess I can forgive you. It’s a good thing you’re so handsome.” He steals another kiss.
“Well, I won’t deny having you as a pet is a bit attractive...but we’ll save that for the bedroom,” Ivar says with a smirk. What can he say? The idea of power play turns him on quite a bit. He runs his fingers through Billy’s hair, allowing them to end up tangled in it.
“Yes. Yes, I suppose it is,” he says with a laugh as he’s kissed again. He can be just as infuriating as Ragnar was with all those who had always loved and hated him right at the exact same time. “But I’ve always loved you. And will continue to do so for as long as you’ll have me.”
"We can play at it all you like." Why didn't it surprise him that Ivar had a kink for it? One they would be free to explore now that Billy was free to actually be with him.
Ivar is a shit -not that this is new information to Billy- but he's a handsome shit and he's Billy's so he supposed he'd have to deal with it. "Then I guess we're doing this? Gonna be actual soul mates.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
for ivar - [ragnarsson]
As if it wasn't bad enough that he'd been taken from his home and everyone he knew and shipped across the ocean, he'd been sold off as a slave to none other than his soul mate. He'd assumed the King of Kattegat would set him free, but instead, he'd kept him enslaved.
If Ivar, The Boneless wanted to play it that way, Billy could play difficult too. He never did anything too damaging, never enough to get him punished or to deem him a bad slave but enough that it would annoy the King. Small things like placing green wood on the fire. And he'd be lying if he said he hadn't deliberately spilled Ivar's drinks every now and again.
His brother, Hvitserk, had tried to talk to him about it on more than one occasion but Billy brushed him off every time with the simple statement that he couldn't be both Ivar's soul mate and his slave and if the king wanted the former, he'd have to free him from the latter.
Really, it served as no surprise that he'd been summoned that evening after yet another small, spiteful "accident" and he stares at Ivar from the doorway.
"Yes, sire?"
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One day he'd been seeing in black-and-white as always, and the next, when he met the eyes of one of the new slaves, Bam! Color. He'd been tempted, so very tempted, to free Billy right then and there. But he was also afraid. From what he could see, Billy didn't love him. Heck, he didn't even seem to like him very much. So if he took the chance and freed him, there would be every possibility that he'd be gone within the hour, going as far from Kattegat as he could get.
No, it was better to keep him close by his side, even if that was killing him day after day. Still, if Billy wanted to be with him, he had yet to show it. It had been weeks now and all Ivar could see was someone who was just a sullen slave. He summoned him after the latest insubordination, a incident where he'd wasted the precious commodity of salt by using it to over-season the stew being served that night.
Ivar sat there in his personal chambers, looking less then pleased. "Tell me, are you doing your best to vex me day by day?"
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“I have no idea you’re talking about.”
It stung. Even standing here in front of him, meeting those too-blue eyes with his own, Billy’s heart hurts. Once again, his soulmate was sitting before him acting like they weren’t supposed to be together and a piece of Billy felt like it was dying, being so close and unable to do anything about it.
“Please, enlighten me as to what I’ve done to upset you, King Ivar.”
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"Don't play stupid with me!" He snaps out, his temper suddenly full on display. "You do everything you can day by day to slowly drive me closer to the edge." Then he sighs, fuming, but some of the fight going out of him. "One of these days I suspect you'll just shove me right over a cliff."
It already felt that way sometimes. He thought falling off a cliff actually might hurt less then knowing his soulmate didn't care about him. He'd waited for so long, and now that Billy was actually here, it was more agony then it had ever been when they were apart.
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"I don't want to kill you, my lord." Regardless of how demeaning it was that his soul mate was keeping him as a slave. "I just like to remind you I'm here."
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"Why can't you just do as you're told?" He asks, his voice and the expression in his eyes both softer now.
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“I’ve never once defied you. It’s hardly my fault your soul mate is a clumsy slave.” There’s venom behind the word and his face scrunches with disdain as he says it, blue eyes hardening in defiance.
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He flops down on his bed, turned on his side. There's a note of misery when he speaks to Billy again. "Get out. You clearly don't care a whit about me just like everyone else in my life." Ivar's afraid of love. Love hurts because everyone he's ever cared about abandons him one way or another.
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“You sit here in your pity party, your ‘poor me, no one loves me’ shit when I’ve made it so clear where I stand even your gods are shaking their head at you.” He knew Hvitserk told Ivar what he said, knew the King’s brother was trying to make peace between them, even if it was just to try and settle Ivar’s rage. “I am here. But I will not be more to you until I am more than just your slave.”
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"If I were to give you your freedom, you'd leave me. Just like my mother, my father, and anyone else I've dared to love during my life. So no, I will keep you here just as you are." Better to be hurting and miserable with his soulmate here then to have a hole in his heart when he left.
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He hears that pain and his own comes forward at the words, with the realisation that he's going to be stuck a slave for the rest of his life.
"You assume! You assume!" His eyes gloss with tears and his jaw clicks, hand dropping back to his side as the blood drips from his ear onto his shoulder slowly. "Then you will never have me. Not even if you order me. I would rather die."
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"Then you shall remain here as you are and we shall both remain miserable," Ivar says with an air of finality. He's the king and can do almost anything that he wants. Anything except make the man in front of him love him.
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But before he can, he changes his mind and turns around with a feral growl and stares the king down.
"You bought me! Like I was wares to be traded at the market! I've done nothing to show you I love you? And what do you think you've done to show me the same? You own me the same way you own your horse! I may as well be nothing more than a fucking pet!"
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He blinks a few times, hard, like he might be trying to hold back tears. His voice is hoarse and gruff when he speaks next. "Then I free you. You can leave and go wherever you want now. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out." That's truly what he thought of Billy, that he would be gone the moment he was freed. He turned away, lying down on the bed and feeling miserable.
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Well, Ivar always had been full of surprises.
Billy stares, mouth actually falling open with the level of shock he feels.
“Wait. What?” The king has turned away from him and Billy? Billy feels completely dumbfounded. He hadn’t expected Ivar to relent so easily and now that he has his freedom, he almost doesn’t know what to do with it.
Except that he does.
The door closes again and Billy moves slowly towards the bed, coming up so that Ivar will be able see him. “Ivar... I... I don’t understand.”
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His eyes are shut and he opens them back up to see Billy coming up towards him. "Are you thick in the head? It's a good thing you're pretty, for you'll never be good for much else" He growls, ready to strike out like a viper with words to keep his heart from breaking. "I said I freed you. It's what you wanted, so I have given you the freedom you desired. Now you can leave and go where you wish."
He tries his best to mask the hurt in his voice.
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“Ivar... I never wanted to leave. I just...” Frowning, Billy squats down beside the bed so he can actually meet the king’s eye. “I wanted to be... more on equal footing than I was as your slave.” He couldn’t be his equal, while he was a king and Billy wasn’t, but at least as a free man he was a little bit closer. “You’re an idiot for thinking I ever wanted to leave.”
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"You...you wish to stay with me? Truly?" His voice sounds small and vulnerable, his heart still ready to break into a thousand pieces at the slightest provocation.
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He leans forward and kisses him gently on the lips. "I'm sorry that I was so blind."
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“I loved you from the moment I met you.” He smiles at Ivar’s apology and pushes his hand over the short, shaved sides of his head. “I guess I can forgive you. It’s a good thing you’re so handsome.” He steals another kiss.
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“Yes. Yes, I suppose it is,” he says with a laugh as he’s kissed again. He can be just as infuriating as Ragnar was with all those who had always loved and hated him right at the exact same time. “But I’ve always loved you. And will continue to do so for as long as you’ll have me.”
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Ivar is a shit -not that this is new information to Billy- but he's a handsome shit and he's Billy's so he supposed he'd have to deal with it. "Then I guess we're doing this? Gonna be actual soul mates.
"Shits gonna happen tomorrow when they find out."