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Drabbles (1-2k words):
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Summary: Left behind to rule a freezing Kattegat, you find yourself drowning in the dark winter months. But while the sun is gone, the tide remains. As you turn to Ubbe for survival, you realize that the man you looked to for an anchor has become the only thing keeping you warm.
Angst / Comfort
Warnings: Infidelity, loneliness, winter depression themes, finding comfort in the wrong brother.
Words: 2.6k
The negotiation is not a talk. With Bjorn Ironside, nothing is ever small enough to be a talk; it is a collision of worlds.
It happens three nights before the ice breaks, in a Great Hall that feels less like a home and more like the belly of a sleeping beast. The air is thick, hanging heavy with the stinging haze of woodsmoke and the smell of stale ale and wet wool. The darkness presses in against the fire pit, where the logs hiss and spit like angry spirits, casting long, twisting shadows that dance on the walls like the Norns weaving a fate you are too afraid to read.
Bjorn is pacing, he is always moving. He cannot sit still, too big for this room, his shoulders brushing the shadows, his presence filling every crack in the wood. He looks like a bear trapped in a cage of gold. He drinks from his horn, spills ale on his beard, wipes it with a hand that shakes not from fear, but from a terrible, restless energy that burns him from the inside.
Ubbe sits opposite him on the bench. He is the stillness to Bjorn’s chaos, the water to Bjorn’s fire. He is running a whetstone over his axe blade, making a sound that cuts through the tension like a knife through linen. He is ready to go West, to follow the ghost of Floki, to find the black earth and the peace he craves more than breath.
"You cannot go," Bjorn says, his voice deep and grinding, like stones rolling in a riverbed. It is a command dressed as a plea.
Ubbe does not look up from the glinting metal of his axe. "Ship is loaded, brother. People wait for the tide. I go West."
"The West can wait!" Bjorn roars, slamming his hand onto the table so hard the heavy cups jump and rattle. He leans in close, his blue eyes wide and frantic, burning with a fire that consumes everything it touches—including you. "But the Mediterranean... the sea... it sings to me, Ubbe. It screams in my blood, I have to go South, I have to map the world. I have to be the Ironside, or I am nothing but a shadow of our father."
"So go," Ubbe replies, his voice flat, weary of his brother’s thunder. "And I will go find the Golden Land."
"And who sits in the chair?" Bjorn demands, the question hanging between them like a blade. "My mother... she has put down the sword. She wants to be a farmer now, she wants to touch the dirt and listen to the wind, not the screams of dying men. She is done, she retires to her ghosts."
"Hvitserk is here," Ubbe says, shrugging a shoulder.
Bjorn makes a sound in his throat, a dark, disgusted growl, and jerks his chin toward the corner where Hvitserk is slumped against a pillar. Your eyes follow his gesture. Hvitserk is twitching, his eyes wide and seeing things that are not there—demons, gods. He is lost to the mushrooms and the madness, his mind a broken shield that can protect no one.
"Hvitserk?" Bjorn whispers, the word tasting of bile. "Look at him. If I leave him the chair, I come back to nothing. Or I come back to Ivar sitting on my chair, laughing over my bones."
Bjorn turns to you then. You are sitting by the fire, trying to mend a tear in a wool tunic, trying to make yourself small in the presence of these titans. He walks to you, the floor groaning under his weight, and looks down at you with that fierce, terrifying love that feels like a weight on your chest. He sees you, he sees the strength in your spine, but he also sees the terror in your eyes.
"She can rule," Bjorn says to Ubbe, though his eyes never leave your face. "She has the head of a Queen and the blood of the North. But she is one woman. The Earls... they are hungry. They see a woman alone, they see meat." He reaches out and grabs Ubbe’s forearm, digging his fingers in hard enough to bruise. "I need someone I can trust to stand beside her. To rule with her. "
Ubbe looks at you then. He sees the way the needle trembles in your hand. He sees the terror you are trying to hide behind the curtain of your hair. He knows you do not want to be left alone in the dark with a madman and a city of wolves. He sighs, a long, heavy sound of a dream dying, and sets his axe down on the table.
"I will stay," he says softly.
The harbor is a screaming chaos—goats bleating in terror, metal clanking against wood, men shouting oaths to Odin as they load the final barrels.
Bjorn stands on the gangplank like a titan carved from granite. The armor makes him broad, a mountain of leather and ringmail, vibrating with the electric thrill of the unknown. He is not looking at Kattegat, nor at the people cheering his name; he is looking at the horizon, already gone in his spirit. He is the sun, and he must burn.
He turns to you last.
He grabs your face. His hands are massive, warm, and calloused. They swallow you whole. His thumbs drag roughly against your cheekbones, a friction that burns in the best way. You look up at him, and your heart stutters. He is magnificent. He is everything you have ever wanted, a god of war who chose you to share his bed.
"You look at me like I am already a ghost," he laughs, the sound rumbling deep in his chest, vibrating through your own ribs.
"I look at you like a wife who knows the sea is a jealous whore," you answer, your voice small and torn away by the wind. "She takes the best men."
Bjorn grins, a blinding flash of white teeth in his beard. "The sea can have the wood of my ship. You have my soul."
He kisses you then, and it is not gentle. It is a war. He kisses you like he wants to consume you, to breathe your air until your lungs are empty and you are nothing but a vessel for his memory. His beard scratches your skin, his mouth is hot and demanding. It tastes of possession. It tastes of mine. You cling to his armor, the cold metal against your fingers, desperate to anchor him to the earth, but he is already drifting.
When he pulls away, breathless, he looks over your shoulder to where Ubbe stands by a post, leaning heavily on his axe. Ubbe is not wearing his travel cloak; he looks stripped, empty, watching the brother he loves leave for the glory he craves.
"Keep the gate, brother," Bjorn commands, his voice carrying over the surf. "Do not let the wolves in."
"Go," Ubbe nods, his face stone. "Find your glory."
You watch the sails turn red in the distance, shrinking until they are nothing but drops of blood on the grey water, and then nothing at all. You stand there until the cold bites through the soles of your boots and your fingers are numb. Ubbe steps beside you, close enough to block the wind but not touching you. He stares at the empty horizon, and you feel his loss as if it is your own.
"Come," he says, his voice rough. "The wind has teeth today."
The sun forgets to rise over Kattegat, shattering the days into darkness, leaving the world in a freezing cold. Lagertha is gone to her farm, burying herself in the silence of the earth, leaving you alone in the Great Hall with the echo of your own footsteps.
You are drowning.
It is the weight of the gold arm ring, heavy on your wrist, a shackle of leadership you never asked for. People come to you from the dawn to the wolf-hour, a never-ending line of complaints and needs. My sheep is sick. He stole my wood. The catch is empty. You must hold it all in your head. You use notched sticks to count the grain sacks, you use river stones to count the silver, but your mind is full of numbers and anger and the crushing fear of failure.
You are sitting at the high table, the thralls asleep in the straw, the fire dying down to embers that cast twisted, skeletal shadows against the walls. You are trying to remember if the Earl from the West paid his tax or if he lied to your face, but the thoughts slip through your fingers like water. You bury your face in your hands, pulling at your hair, tears of frustration pricking your eyes hot and fast.
Ubbe pours ale into a cup and slides it across the wood. "Drink," he says.
"I cannot be drunk," you snap, your voice cracking. "I have to think. I have to fix this."
"You think too much. You will break, and then who will rule?" Ubbe sits next to you. He is close and he smells of woodsmoke, old leather, and the sweat of a man who has been chopping wood to keep the cold at bay. He is not looking at you with pity. He is looking at you with hunger.
The Viking man are not soft, they do not talk of feelings; they talk with the body, they talk with the blood.
You look at Ubbe, freezing, shivering in your furs. You are so lonely that your bones ache with it, a hollow ache that nothing seems to fill. You miss Bjorn’s fire, his noise, his heat, but Bjorn is gone. Ubbe is here, warm and alive. And in his eyes, you see the same loneliness reflected back at you.
"Make it quiet," you whisper, the words barely forming. You don't know who speaks them—maybe it was the wind, maybe it was the madness of the winter.
Ubbe doesn't ask, but he reaches for you. It is a collision. He pulls you into his lap, his hands rough and urgent under your furs, seeking the heat of your skin like a dying man seeking a hearth. You gasp, biting his shoulder to stifle the scream building in your throat. It is desperate. It is two animals trying to survive the freeze, trying to prove they are still flesh and blood.
You kiss him like you are starving. You need the friction, the pain, the bite of his teeth. You need to feel the blood pumping to know you are not just a ruler, not just a symbol, but a woman. He pushes you back against the table, scattering the counting stones across the floor, and there is no gentleness, only the frantic, hard rhythm of need. You take him inside you because you need to be filled, you need to be anchored to the earth so the winter wind doesn't blow you away into the dark.
The feelings sneak in during the quiet, dark hours when the sweat dries on the skin and the fire has turned to ash.
You expected to feel shame, to feel the weight of betrayal crushing you. But when you look at Ubbe, lying next to you in the pile of furs, his hair messy and his blue eyes watching the ceiling beams, you feel only a strange, terrifying peace.
This is how the love grows. Night after night, you seek him. First for the pleasure, to forget the ruling, to forget the cold. But then, for the words. Ubbe traces the line of your spine with a calloused finger, a touch so gentle it makes you shiver more than the wind. He holds you differently than Bjorn. Bjorn holds you like a prize; Ubbe holds you like a secret.
"Tell me about the Golden Land," you whisper against his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heart.
"It is green," he says softly, his voice deep and vibrating against your ear. "The soil is black and rich, so soft you can dig it with your hands. No rocks. No ice. I could build a house there, a big one, with a roof that does not leak and a hearth that never goes cold."
"And no Earls complaining?"
He chuckles, a warm, rumbling sound. "No Earls. Just us. And the gods."
He becomes your sanity. When you sit on the throne and the anger rises in your throat, choking you, you look at Ubbe standing by the pillar. He gives you a small look, a tiny nod, a tightening of his jaw.
Bjorn is the sun that burns the world. He is the passion that consumes. But Ubbe is the earth. He is the steady ground under your feet when the world is spinning. And you realize, with a cold terror in your heart, that you cannot survive the fire without the earth to stand on. You love them both, and the love is stretching your soul until it is thin.
Spring breaks the ice with a sound like a cracking bone. The horn shakes the roof beams and vibrates in your teeth. You are in the armory with Ubbe, counting the rusted shields when you both freeze and the air leaves the room.
"Bjorn," Ubbe breathes, and his face goes pale, the blood draining away.
Your heart slams against your ribs like a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage. Bjorn. The husband. The King. He is alive. A rush of joy hits you, dizzying and bright—you missed his noise, his strength, his beautiful chaos. You missed the way he makes you feel invincible.
"He is back!" you drop the shield and run.
You run out of the Hall, your dress dragging in the mud, your hair flying wild. The village is screaming with joy. You see the red stripes of the sails in the harbor, cutting through the mist like wounds.
You run faster, breathless, needing to see him. To touch him. To know he is real.
But as you reach the wooden planks of the docks, the crowd pushing and surging around you, a sudden, icy terror grabs your throat. A cold hand squeezing your heart.
You are running to your husband, but you are leaving the man who kept you alive in the dark.
It is an instinct, a reflex of the soul, faster than thought. You reach your hand back behind you. Ubbe catches your hand, his fingers lock with yours—tight, hard, desperate.
You do not stop running and he does not let go. You pull him with you to the water’s edge, your hands fused together.
There is Bjorn, standing on the prow of the ship, golden and huge, covered in the dust of the south and the blood of his enemies, looking like a god of war returned to earth. He sees you, roars your name and opens his arms wide to claim what is his.
You smile, you are happy he is home, but your fingernails are digging into Ubbe’s palm, holding on for dear life, and you know... you know in the deepest, darkest part of your blood that you can never let him go again.
I'll wait fluff -(F!Reader) your first meeting with Ubbe went well, even if you Arnt sure if you're ready for marriage yet.
Needy 18+ -(F!Reader) Ubbe knows exactly what you need, and he's ready to give you exactly that.
More 18+ 18+ SMUT - (F!Reader) you are the youngest of 2 sisters and 2 brothers and are betrothed to Ubbe, but he seems to have little doubts about what's best for you. you show him just how much those worries don't matter and how much you need him.
