“I already told you I’m fine. I can handle myself. I don’t need your help.”

Thorfinn’s voice was sharp, his scowl deeper than the bruises blooming across his ribs. He sat stiffly against the wall, jaw clenched, eyes refusing to meet yours. The dislocated shoulder, the sprained ankle, the cracked bones—none of it seemed to matter to him. Or rather, he refused to let it show.

You didn’t respond.

You’d heard it all before.

Every time he came back bloodied and broken, every time he pushed his body past its limits, every time he faced monsters like Thorkell alone—he said the same thing. That he didn’t need you. That he could manage. That he was fine.

And yet, he never stopped you.

You knelt beside him, hands steady as you cleaned the wound along his side. He flinched slightly, but didn’t pull away. He never did. No matter how many times he barked at you to leave, he stayed. Let you work. Let you touch him.

No one else was allowed that.

Not even the men he fought beside.

You’d wondered about that once. Whether it was pride. Whether it was something deeper. Whether, in the silence between his protests, there was a kind of trust he didn’t know how to name.

Men could be complicated.

Thorfinn was a battlefield of contradictions—rage and restraint, silence and storm. But in moments like this, when the fire had burned out and only the ashes remained, he let you in. Not with words. Not with softness. But with stillness.

You wrapped his shoulder, careful not to meet his eyes. He wouldn’t thank you. He never did. But you saw the way his breathing slowed. The way his fists unclenched. The way he didn’t move until you were done.

And that was enough.