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Athelstan doesn't understand how the vikings can be so tactile. They touch all the time, even when it's not sexual, and it doesn't make any sense. Why touch at all? Why everywhere and at all times? Why expose your body to someone else, why leave yourself vulnerable?
Already, within weeks of being here, Athelstan's been touched more than he has since he left his mother to join the novitiate at Lindisfarne. He had tried to flinch away the first few times, but Ragnar had looked at him and something in those eyes, some care or affection, had made him stop. He had instead submitted to his touch, to the rough embrace that made him feel overtaken, small, but warm and safe. He wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands, though, until Ragnar laughed and released him for a second to allow him to get his arms around the warrior.
"Let's go home, alright?" Ragnar had said, and then pulled on the rope around his neck, in contrast to the fact that they’d just hugged in the middle of broad daylight for no reason whatsoever. Like… lovers. But it doesn’t change the fact that Athelstan is still Ragnar’s slave, and he expects to be treated as such. As a slave. As though his upbringing as a freeman meant nothing at all.
And then the embraces don't stop. He doesn't understand why Ragnar, and sometimes even Lagertha, touch him like this. He's been asked to their bed a few times already, but he thinks he has a fair idea on what sex means to these people, and it's not an expression of mutual possession, or intimacy, like it is among the Christians. It's more... just an activity, something that brings pleasure and happiness and occasionally children, but it's not what he had been taught it was, apparently. Athelstan hasn't even touched himself, much less touched a woman or another man. So he’d said no, and while they’d laughed, they hadn’t bothered him about it. Much.
It's only when he catches an illness that's been going around the Vikings, a common sickness that's not life-threatening, but does sap his energy and leave his throat scratchy, that he thinks he understands why Ragnar and Lagertha keep touching him.
He sleeps longer than he's supposed to because of the illness, one morning, and he wakes up to Lagertha bent down to put a hand on his forehead.
"What-" he says, accidentally in English, and she shushes him.
"You need to keep sleeping," she says, and kisses his forehead. "Sleep, go on, I'll bring you some soup later."
He blinks at the kiss, and groans at the feeling in his throat, turning over. Just the movement makes him tired, so he closes his eyes and pulls the blankets closer to him. He can’t deny that he feels that cold yet hot sensation of fever, one that he hasn’t felt since childhood, and the blankets seem to call to him. He doesn’t want to move for the world.
The next time he wakes up, Ragnar is pulling those same blankets away from him.
"What're you doing-" he says, again accidentally in English, but Ragnar just laughs at him and lies down behind Athelstan. He then pulls him into his arms so that they're spooned up from head to toe, and Athelstan can forget about how terrible he feels for a second, because Ragnar is warm and muscly and isn't letting him move no matter how much he squirms.
"If you sleep, you'll feel better sooner," he says, and nuzzles against Athelstan's shoulder.
"But why are you-" Athelstan says, and realizes that he doesn't have a word for what they're doing. It's not a hug, per se, because generally those don't last that long, and Ragnar seems rather inclined to stay in this position for a long time. He can already feel himself drifting off, warm oblivion taking him. "holding me," he says finally, trying his best to fight the rest that begs to overtake him.
"Because sometimes I like knowing you're here," Ragnar murmurs in his ear. "And you'd never sleep as long as you needed to if I didn't hold you. Your rest is always so troubled."
It is true that Athelstan doesn’t often find rest easily. It’s more likely that he stays awake long into the night, whispering his prayers and texts to himself. And it’s true that often Athelstan finds himself a recipient of troubled dreams, of what happened at Lindisfarne and some of the more traumatic memories from when he traveled the world, trying to spread Christianity and help people, as many as he could. But now... Athelstan can't find the energy to reply. He's warm and safe here, in a way he hasn't been since Ragnar raided Lindisfarne.
"He's so innocent," he hears Lagertha say sometime later, her voice cutting through his sleep. "Like a little lamb, so unable to harm anyone."
"Careful, he'll start babbling about sheep and shepherds and his God if he hears," Ragnar replies, and he feels someone stroking his hair. It's a nice feeling, but he can't find enough energy to even push towards it, so he just lets it happen, soaks in the warmth Ragnar is projecting and the tactile sensations.
"No, he's sound asleep." She says, unexpected tenderness in her voice. The stroking stops. "Move over."
Ragnar pulls him closer, and scoots towards the wall. Lagertha lies down on his other side so that he's surrounded everywhere by warmth, arms and legs tangled together in some kind of Viking dogpile.
He can't help but think that maybe these people are just protective. He doesn't understand why they would be to him, though. He's just a lowly monk turned slave turned assistant and general housekeeper. He'd resisted everything that these people had given him at first, and yet they still protect him, still.... love him, if that's the right word.
He opens his eyes and almost wants to leave, go somewhere else to be overwhelmed, but he's caged in on both sides.
"Sleep, priest," Lagertha says, stroking his hair once again. "You're thinking too hard."
So he sleeps, warm and safe and the people he trusts most all here, accounted for.