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Sigurd rolls his eyes, whether Ivar notices it or not. "you'll have only yourself to blame if I do."

The rest of Ivar's brothers seemed to have silently agreed not to bring up precisely why Ivar had tried to kill Sigurd. The important part was that he hadn't succeeded and so they seemed to have chalked it up to just another instance of their youngest brother's moods of anger-fueled insanity.

After Ivar had delivered the message that Sigurd was awake, he immediately returned back to Sigurd's side. The rest all came in during various points during the day, checking in to make sure that he actually was going to live through this, and making sure it wasn't just one last burst of energy before death took him. Ivar remained unusually silent during all this, carrying on his self-proclaimed duty as Sigurd's watchdog now.

Sigurd was sure that once the others had come through that Ivar would leave him alone. He still slept a lot, not really having much of an appetite and still in too much pain when he moved to even sit up much at all, though he'd tried when others came. Ubbe had promptly told him to stop being stupid, though.

But now it was just Ivar again and Sigurd sighed heavily. "Are you just going to stay here, really, Ivar? Don't you have anything better to do since no one else can possibly know anything but you right?"

He's bored and in pain, what else is he going to do but prod the bear.

Ivar was busy using one of his knives to scrape gunk out from under his fingernails. He removes some from under his thumbnail and then flicks what came out expertly towards Sigurd. "I don't know better than everyone. Just you."

He hadn't answered the first question because it really was very obvious that he wasn't going anywhere. He was staying with Sigurd for the foreseeable future and possibly even well beyond that. He'd made a promise to the gods to be a better brother if they let Sigurd live and he was going to live up to that.

Sigurd makes a face at Ivar’s action but there really isn’t much that he can do about that. He sighs in annoyance. It’s not as if he can walk off and get away from Ivar the way that he usually could. He is currently the one more crippled.

“now you’re just lying. You argue with Ubbe all the time when he is often the one more right than you are.”

Ivar snorts at the comparison, moving to clean out his thumbnail. He kept careful care of his hands. Without their use, he'd be helpless. "Ubbe only thinks he's right. He likes to think everyone is as good and noble as he is." He says this with a bit of contempt.

"I don't think he'll ever learn otherwise." Much as he and Sigurd butted heads, one of the things they had in common was that they saw life and people as they were, without any illusions in place.

"So, you're contradicting yourself now," Sigurd points out rolling his eyes. He let out a heavy breath.

"He could and has been right about many things just as much as you've been wrong about things only you're too stubborn to see when you've been wrong."

Ivar glares at his brother, hand straying close to where he keeps his knives. "You are really trying hard again to get stabbed, aren't you?" Whether Sigurd chooses to see as such or not, Ivar is trying to behave here.

Sigurd doesn’t miss the others movement but this point he refuses to cower either. After all all Ivar could do at this point was put him out of his misery.

“You know I’m right.”

Sigurd says instead of a direct answer.

Ivar looks furious for a moment before he childishly turns away and refuses to look at Sigurd anymore. What little patience he possesses is sorely being put to the test.

"Why do you always have to be like this?" Not that Ivar doesn't give it back as good as he gets, but neither one of them ever seem willing to give in even an inch.

Poor Ivar! Sigurd snorts at Ivar’s question, rolling his eyes. “I could ask you the same question. The answer is probably our wonderful mother and father,” the sarcasm drips off the word wonderful but the answer is what he thinks is probably true anyway.

They both like to blame everyone but themselves for who they are.

"As if you ever acted like you even wanted to be a member of this family," Ivar snaps out. He's well aware of the faults his parents both possessed, but he chooses to ignore them. Even Ragnar's abandonment had been swept under the rug the moment that he'd come back and shown the smallest scrap of affection to his youngest son. It was one of Ivar's traits, that any bit of kindness shown to him made him forget the recipient's worst traits in an instant.

"Maybe they should have considered leaving you in the woods instead of me."

“None if you ever wanted me around!” Sigurd said and his voice raised and by the end of the sentence it was strained and ended in coughing. He dropped back down with a grimace.

“Leave, Ivar. You’re making me wish I was already dead.”

"You never even put forth an effort like that's what you wanted. Ever since we were children, you just pushed everyone away, and then liked to complain about poor Sigurd, so unloved and ignored." His voice is full of contempt and anger. If only Sigurd had met him halfway at any point, they wouldn't be in the situation they are right now.

Ivar snorts at Sigurd's words. "Stop being dramatic."

“You don’t know as much as you think you do!” Sigurd really wishes he had something to throw at Ivar, namely an axe or something otherwise painful.

“Ubbe and Hvitserk has no interest in spending time with me and you were too busy sucking mother’s tit not that she’d let you actually play with anyone anyway,” he really shouldn’t bring that up again, right? Oh well.

“I only had siggy and no one even cared that she died except me. Björn barely gave her a thought. You all were terrible.”

Ivar grabs the pitcher of water he'd filled Sigurd's cup with and throws it at him. Really, anytime Sigurd brought up the breastfeeding, it was inevitable he reacted in such a way. Hey, at least this time he'll just get damp instead of having a hole in his chest.

"You blame me as if I had any say in the matter. It's not like I asked for all of Mother's attention. In case you forgot, I was a child too!" Ivar says irritably. It galls him to admit that Sigurd is partially right. He'd been the forgotten middle child in the midst of the attention the other three got.

Sigurd just rolls his eyes and his fist clenched at his side but there was nothing that he could do.

“You are no longer a child and you cannot accept that you could be wrong about anything!”

How long before Ubbe shows up to tell them to stop fighting honestly?

Ivar's still fizzling with anger, but the worst part is that he knows Sigurd is right on some level. He's never been good at admitting that he had made a bad choice or the decision he shouldn't have.

He looks down at the floor so that he doesn't have to meet his brother's eyes. "I was wrong." The words are said so softly that Sigurd will be hard-pressed to hear them. "I was wrong to almost kill you."

“Yeah,” Sigurd mutters. “Now if you could do so without trying to kill people first because of your mistakes.”

Did anyone expect Sigurd to make things easy?

“Can you just leave me alone? I can’t rest with you around.”

"Hmph." Ivar makes a huffy sound. He'll never fully learn. He's too bloodthirsty for that. At least he won't ever get to this level with Sigurd again.

He shakes his head. "I am staying right here," he says, tapping the ground twice with his finger. Sorry, Sigurd. You have a faithful guard dog now.

Sigurd rolls his eyes. “I can’t relax with you here. Don’t you have peasants to kill?”

He really doesn’t know how to deal with attention once he has it apparently.

"You whine too much. I am going nowhere, so unless you'd like me to tell you a bedtime story to fall asleep to, get used to having me around." Ivar's stubbornness had reared its head again and he wasn't going to leave no matter what. Maybe once Sigurd was feeling better he could bodily throw him out, but until then, he was sleeping in here.

“Like you could come up with a decent bedtime story,” Sigurd mutters. “Maybe I should get Ubbe to carry you out of here.”

Because unfortunately he is a long way from even beginning to be able to move Ivar or run off away from him as he often had after taunting him before. Just wait until he’s strong enough to get on his feet again!

"Like he ever would. Ubbe likes me better than he does you." Mean? Yes. But also probably true. Ubbe had been watching out for Ivar his entire life, making sure his youngest brother could keep up with the rest of them. Sigurd hadn't just been forgotten by their mother.

Sigurd's jaw tightens. "Yes, everyone likes you better, Ivar," Sigurd mutters and looks away from Ivar. He didn't need a reminder of the fact but Ubbe tended to be fair where Aslaug certainly hadn't been.

"He'd take you away for your own good."

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